P's intentions? WAS Re: Walk this way

[Terrance]

Kelly, 

I like what you wrote, very nice, but I can't quite get this idea of the
world-as-text. 
Can't remember where this idea comes from. Roland Barthes uses this idea
in the text Otto cited and I think it's a pretty common idea floating
around college campuses these days. Why I bet there are course called,
"the world as text" and the postmodern reading of the text as world" or
some such. But I can't get it. The world? Why read the world as a text?
Geee, I like texts, probably too much, but if the world is a text I must
be Alice in Wonderland. The world is pre-textual and post-textual, even
in these postmodern times. 


The original words of something written or printed, as opposed to a
paraphrase, translation, revision, or condensation. b. The words of a
speech appearing in print. 2. The body of a printed work as distinct
from headings and illustrative matter on a page or from front and back
matter in a book. 3. One of the editions or forms of a written work:
After examining all three manuscripts, he published a new text of the
poem. 4. A passage from the Scriptures or another authoritative source
chosen for the subject of a discourse or cited for support in argument.
5. A passage from a written work used as the starting point of a
discussion. 6. A subject; a topic. 7. A textbook. [Middle English texte,
from Old French, from Late Latin, written account, from Latin,
structure, context, body of a passage, from past participle of texere,
to weave, fabricate.