META: Starring the Star

the META code is a Gödelian self-reference, a signifier which attempts to contain its text.

It has no center, but a roving focus. (It "reads" itself.) 

Each of the five roving branches of the METABLOG links to each of the other four; each of the branches also comments primarily on itself. The (META) section, for instance, mentions itself first and foremost; as it is a metacommentary on a metabranch of the blog, it then indulges in self-analysis entirely and temporarily leaves its other target of analysis aside. The section also addresses the concept of metacommentary; that is, the (META) code located throughout hypertext.

The central focus of the (META) page is on the structure and meaning of the METABLOG; this comes dangerously close to the intent (AUTHOR), but steers clear at the last moment. In this sense, since it addresses the blog (WORK) but not its creator, the (META) page -- and perhaps the entire METABLOG -- seems to support the predominance of the (WORK) code in hypertext and literary theory as a whole; that is, the paradigm of "Death of the Author" and the independence of the text (only thus freed can it be writerly). In contrast, the (AUTHOR) code points fingers, attempts to root Patchwork Girl, Stitch Bitch, and METABLOG alike in some corner of reality.

Two images appear on the (META) page, with little explanation. The first is perhaps a visual pun on Barthes' many five-pointed stars*, and on his five codes. The second, however, suggests a different interpretation. The juxtaposition of the highest level of Patchwork Girl with the highest (and only) level of METABLOG seems to imply thematic inspiration; and yet the basic concept of a five-part hypertext must surely derive either from Barthes or Jackson; there must be a (SINGLE) point of origin.


Of course, the (SINGLE) code -- denoting a linear, causal march of narration, or a single unifying vision -- is opposed by the (PLURAL) code, connoting a variety of closely-linked meanings (the multiple entrances or paths through Jackson's hypertext; the plurality of texts which is Barthes' "I", his writerly reader). This opposition then parallels the (AUTHOR) and (WORK): a readerly text is singular and authored; a writerly text stands alone but not lonely, a plural work. These four codes, together with the (META) self-awareness tying them together, constitute the METABLOG's analysis of the tensions and contradictions at play (quite playfully) in Stitch Bitch, and of course in itself.






*of course, the star is found even in particularly readerly texts, signifying a dislocation or (PLURAL) structure in the form of a footnote. A star invites the reader to briefly become a writer, or more accurately an editor; as the METABLOG would have it, it is a moment in which the (WORK) gains independence from the (AUTHOR).