If you think your life is at all relevant in the grand scheme of things, you aren’t thinking about grand enough schemes.

I thought the “Proairesis” chapters was interesting too — particularly the discussion about “metatextuality” that Brooke discusses ( 79). I think this relates to the genre of blogs and the flexibility that blogs give use when writing in an academic forum. I think the use of the blog may be something I utilize in the future for my classes. Reading your “new media journalism” has been interesting for me this semester (even more than in Dr. Sexson’s class). I think helping students see that there is a way to adapt to an in-between the “academic” and the “informal” and still have it read “academically” is something that I have learned from reading your work, and if you don’t mind, I will probably use your site as an example in the future.

This idea of personalized writing practices that you bring up is also interesting. I think it is something that we’ve been discussing via Deb’s blog in terms of how computer readers promote or really don’t promote personalized writing practices. Does new media inherently promote personalized writing practices as opposed to old media? I don’t think so. Brookes points out that we often treat “‘currently existing theories’…more narrowly than they deserve” (127). In doing this, “new media scholars are often guilty of characterizing the users of older media as straw people—as ‘passive’ consumers of works forced on them by ‘tyrannical’ authors/designers/artists…This faux politicization of the medium has been thoroughly discredited…but the argument, built on a sloppy, overgeneralized contrast, persists in some accounts to this day” (127). When we characterize old media as constraining and new media as liberating we are being too general. Considering the prominent rise of computer readers, new media is in fact becoming more restrictive and not liberating. Also, I’m not sure that writing in old media has always had to be constraining. I agree with your ending sentiment that we need to move forward and try some new things, and I’m on board with including more new media in my classroom; however, I’m cautious to think that new media is inherently better, more liberating, and will produce more personalized writing practices. There are limitations to what it can do.

It’s difficult to clarify the definition because Gonzo is applicable to just about anything. Though, Thompson’s bread and butter was politics, he was also a sports writer, so I don’t know that we can redefine Gonzo rhetoric using a genre to clarify it. However, even Thompson’s sports writing drew on political events, especially Hey, Rube!, a book comparing the addictive and competitive nature of sports and politics. Perhaps I should reconsider clarifying through stating a specific genre, but I’ll need more feedback.

I’m not sure if Rice would find Gonzo rhetoric cool or not, but it certainly applies more than one of his suggestions for cool writing, and though I find it very difficult to incorporate every suggestion he makes (appropriation, commutation, juxtaposition, nonlinearity, and imagery) in a written text, I think Rice’s ideal of the coolest writing would do so. So Gonzo is cool, and a child of cool, but not that cool.