Rhetoric and Technology – ENC 6421

As far as iPods and composition, I can tell you that I use my iPod to listen to lectures from iTunes U while exercising or driving. I also used to listen to various podcasts when I was making money as an assistant mural painter–there are many professional podcasts, cultural programs in French for example, as well as loads of silliness. So iPods in education, yes, I can see that. As far as the Flaming Lips, well, I could vaguely imagine what the authors were talking about, but frankly, I didn’t see the big whoop. So it was a musical “happening” of sorts. By the time I was old enough to go into the city (NYC, that is), the happenings weren’t happening anymore, but I heard about them…forty years ago! Rickert and Salvo seemed to be stretching it to make their subject worthy of a journal article. Sorry, I just don’t see how any of this is particularly paradigm shifting or even relevant. “Worlding???” Give me a break. Levy gave us the history of the iPod and explained that now everyone can have his or her own “radio” show, ok, I knew that. The article on iTunes music sharing wasn’t revelatory either, although it brought a sigh of nostalgia for “home,” as it was written by employees of PARC, the Palo Alto Research Center, where I used to go to Usability meetings (Tuesday, March 11, 2008: Monthly Program (BayCHI)). Now, iTunes is, really, a great application, so well designed, so easy to use, and there’s so much there!  As for Heidi McKee, I feel much the same about this article as about the Rickert and Salvo piece. Although this multimedia technology is more easily accessible, more widespread, easy to use and requiring little financial investment, the principles have been around for decades. Even the beat poets had bongo players in the background. (Ok, I saw that on Dobie Gillis but I bet it’s true). I tracked down some of the sound poems she was writing about poems that GO : archives , and looked at a whole bunch more, but honestly, I found them more pretentious than artistic. Maybe I’m jaded. Maybe because I’m from New York and Silicon Valley, this week’s readings didn’t do much to make me think this sort of technology would revolutionize freshman comp. One poem/game was kinda fun though, Arteroids:  poems that GO : poems