As soon as I saw Hayles' essay, I realized that I was supposed to read it online. The contents and endnotes all are hyperlinked. After five or so pages, though, my eyes cried mutiny. I much prefer reading on paper than on screen (I wonder how cultural vs. biological this is). I then read the print-out in front of the computer, which I used to access all the texts Hayles refers to. This worked for a time, but, with the sun shining merrily, I gave up and took the print-out outside.

While reading the introduction to "Hypertext 2.0," I was struck by how newer media seem not to create entirely new ways of reading or writing a text, but rather make certain pre-existing ways easier than before.

I want to comment on the discussion we had at the end of class, when we were talking about how Don Quixote (or Emma Bovary, if you prefer) sees objects in the "real" world as extensions of the fantastic narrative he imposes on the world. I'm not quite sure what to do with this. On the one hand, we all impose our own narratives on the world and thus do not see things as they are, but as we are.

Ron Burnett seems fascinated by what he calls our “need to anthropomorphize machines” (126). He fails to recognize, though, that we need to anthropomorphize everything in the universe in order to conceptualize any of it. Much of the reason, I think, for the way we speak about machines – “the computer doesn’t want to turn on” – stems from the fact that those kinds of metaphors best describe what we imagine the machines as doing. Try explaining the internet to someone without using any words that could also be applied to humans.

Something of what I was trying to say at the end of class today didn't quite get through, probably because I didn't say it. Once we have recognized the fact that new media have (already!) changed the way we structure the world outside of our computer screens, I think we have to ask ourselves whether that development is an improvement.

I pointed out in class today the way too obvious contradiction in McLuhan's distinction of hot and cold content within a single medium (cool jazz and hot jazz). Now that I've had time to think about it, I realize that McLuhan does deal with this. In the middle of page 27, he writes:

"The jazz of the period of the hot new media of movie and radio was hot jazz... Cool jazz came in quite naturally after the first impact of radio and movie had been absorbed."

I'm a little bit confused about McLuhan's idea of the role of the artist. He seems to be saying that the artist must make people aware of the profound cultural changes brought about shifts in the types of media we use. The artist does so (I'm led to believe) by drawing attention to the media as important: it's not what's on television that matters, but the television itself.

Before class tomorrow, I want to write out in (virtual) print some of my thoughts on the reading, as much so that I can get them straight in my head as anything else. I won't bother trying to organize them into a coherent bundle now.

I think it's really interesting that so many of us chose to write about the interactivity of new media. That's just one aspect, but obviously one that fascinates us, for whatever reason. Speculate away.

I used to read those books when I was (not that much) younger. I'm now really interested in the possibilities the internet allows for that kind of story.