Carole Maso's "Essay" was long, disjointed and utterly confusing. I recognized her disjointed train of thought instantly as probably something relating to bipolar disorder, especially with her mention of mania and depression. There is little, but some, evidence that this is probably the case after a quick Google search.
While I found her essay cacophonous, there were several interesting ideas that she landed on but (usually) never went back to expound more. Especially relevant for this class is her fixation on the idea of hypertext. Her prediction of what the future (and hypertext) will bring is probably more ambitious than what it will actually become, but this quote resonated with me: "Electronic writing will give us a deeper understanding of the instability of texts, of worlds." This is striking on two levels: first, text is unstable because of the multitudinous ways in which it can be interpreted, again and again, century after century. Second, hypertext itself is especially vulnerable, because once it is gone there is no physical evidence of its existence. What if a geomagnetic storm stopped all technology as we know it? What if our hypertext just dissolved into hyperspace? Will later people look at our culture and see a sudden slowing or stoppage in creative output, when in reality we have the most useful tool to facilitate creative output in history? … Does it matter?
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