While I let it be known that those first poems which looked like a sixth grade computer project were less than desirable,I just knew MGK had something up his sleeve. Those last few online texts we looked at in class were amazing.

Glad you liked Jason's work, Adam, which (as a reminder) is linked from the Nov. 17 class. Of course everything is relative: will this too look hopeless outdated just a few years down the line? Literaty value is typically measured in decades or centuries; how can literature compete with the inexorable obsolescence of the Web?

Wow, I took a little look at Jason's website just now. I think everyone should check out his newer work, specifically the one called "Conversations".

My favorite quote from it:
"I want plaid, aquatic, slug robots." haha

MGK- That is very true. I guess a website may look dated after only a few years, perhaps even sooner, while the differences in literature are more discernable over longer periods of time. An interesting aside- a book that we might consider as a "postmodern pastiche," for example, might include texts from an e-mail or copies of facsimilies exchanged amongst the characters in the book. The inclusion of said elements is allowed because technology has made many new avenues of communication available to us, in our lives, and thus the authors of texts written "nowadays" may include them. Texts that are not formulated with the traditional pen/paper/printing press, specifically those that appear online, are limited by the technology that is available at the moment of their production, assuming the author is at the top of his or her game. So, maybe it can be said that traditional literatury works are, at heart, the creator's responses to experience, culture, technology, etc., while electronic texts do the same BUT do not merely mention or incorporate "technology," they often are IT themselves.
Also, an interesting aspect of the Internet is the fact that it is constantly being updated. So when we English students have to study older texts, and we use the Internet to decipher certain references, we will most likely discover, online, current relevancies. I guess you can't Google everything...sigh.