A Response to Peers’ Blog Posts
Taylor Reschke
I very much enjoyed Manna’s blog on Susan Sontag’s “Notes on ‘Camp’”. Manna, in “Notes on Susan Sontag”, begins with a personal anecdote about her experience as an intern for Elaine Welteroth in New York City. I think this personal anecdote was much more interesting than if she had solely done an analysis on Sontag’s piece. Manna was able to combine both a descriptive story and analysis, making her post a good example of literary journalism.
Her writing is clear and descriptive, it is easy to read but it has a lot of character. I also appreciated how Manna included information about this past year’s Met Gala, whose theme was “Camp: Notes on Fashion”. Manna points out that Sontag’s 58 notes on camp heavily influenced the Met Gala and what we know about camp today. I hadn’t made this connection before, so Manna’s piece helped me make more connections than I originally knew.
I also appreciated Mauricio’s blog, “On storytelling, Meaning and Joan”. He first opens up with an iconic quote from Joan Didion (“We tell ourselves stories in order to live”), which sets the overall mood of the piece, as well as provides insight into what the reader will read next. I also liked his first paragraph, I believe it served as a good lede and nut graf for the rest of the post. Additionally, Mauricio briefly uses himself as a character in this paragraph, tying in some literary techniques.
