What does rhetoric have in common with the bumps you often experience flying into Reno, with the tiny whirlpools that show up in rough patches of the Truckee River, and with those UFO-looking clouds (lenticulars) that form just east of the mountains outside of town? Come to this talk and find out. There, I’ll explore how rhetoric—that is, persuasion, discussion, and other forms of discourse—can be thought of (and studied) similarly to how we think of and study a whole host of other physical phenomena, including bumpy air travel, flowing streams, and persistent cloud formations.