Sight
The book opens (following a short Preface) with the use imagery. Specifically, it is a visual image and not a particularly glorious one. The point? This is a book that mixes Aristotle with Homer Simpson and South Park with Hamlet. In other words, this is not your college professor’s textbook on rhetoric. The author conveys that significance different right from the opening lines:
“It is early in the morning and my seventeen-year-old son eats breakfast, giving me a narrow window to use our sole bathroom. I wrap a towel around my waist and approach the sink, avoiding the grim sight in the mirror; as a writer, I don’t have to shave every day.”
Taste
This is a non-fiction book and it is about the art of rhetoric. With that in mind, it is best to understand that the use of imagery in the text is generally illustrative rather than aesthetic: in other words, the author uses imagery appealing to the senses primarily through example, allusion, analogy and, in this case, a direct quote:
“Protagoras, a famous Sophist, said that food tastes bitter to an invalid and the opposite to a healthy person.”
Smell
On the other hand, the author does occasionally use imagery the way a fiction writer would. In this particular example, he uses it quite effectively as irony. Notice how the author slowly builds a sense of why neighborhood kids would envy his basement through specific instances of imagery only to pull the rug out from underneath that expectation at the end:
“Our basement—the only room that could fit a pool table—was the envy of the neighborhood kids. It had fake palm trees, a volcano that lit up, and a waterfall that splashed into a pool with real goldfish. The place also flooded regularly and smelled like a sponge.”
Hearing
One of the most inventive uses of imagery by the author requires collusion with the notorious fractured rhetoric of George W. Bush. He uses a typical quote from the former President—colloquially known as a Bushism—to suggest the powerful way that the sounds of words can have a completely different impact than as written text.
“Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.”
And then, to underline his point, the author uses imagery in his analysis of Bush’s mangled style:
“It has the sound of sense.”
If you don't believe him, try saying Bush's quote out loud to someone--filled with the intent of making sense--and then see how differently they react when they are actually show it written down.
Tactile Seduction
In a way, the author brings all the various senses which are used to create literary imagery together when alluding to an observation he discovered in an article published in Harper’s Magazine on how the use of the tactile sensations of seduction crosses over seemingly unrelated “genres” of entertainment.
“the Food Network uses techniques identical to that of the porn industry—overmiked sound, very little plot, good-looking characters, along with lavish closeups of firm flesh and flowing juices.”
The language here is so spot-on that one really can almost feel the flesh and juices no matter what genre is being visually stimulated.
