McLuhan in a box?

Marshall McLuhan (February, 1967, age 55).  Undignified!  Not professorial!

Quentin Fiore tells me that Aspen Magazine is wild about putting me in one of their boxes.  I am the subject of their next issue, issue number 4, the McLuhan edition.  Corinne will be amused.  The graduate school – I am sure – will not.  This will give the Profs at Toronto University a fit.  I can hear them now.  Pure Commercialism! Undignified!  Not professorial!  Well that’s their look out.

For each issue Aspen’s editors assemble a mix of recordings, posters, essays and whatnot playing on a particular theme.  “Magazine” you know is a very interesting word.  It means a storehouse, a cache, typically for explosives.  This issue is undoubtedly going to result in fireworks.  The last one was on Warhol.  This one’s on me.    Haven’t seen it yet, but I will.  Perhaps next Sunday.

Me (February, 2010, age 57):  A 1960s time capsule.

Aspen Magazine, the brain child of Phyllis Johnson, a former editor for Women’s Wear Daily and Advertising Age began publication in 1965 and ceased publication in 1971.  U.S. Subscribers paid $12.95 a year for 4 quarterly issues and Canadians $14.95.  For this somewhat princely sum (Look or Life, popular 26-issue-a-year magazines, at this time cost Americans $5.00 a year and Canadians $5.50) the subscribers received a multi-media, extravaganza of visual, oral, and tactile delights. For us, viewing it today it is both a 1960s time capsule and time machine.

The McLuhan edition which arrived at the subscriber’s door in the spring of 1967 in a hinged box (9-½ by 12-½ by ¾ inches) decorated with an electronic circuit board and containing:

• Poster displaying pages from The Medium is the Massage
• Poster of photo taken at “the tribal stomp at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom”
• Excerpts from interviews, essays, and a diary, written by Grace Glueck, Ed Ward, Dropper Ishmael, and John Cage
• Essay:  “the Electronics of Music,” by Faubion Bowers and Daniel Kunin
• Phonograph Record:  “A recorded Sampler of Electronic Music:” side A – Mario Davidovsky; side B – Gordon Mumma
• Recording:  a description of a nature trail for the blind by Bob Lewis and Alfred Etter
• Excepts: “Psycles” – from The Bikeriders a book by Danny Lyon about the Chicago Outlaws motorcycle club.  Includes a “meditation on motorcycling by Bob Chamberlain.”
• Advertisements: A magenta folder (8- ? by 11-¾ inches, with white wraparound text) containing pamphlets, posters, forms and sheets promoting among other things Remy Martin, Gordon’s, the Sierra Club, Something Else Press, United Airlines and MGB autos.

Is there a market for something like Aspen Magazine today?  How much do you think such a magazine would cost today? (In today’s money – adjusting for inflation – an American annual subscription of $12.95 would be worth $68.83, and a Canadian subscription of $14.95 would be worth $79.46 – amazing value for money) Do you know of any library, centre, or museum that has a copy of the Aspen McLuhan edition?

Cordially, Marshall and Me

Tags: Advertising, Art, Communications, Culture, Medium is the message, Understanding media