Books
What’s the good word?
Marshall McLuhan (1973, age 61-62). “Dad, you’re in the dictionary!”
“Of course I’m in the dictionary, Eric, I’m looking up a word. Here it is, ‘corniche’ from the French – ‘a road along the edge of a cliff.’ Exactly where we are today, literally and metaphorically, don’t you think?
“No Dad, I don’t mean you’re using the dictionary, I mean you’re actually in it. There are now words based on you. ‘McLuhanism,’ McLuhanize,’ ‘McLuhanite,’ and get this ‘McLuhanesque.’
“Well that’s vurry satisfying. Northrop Frye isn’t in the dictionary is he? But hold on, which dictionary? the Oxford?”
“No, The Barnhart Dictionary of New English Since 1963, first edition, 1973.”
“What a shame. I’d have preferred the Oxford. After all, it is the Dictionary.”
Me (August, 2010, age 58). McLuhan would have been pleased
McLuhan did make it into the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which was published in 1989. Unfortunately he did not live to see it. However, it is safe to say that he would undoubtedly have taken great pride in this mark of the power of his influence on what he considered to be the most powerful of all mediums, our language.
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading
The Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989.
How to set an exam.
Marshall McLuhan (1969, age 57). Are you ready?
At the beginning of this seminar on communications I said that you were to choose 3 books out the 30 on the reading list and that they will be the subject of your final exam. No doubt you have been wondering what form this exam will take. Wonder no more. It’s time to sit and deliver. Have you got a pencil and paper? Very good, you will have thirty minutes. Write down three questions on each of the books you have read.
Me (July, 2010, age 58). A brilliant solution
Fred Thompson, who was a student of McLuhan’s at Toronto in the year after he returned from Fordham in the academic year 1968/69, talks about this exam in his contributions to the books Who Was Marshall McLuhan and Marshall McLuhan: The Man and His Message.
Certainly, McLuhan chose a brilliantly eccentric and efficient way to set an exam. A more direct approach would certainly have required a much longer exam with questions on each of the 30 books on the reading list. Almost certainly the questions the students’ came up with revealed much about their understanding of the books they had read and the form of the exam sends the clear message that he believes the questions are more important than the answers. But, it is doubtful if a university professor today would be allowed to set such an exam either by their department or their students.
As a test of your understanding of Marshall McLuhan and his work come up with three questions about him. Here are mine:
(1) What did he mean by “the medium is the message?”
(2) What can we learn about McLuhan from the portrait Wyndham Lewis drew of him?
(3) “What if he’s right?”
Now, what do you think? Are the questions more important than the answers?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading
Barrington Nevitt with Maurice McLuhan, Who Was Marshall McLuhan, 1994, pp. 178.
George Sanderson and Frank Mcdonald, eds., Marshall McLuhan: The Man and His Message, 1989, p. 135.
Where do you get your information?
Marshall McLuhan (Fall 1953, age 42). Books!
“Marshall, must you spread your books throughout the house?”
“No, Corinne, but it serves me to do so. It reminds me of what I have read. Also I like to pick a book up and dip into it every now and again to add to and refresh my memory. Having them about me this way is a great help.”
Me (July, 2010, age 57). Books!
While McLuhan enjoyed talking to people, Philip Marchand says he got most of his information from books. On average, says Marchand, McLuhan read 35 books a week, which seems like a lot, even for a university professor. I get most of my ideas for this blog from books, but not exclusively from books. On average, though, I cannot say I read more than two books a week. (May be – like McLuhan – I should skim more.)
Where do you get your information? How many books do you read in a week?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Philip Marchand. Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger, 1989 p. 179.
The small matter of quotation.
Marshall McLuhan (1964, age 62). The question of quotation.
My editors at McGraw-Hill have driven me to distraction on the vexed subject of quotation. They tell me I should only quote someone I disagree with. What an idea. No one has ever thought about the things I agree with only the things I disagree with? As I was saying to Ted Carpenter we should give credit to those who have come before us – those we stand on the shoulders of. That doesn’t mean we don’t need to make choices. The trick is to give credit to genius and pass by the fortunate but mediocre.
Me (July, 2010, age 57). The rules
The writer Kingsley Amis, I think it was, once said that the first duty of the writer is to write not to quote. McLuhan thought differently. His books lean so heavily on quotation that it is understandable that his editors would try to persuade him to quote less and write more.
McLuhan’s rules seem to be: quote liberally (up to 50 words from poetry, 500 from prose), quote from established authorities, don’t worry too much about context, and never under any circumstances quote Marshall McLuhan, it will only get you in trouble with academics.
Apart from questions of copyright, do you have rules for quotation?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Philip Marchand. Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger, 1989 p. 179.
The hard cover book is dead
Marshall McLuhan (1960, age 48/49). They didn’t want to hear it …
Thanks to my old friend Bernie Muller-Thym, I spoke today, to a group of book publishers meeting at Columbia University. I told them the news they absolutely need to know. The hard cover book is obsolete – in short, dead. From the restlessness of the natives I could tell they didn’t want to hear it.
Me (July, 2010, age 57). And yet …
It is one of the curious ironies in McLuhan’s life that at that meeting where he foretold the death of the hard cover book one of the editors in the audience came up to McLuhan after his talk to ask him if he would consider writing one for McGraw-Hill. McLuhan said yes and that book which appeared in 1965 was the best-selling Understanding Media.
For some time now it has appeared that the concept of the book as we know it – the centerpiece and center force of western culture – has been on its deathbed. Recently, however, some have suggested that e-books and the new electronic readers may give the book new life. Are they right? Should Tom Wolfe’s question “what if he’s right?” really be “what if he’s right eventually?”
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Philip Marchand. Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger, 1989, p. 176.
The McLuhan method.
Marshall McLuhan (Spring 1971, age 59). At work in the Coach House
Come in, come in. Watch your step. No it’s no bother. Glad you came. Mrs. Stewart, let’s continue this dictation later. Now let me explain what I’m doing. It may not look like it, but I’m writing a book. You see these piles of books each with a file folder on top? That’s how you write a book. Get yourself some file folders, fill them with clippings and quotations, and then comment on them. Commenting, by the way, is easier if you have a secretary to comment to.
Me (June 2010, age 57). Order out of chaos
Dictation probably worked well for McLuhan because he liked to talk ideas out. I don’t. I prefer to write ideas out. The file folder method, however, is very similar the one I have chosen as the method for this blog. Each blog begins with a book by or about McLuhan in which I mark passages and a sheet of paper on which I place other references, clippings and quotations, which I then comment on. How’s it going? As the man who jumped off the Empire State building, said as he hurtled past the 40th floor, “so far so good.”
What’s your method of work? Did you choose it or did it choose you?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Who Was Marshall McLuhan, edited by Barrington Nevitt with Maurice McLuhan, 1995, pp. 141.
The solution to the puzzle: Will the real Marshall McLuhan please stand up!
Marshall McLuhan (June, 2010, age 98). Foul play!
I assure you I had nothing to do with this puzzle. After all, as you should know, I’ve been dead and buried these past 30 years. Heaven has its perks – as Corinne continues to remind me – but writing blogs is not one of them. If you want my opinion, I think this puzzle was a bit of a cheat.
Me (June 2010, age 57). Drum roll please!
Here are the four short passages once again. As I explained yesterday only one of these was actually written by Marshall McLuhan. Which one is the real McLuhan? If you just found this blog you may wish to try and solve the puzzle for yourself before reading the answer. If not simply scroll to “the solution to the puzzle.”
(1) A modern movie actress who tries to play a role will seem old fashioned. To cope with this, actresses have cooled themselves way down, become numb blanks. Thus today’s stars are totally tranquilized. The smart thing for a girl nowadays is to play numb. Dumb actresses used to be in demand, now numb actresses are in demand. Rigor mortis is de rigueur.
(2) There is a current issue of the TV Guide which contains a survey of convicts’ attitudes towards TV. That is people really up for a long time, many of them for life, and how they regard television. All convicts are apparently supplied with good TV sets. Such is the hardship of our prisons. They pass the word along: all the new gimmicks, all the new twists they find in crimes; and these are passed along quickly to the boys who are on the way out, and are tried out quickly in the community. There really is an astonishing story of how much television has helped to improve the level of crime.
(3) The owner of a Hollywood hotel in an area where many movie and TV actors reside reported that tourists had switched their allegiance to TV stars. Moreover, most TV stars are men, that is, “cool characters,’ while most movie stars are women, since they can be presented as “hot” characters.
(4) By filling the space of the TV with a mosaic of close-ups, The Hollywood Squares hypnotizes its audience by paralyzing their senses and numbing their eyes to other distractions. The movie-world is literally chopped up into nine squares, each of which contains a close up. The theme music is the ticktock of a hypnotists watch.
“The solution to the puzzle.”
The passage written by Marshall McLuhan is Number 3, which you can find on page 318 of Understanding Media.
Numbers 1 and 4 are the invention of Gary Wolf from his 1996 Wired magazine article “Channeling McLuhan.” See www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.01/channeling.html.
Number 2 is by McLuhan, but was spoken in conversation in 1977 rather than written. See the book edited by Barrington Nevitt and Maurice McLuhan, Who was Marshall McLuhan?, 1995, p. 61.
How did you do?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Philip Marchand, Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger, 1989, pp. 35-37.
Will the real Marshall McLuhan please stand up!
Marshall McLuhan (October, 1934, age 23). A lesson from I.A. Richards.
I have had the most remarkable experience. I. A. Richards whose lectures I am attending here at Cambridge invited us to participate in an experiment. He handed out poems but did not tell us who wrote them and asked us to comment on them. It really was quite embarrassing. Thankfully not for me as I managed to escape for the most part with my dignity intact. But many of my fellow students said the most laudatory things about pure doggerel and heaped undeserved criticism on poets of canonical standing.
Me (June 2010, age 57). A lesson from McLuhan?
Here are four short passages. It’s only fair to tell you that only one of these was actually written by Marshall McLuhan. Which one is the real McLuhan?
(1) A modern movie actress who tries to play a role will seem old fashioned. To cope with this, actresses have cooled themselves way down, become numb blanks. Thus today’s stars are totally tranquilized. The smart thing for a girl nowadays is to play numb. Dumb actresses used to be in demand, now numb actresses are in demand. Rigor mortis is de rigueur.
(2) There is a current issue of the TV Guide which contains a survey of convicts’ attitudes towards TV. That is people really up for a long time, many of them for life, and how they regard television. All convicts are apparently supplied with good TV sets. Such is the hardship of our prisons. They pass the word along: all the new gimmicks, all the new twists they find in crimes; and these are passed along quickly to the boys who are on the way out, and are tried out quickly in the community. There really is an astonishing story of how much television has helped to improve the level of crime.
(3) The owner of a Hollywood hotel in an area where many movie and TV actors reside reported that tourists had switched their allegiance to TV stars. Moreover, most TV stars are men, that is, “cool characters,’ while most movie stars are women, since they can be presented as “hot” characters.
(4) By filling the space of the TV with a mosaic of close-ups, The Hollywood Squares hypnotizes its audience by paralyzing their senses and numbing their eyes to other distractions. The movie-world is literally chopped up into nine squares, each of which contains a close up. The theme music is the ticktock of a hypnotists watch.
See you tomorrow with the answer to this puzzle.
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Philip Marchand, Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger, 1989, pp. 35-37.
The brevity of Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan (October 3, 1964, age 53). Watch out for the meat!
T. S. Eliot said the message of a poem is the meat thieves throw to the dog to distract its attention while they break into your house. Running this backwards, then, if you want to nail down the message of a poem or a book it’s not hard to do. All you need to look for is the meat that’s being thrown at you.
Me (June 2010, age 57). Is it that easy?
My apologies for putting this idea into Marshall’s mouth. You will not find it in anything Marshall McLuhan wrote or said. But aside from the fact the focus is on the message not the medium, it does sound like something McLuhan might have said in a lucid, unmystical moment. Marshall McLuhan’s uncanny ability to go to the heart of a book with very few words was something that was very real and frequently impressed his friends and colleagues. For example, Ted (Edmund) Carpenter with whom McLuhan first began to work on media studies in the 1950s, says in an interview which you can find appended to the documentary film McLuhan’s Wake: “He had a way of getting to the point.” And “[I was] stunned by the brevity he could summarize things.”
For example, in a letter to Pierre Trudeau, McLuhan summarizes the famous Shannon-Weaver model of communication this way: “Shannon and Weaver were mathematicians who considered the side–effects of noise. They assumed that these could be eliminated by simply stepping up the charge of energy in a circuit.” [for more] And here is McLuhan’s summary statement of Peter Drucker’s Managing for Results: “[I]n every situation 10% of the events cause 90% of the events. The 10 % is the sector of opportunity, the 90 % is the area of problems. [Typically] the opportunity or environmental and innovational area is ignored. All sensible people deal first with problems – that is, the dead issues.”
Can McLuhan’s power of “brevity” be learned? If it can, how?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post:
The Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, p. 311 and 542.