A tribute to and a lament for Marshall McLuhan continues. If he had lived Marshall would have been 100 on July 21, 2011. Join me in the countdown to his centennial, and an exploration of more of his observations on the way media work in the electric age in which we live.
Communications
Do kids read alone and silently for fun anymore?
Marshall McLuhan (1970, age 59). The book took us to silence.
In the Middle Ages, as is well known, there was no such thing as silent reading. It was only with the advent of the book that “silent, solitary reading” took hold.
Me (January, 2011, age 58). The electric age has opened our ears.
If books and silent reading go hand in hand is it any wonder that today’s electronically-wired kids find silent reading a challenge?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading:
Marshall McLuhan, Counterblast, 1970, p. 73.
It took a while, but the future is here.
Marshall McLuhan (1964, age 52). A prophecy.
“Shortly it [film] will under TV pressure, go into its portable, accessible … phase. Soon everyone will be able to have a small, inexpensive film projector that plays an 8-mm sound cartridge as if on a TV screen.”
Me (January, 2011, age 58). And few will realize things have changed.
Except, of course, for artists. And some of them will not be happy about the change.  For example, David Lynch:
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading:
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964, p. 291-92.
Who is doing the teaching?
Marshall McLuhan (1951, age 40). The ad men.
“The thoughtful observer will find some cause for dismay in the disproportion between the educational budget of the advertising industry and that for the education of the young in school and college.”
Me (January, 2011, age 58). And what are they teaching?
This for instance.
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading:
Marshall McLuhan, The Mechanical Bride, 1951, p. 72.
Want to understand America today?
Marshall McLuhan (1951, age 40). You need to understand its two grand traditions, the frontier and the home town.
The home town is about society, feeling, home and women. The frontier is about business, action, office and men. And believe me, the two will never meet until they have achieved their greatest opposition!
Me (January, 2011, age 58). Do we still?
In the 1940s McLuhan thought America had divided along the lines of its two great traditions and the best place to see those traditions in action was on Soap Operas (the home town) and Horse Operas or Westerns (the Frontier).
In the 1960s he seemed to be saying that under electric conditions the two were finally meeting. Business and society, feeling and action, home and office, and women and men were now increasingly switching positions, fusing rather than splitting.
Today where are we? On TV the soap opera has given way to the talk show and the western to fantasy and science fiction. Have the two traditions merged or simply reappeared in these genres?
The new home town?
The new frontier?
Albeit with some changes.
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading:
Marshall McLuhan, The Mechanical Bride, 1951, p. 156.
Merry Christmas!
Marshall McLuhan (December 25, 1960, age 49). Everybody!
I feel particularly Christmas-ee today. Corinne’s parents sent us a smashingly swell-elegant crystal drinks tray. It made the trip from Fort Worth, Texas, without a hitch, every surface unscratched and without any extra duty to be paid. It will come in very handy in this the season to be entertaining and celebrating. Also, my book job “The Gutenberg Galaxy” is almost done. I am so wound up I can think of nothing else. The manuscript will go to the publishers the day after tomorrow. And on that very day I begin writing this other book on media after Gutenberg which has been on my mind. I’ve spent the last 20 years reading, it seems only right that I put out some things of my own. Without Corinne’s help in typing and discussing the ideas swirling around me, I don’t know where I’d be.
Me (December, 2010, age 58). And a Happy New Year!
A time to be thankful for all we’ve got and the gifts we’ve been given material and spiritual. Like Marshall without the help of my wife, Debbie, who has posted this blog since its beginning in September 2009 and has encouraged me to make it better, I don’t know where I’d be.
Merry Christmas, Marshall and Me
Reading:
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, p. 276.
You can learn a lot about a nation …
Marshall McLuhan (1970, age 59). From its sports!
“Games are the mask of the crowd. … Each nation’s popular games project the image of its central dynamism.”
Me (December, 2010, age 58). For example …
This is America:
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This is Canada:
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This is Britain:
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Cordially, Marshall and Me
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Reading:
Marshall McLuhan, Culture is Our Business, 1970, p. 118.
Did TV hurt baseball?
Marshall McLuhan (1970, age 59). It is possible …
That baseball’s popularity will ebb and football’s will grow as TV continues to do its work on us. TV and football are tactile. Baseball is visual.
Me (December, 2010, age 58). Really?
This is one of those predictions by McLuhan that at first strike me as crackers, but then when I look for evidence I’m surprised by how much the facts support him. Have a look at the results of this Gallup poll, which shows that since the coming of TV in the late 1940s the popularity of baseball in America has fallen and football has risen.
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading:
Marshall McLuhan, Culture is Our Business, 1970, p. 118.
Business is our culture.
Marshall McLuhan (1970, age 59). You can learn a lot from ads
Today, with the movement of information at electronic speeds, “business and culture have become interchangeable.” This is why I pay so much attention to advertisements. To watch an ad is to be immersed in the culture within which the ad is designed to be persuasive. In the future a historian who wanted to understand this age of ours could do so easily by studying our ads.
Me (December, 2010, age 58). Possibly.
If Marshall is right we should be able to discover a great deal about the differences between the 1950s and 1960s by examining these two ads, the first from the 1950s the second from the 1960s. In the interests of science I have tried to hold constant as many variables as possible.
1950s
1960s
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading:
Marshall McLuhan, Culture is Our Business, 1970, “author’s note.”
What’s the good news?
Marshall McLuhan (1965, age 54). Dear Diary:
Someone from the New York Times called. Asked me what I thought of the quality of newspapers. I told him that “the ads are by far the best part of any … newspaper.” In fact there’s just one thing wrong with them, the ads I mean, not newspapers. Ads only deal with good news. By themselves ads won’t work. The newspapers’ job is to provide enough bad news to sell the good news.
Me (December, 2010, age 58). For your approval:
Good news crying out for bad. This is an idea we have met before in this blog. But as a glance through Understanding Media reveals, McLuhan thought a good idea is worth repeating. A question, as McLuhan would say, for your information, and mine. How did advertisers sell the good news on TV?
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Cordially, Marshall and Me
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Reading:
See McLuhan’s obituary in the New York Times, January 1, 1981. (“on the web”)
Three words a day.
Marshall McLuhan (September, 1930, age 19). Dear Diary:
Today my habit of memorizing the meaning of three new words a day has paid off handsomely. Professor Allison, who was lecturing today on Milton, started his lecture with a question. “What is the meaning of “imprimatur”? No one else but me could answer.
Me (December, 2010, age 58). Words, words, words!
The habit of looking up words in the dictionary (the O.E.D. naturally) was one of the few McLuhan picked up from his father. It was a habit he maintained for most of his life. McLuhan’s biographer, Philip Marchand writes, that much later in his life McLuhan once remarked “that a single English word was more interesting than the entire NASA space program.”
Two of the words the young McLuhan committed to memory were “scaturient” and “sesquipedalian.” Whether he ever found a time to use them seems unlikely. “I say, Marshall, do you see those two streams, the one gushing forth one-and-a-half times more than the other?” “Yes, their scaturient and sesquipedalian character certainly caught my eye.” But that was not the point. Words themselves fascinated him. More than the launching of a rocket. To understand this is to understand McLuhan.
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading
Philip Marchand, Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger, 1989, pp. 14and 19.