Marshall McLuhan The Medium Is the Massage lp

lp
2013/1968
new
Dated pop-philosophy audio collage replete with backwards tape, interruptions, repetitions, careful use of echo and the stereo spectrum, the framing of outtakes & studio chatter, & more. McLuhan's aphorisms are bright, fun, digestible, evocative, & just a little bit empty. Thesis is that tools made by man, also modify the way he thinks. Notes correctly point out that this idea doesn't necessarily land one in the quicksand of Derrida-style determinism. However it also doesn't surmount the mind-body problem. Nuther words, McLuhan doesn't quite go so far as to propound that there is no meaning but the flicker of screens or play of veils. Unfortunately, that's because he also doesn't go so far as to propound much of anything. There is undoubtedly plenty of give and take between perceiver and perceived, between context and content, and reflexive layers of frameworks/viewpoints within frameworks/viewpoints have only multiplied and gotten messier in the intervening years. Meantime though, McLuhan's ideas remain lightly observational & leave his audience to decide whether it's people's heads or their bodies & environments that are ultimately in charge. The art of the record therefore lies mainly in the producers' ability to turn such ideas into sound effects, which they do admirably and noisily, over & over again. And that part of the record, made by unknowns John Simon, Ralph Curtis & Walt Gustafson, dates quite well.