Drop this jiggery-pokery and talk straight turkey

The below post reminded my of something I bookmarked a while ago with the intention of sharing, the first 2 tracks from the audio version of McLuhan's book 'The Medium Is The Massage'.

For those who aren't familiar with the book, it's a seminal visual treatise on how media delivery affects meaning and blah blah.... I'm sure you've seen a copy carefully placed on someone's coffee table somewhere - have a flick though, it's well worth a look.

To the point... not long after the book came out, an LP was made. It twists the original text through effects,  strange voices and all sorts of other dissonance. It's very much a recording of it's time (in that I can't imagine many prominent cultural theorists making avante-garde albums today), and it's a fascinating listen - especially if you know the material. 

It's become a seminal cut-up record in it's own right, being checked as an influence by several hip-hop, experimental and electronica acts over the years.....  I could witter about it for a while longer, but you should have a listen:

Unfortunately the LP commands fairly high prices now and the CD reissue from '99 is long out of print, but there is another CD reissue in the works apparently, due for release next year.

"Boy, if life were only like this."

Woody Allen's 'Annie Hall', like most of his films, is incredible. This is a favourite scene of mine. An expertly executed cameo by Marshall McLuhan, who is beautifully shoe-horned into this scene about boring intellectual criticism.

"I happen to teach a class at Columbia called TV, Media and Culture so I think that my insights into Mr McLuhan, well, have a great deal of validity"

"Oh do you? Well that's funny because I happen to have Mr McLuhan right here..."

#boringprequels

This contributor has, for now, a very boring job. For that reason I contrived to take part in the TRENDING #boringprequels on Twitter today, November 19th 2010.

Most of my contributions were pretty awful and the rest were even worse. Here is ALL OF THEM.

Honey, I took the kids to the park #boringprequels

Indiana Jones and the mid-term examinations #boringprequels

Breakfast at Marks and Spencers #boringprequels

The league of ordinary gentlemen #boringprequels

Day of the living #boringprequels

James and the shop-bought peach #boringprequels

Synecdoche, Milton Keynes #boringprequels

The Visible Man #boringprequels

Sunday Night, Monday Morning #boringprequels

The Eventually Ending Story #boringprequels

Four engagements and a sick man #boringprequels

Talent.

Plot ideas for week commencing 01/11/2010

* Space Bitch

* man comes home to find his wife trapped in a photo in "woman's own", article about abusive husband or sensational peice involving grave physical deformities, danger is closing in? is it too late?

* BOOTY SHAKING IN A GRAVEYARD.. ON TOP OF THE GRAVESTONES

* the antichrist returns to earth... runs blog

* otaku travels back in time to show victorian gentry animé & manga. global cultural revolution within the heart of the british empire but is eventually overthrown due to the phenomenal growth of Japan's economy thru sales of Pocky and plastic figurines

* Space Bitch II: I Know U Ain't Talkin' Bout My Hair

* wise cracking mafia goon goes undercover in children's school as supply teacher to trace the path of lost Inca gold

* baffling drama about a quest to colonize Jupiter ends in tears for all; Tom Hanks, Javier Bardem and Kate Winslet star

* man travels into the future but not possible future - rather an imagining of a possible Future as seen in utopian science fiction of the 70s and 80s. music by Vangelis

* man's dead wife sends messages back from beyond the grave- "did you tape Brookside?" asks spectre, but manifested in the form of an intense psychic attack

* horrific nightmare world where consciousness is self contained and individual but all physicality is an endless, ever-expanding sea of guts, lymph and flesh