menubar

Sunday, April 22, 2001

Bob’s Notes | McLuhan Telephone Conversations with Tony Schwartz, May-August 1977

Payday

NOTE:Timing based on Payday archives.


Jan.31/2015 1178861-3-1 May 17, 1977, and June 10, 1977, telephone conversations with Tony Schwartz:
(Part 15 at 38:23 and Part 17 at 9:30 [finished playing])

dyslexia and TV
38:26

shame
44:53

Jane Austen
47:03

no shutter on TV
47:38


dyslexia and trampolines
48:37

June 10, 1977, telephone conversation with Tony Schwartz:
the George Gerbner show
49:10

Women's Lib, violence, and TV
50:12

going out to be alone by car
51:50

crime and TV
52:53

tribal people and booze
54:22

McLuhan notes the conspiracy against him on the George Gerbner show
55:36

McLuhan says we don't have a body or a private identity "on the air"
58:19

Part 17 at 9:30

charismatic means looking like a lot of other people
9:56

Pres. Jimmy Carter is Huck Finn in the White House
10:18

hemispheric dominance is dependent on the environment
14:10

famous "Annie Hall" excerpt recorded in a movie theater by Tony Schwartz
15:30


Jan.31/2015 1178866-2-1 August 4/1977 and July 21/1977 (after trip to Fiji, etc.), telephone conversations with Tony Schwartz:
(Part 17 at 16:48 )

McLuhan notes he has a memory for page numbers
18:10

McLuhan mentions "Laws of Media" but he hesitates to go to press because he is still making discoveries every day
19:14

Tony mentions his new book, "The Second God"
19:52

McLuhan repeats that when society is "on the air", we don't have a body, then we have no private identity, then we have no morals
20:15

Tony says "man is now an extension of media" and McLuhan responds by saying "media becomes a great big insect that swallows it"
21:17

McLuhan says he owes a great deal to Tony
22:17

McLuhan says "very few people have read a word of McLuhan but they've all read ABOUT McLuhan"
22:39

McLuhan says "minus our bodies we tend to be in trouble - it's not a healthy, happy time"
23:04

"the sender is sent" and "at the speed of light you don't send a message, you send yourself"
23:14

McLuhan mentions that "his family is very diversified, Terry has made a film and she's off at Cannes peddling it, selling it, and Eric is finishing off the doctorate in English Lit. and he's having a ball, he really loves the work - we're all blooming and booming"
25:57

a joke about the 104-year old man who says he should have taken better care of himself
26:27

July 21/77, telephone conversation with Tony Schwartz:

Marg Stewart on the phone
26:53

Tony says a New York TV station announced his birthday (Marshall says "they must be flat out of information")
27:07

McLuhan mentions he's just back from Australia, Fiji, Honolulu, and Los Angeles ("had quite a lot of exciting contacts, interesting people")
27:37

McLuhan says people love Tony's phrase, "TV uses the eye as an ear"
27:47

McLuhan says he's so frustrated, he's almost decided to go back to commenting on "content"
28:10

McLuhan mentions "Star Wars" (a nostalgic retrieval of "Buck Rogers" [Tony says this], "Wizard of Oz", old wartime films about fighter pilots and so on)
28:59

McLuhan keeps burping
29:20

McLuhan repeats that he's "getting fed up with the simple-minded bias of our world - it's not just people, it's our whole culture"
29:32

Tony says "Con Edison says the power failure was an act of God, the looters said it was an act of God"
29:42

McLuhan burps again
30:07

McLuhan says "there was a failure of medium, and it gave them a chance to grab the content"
30:19

Stephanie McLuhan explained robbery/hostage-taking to McLuhan at dinner on his birthday today (McLuhan adds that it was "because of the change in the medium itself... the ground, the speed of the resources made it impossible to rob anything anymore without having a gun at somebody's head")
30:29

TV is an inner trip
31:35

McLuhan burps again at
31:40, 31:46, 32:27, 32:35, 32:48, 33:08, 34:57

Tony mentions the power of shame (McLuhan mentions medieval stocks for shaming) (Tony recommends task-oriented pay TV, and give up free-access to TV)
31:47

Tony goes on about reception vs. perception (and the inter-relation of cognition and recognition) and doesn't notice McLuhan's announcement of the hugeness of the instant replay/recognition as a technological development (changes the nature of baseball, football, everything)
32:29

McLuhan points out to Tony that there is no history, no past, it's all now/here (Tony suggests to teach history with replay)
33:17

McLuhan is going to NYC on Sunday night to lecture at Louis Forsdale's class at Columbia University on Monday and Tuesday, and will feature Doubleday's "Laws of Media" (fails to remember Paul Levinson's name, the editor of "Et cetera" magazine)
33:38

Marg Stewart comes on the phone again
35:50

McLuhan explains the tetrad (uses credit as an example) (Tony laughs when he intuits the tetrad) (McLuhan says this discovery ["a technique of discovery and prediction and control"] is "a scientific principle" based on "simply rule of thumb")
36:29

Addendum: "a voice without a body, an angel without a body, or a mind without a body", definition of "acoustic space", Orientalizing ourselves, audience becomes a workforce instead of a target of campaigns, the subconscious, evolution of millions of years in a few seconds, the telegraph press couldn't unify the umpteen stories, advertising and Tony Schwartz, speedup creates PR, the increasing of the subconscious
39:30

Start recording #1178856  May 1977, McLuhan on NBC panel with George Gerbner
46:26

(finish playing on Feb.21/15)

No comments: