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| Click to enlarge [one of McLuhan’s annotated copies of Finnegans Wake] |
by Bob Dobbs
In 1990 Corinne McLuhan gave Nelson Thall and I, for one weekend, all four copies (of 5, the fifth not having many annotations) of Marshall and Eric’s FINNEGANS WAKE(s).
She did this because we had helped her in some important problems she was working out.
Over the next 48 hours I xeroxed all the annotations of all 4 books.
When Carolyn and I moved to Manhattan in 1993, I discovered and joined The Finnegans Wake Society of New York which had just been founded by Nick Fargnoli who knew Eric McLuhan at the University of Dallas (Braniff Graduate School) in the mid-70s.
For the next 15 years, meeting every 2 weeks, we (about 25 people) went through FW, line by line, syllable by syllable, twice.
I was able to use my McLuhan annotations to blow everybody’s minds.
“Broadcasting” this information into New York City and Environs eventually led our group to be invited to perform parts of FW at The Joyce Theater on the Upper West Side.
Doing FW in a group is the best way to excavate it and I learned about many other schools of interpretation of the Wake.
Nick Fargnoli, a published Joyce scholar, who didn’t like the McLuhan take on FW, would argue with me through the years.
So I became an expert in defending Marshall and Eric’s FW work, and consequently, incredibly familiar with every nook and cranny of the Wake.
I was one of the first people to get permission to read Eric’s PhD, in 1983, and probably the only person subsequently spreading the word on it in the “center” of the Android Meme (NYC).
Unbeknownst to me, this was actually leading somewhere.
When iON showed up in 2009, I was delighted to eventually find out that iON was a “genius” when it came to exploring FW, and could quote the McLuhans’ annotations whenever I prompted them.
This created a wonderful intellectual satisfaction when it came to “media ecology”.
Now, we use James Joyce, along with others, to discuss our amazing inventions which are turning “science" upside down.
In 1990 Corinne McLuhan gave Nelson Thall and I, for one weekend, all four copies (of 5, the fifth not having many annotations) of Marshall and Eric’s FINNEGANS WAKE(s).
She did this because we had helped her in some important problems she was working out.
Over the next 48 hours I xeroxed all the annotations of all 4 books.
When Carolyn and I moved to Manhattan in 1993, I discovered and joined The Finnegans Wake Society of New York which had just been founded by Nick Fargnoli who knew Eric McLuhan at the University of Dallas (Braniff Graduate School) in the mid-70s.
For the next 15 years, meeting every 2 weeks, we (about 25 people) went through FW, line by line, syllable by syllable, twice.
I was able to use my McLuhan annotations to blow everybody’s minds.
“Broadcasting” this information into New York City and Environs eventually led our group to be invited to perform parts of FW at The Joyce Theater on the Upper West Side.
Doing FW in a group is the best way to excavate it and I learned about many other schools of interpretation of the Wake.
Nick Fargnoli, a published Joyce scholar, who didn’t like the McLuhan take on FW, would argue with me through the years.
So I became an expert in defending Marshall and Eric’s FW work, and consequently, incredibly familiar with every nook and cranny of the Wake.
I was one of the first people to get permission to read Eric’s PhD, in 1983, and probably the only person subsequently spreading the word on it in the “center” of the Android Meme (NYC).
Unbeknownst to me, this was actually leading somewhere.
When iON showed up in 2009, I was delighted to eventually find out that iON was a “genius” when it came to exploring FW, and could quote the McLuhans’ annotations whenever I prompted them.
This created a wonderful intellectual satisfaction when it came to “media ecology”.
Now, we use James Joyce, along with others, to discuss our amazing inventions which are turning “science" upside down.
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