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Sunday, February 20, 2022

Monday Night Seminar, Marshall McLuhan, 19 February 1973



Recovered from 1/4" reel-to-reel recording, Marshall McLuhan, Barrington Nevitt and guests in the room including: Mr. Papadopoulos; Mr. Brian Crinkle from Australia; Mr. McLean; Prof. Baaken, a psychology professor from York University; Ms. Sapienza of Leuven University; Sister Bede Sullivan; and unnamed others in the room watch a documentary on T. S. Eliot then discuss a range of subjects.

The first half of the recording is taken up with a documentary on T. S. Eliot, unable to determine which one. The discussion begins around 55:00, carries through to the end.

Topics mentioned include: 'Trust an Englishman' by John Nowler; 'Point Counter Point' by Aldous Huxley; changing attention span since TV; speedup and compression; E. A. Poe, the Maelstrom, The Raven, 'the key to Poe'; Beaudelaire and the Symbolist poets; Ecology and Media Ecology; Marx and Hegel; resonance, double-plot; languages, figure and ground; the Latin and English languages; 'poor old Rome,' Eric Ashby; Hitler and Mussolini; Nixon; the Americanization of the world; effects of TV on Radio; Muzak as environmental programming; Charisma; media are tranquilizers; Paul McCartney and his bunch of Beatles; Pierre Juneau and 'Canadian content;' innovation; the breakdown of burocracy; end of jobs; subliminal effects; Gregory Bateson 'Steps to and Ecology of the Mind;' R. Buckminster Fuller; and more.

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