McLuhan is one of the most relevant thinkers to our time--if you can figure him out. I've read most of his books, and written several papers on him and still don't quite get it, feel like there are layers of what he was talking about that I may never grasp.

Entry McLuhan for anyone interested -- The Medium is the Massage, a picture book that originally was a misprint (The Medium is the Message, being the phrase he coined), but he liked it and kept it. Kind feels like reading it is a drug trip, but you start to figure him out.

Understanding Media -- Seminal work, he lays out the medium is the message, media hot and cold, media as sensory extension, and other concepts as well as catalogues how he sees various media affect us.

The Mailer/McLuhan debate from CBC is really interesting as well, Mailer as existential/nihilist and McLuhan as nearly an analytic -- neither really talking philosophy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtzxWR-j1xY

It's all a bit stream-of-consciousness. Some of that is I'd guess due to the fascination then with psychedelics. I still run into people who wax poetic about psychedelics as a social change mechanism and technology for personal growth.

MacLuhan talks about how Nixon adapted to TV; turns out that was most likely Roger Ailes' doing.

The present day "conservative" (tea party) movement is largely founded on ideas from MacLuhan. One of the curious things about Fox is that it's a media channel based on being against the media.

The indispensable idea from MacLuhan ( at least that's where I got it ) is that of identity and that people have a ... shortage of it.