***Happy 100th birthday, Marshall McLuhan!***

McLuhan would have been 100 years old today. (He died on December 31, 1980.)

He will be strongly vindicated by history. There are so many more important ideas in his books than is generally realized.

Philip Marchand helps us celebrate with AN ARTICLE posted at Laureano Ralon’s Figure-Ground Commmunications blog.

Individual reasons for celebrating McLuhan may differ. If asked to summarize my own reasons for liking him, I’d respond roughly as follows:

1. He has a tremendous sense of how the background conditions for any statement or appearance are more powerful than the statement or appearance itself. In this respect he can be paired with Heidegger’s critique of presence-at-hand, which I happen to think was the single most important insight to come out of 20th century philosophy.

2. Unlike Heidegger, McLuhan has a very detailed sense of how background and surface can trigger each other and reverse or flip into each other. This is why he isn’t a “technological determinist.” It lies within your power, individual human, to create something really remarkable that transforms the medium in which humans work in any specific area. (Example: It may have been true that academic illusionist painting was in trouble in 1905, but it was by no means “determined” what Braque and Picasso had to do next. Things could have gone in a number of different directions at that point. The individual is in fact extremely powerful in McLuhan’s vision.)

3. Formal causation as more important than efficient causation. I’ll save these remarks for my talk in Brussels. But Francis Bacon is McLuhan’s key partner here, and if you don’t like Bacon– you will. (For starters, go early into the second half of the Novum Organum and look for a long list headed something like “Instances Agreeing in the Nature of Heat,” in which Bacon tries to sum up a list of all warm and hot things in the world. It’s hilarious, remarkable, and has a fascinating metaphysics of formal cause underlying it.)

Bhuiyan impressive

“Killing him is not the solution,” Bhuiyan said. “He’s learning from his mistake. If he’s given a chance, he’s able to reach out to others and spread that message to others.”

That’s shooting victim Rais Bhuiyan, a native of Bangladesh, who was blinded in one eye and terribly scarred by post-9/11 spree shooter Mark Stroman. Two others were killed in the shootings.

Bhuiyan’s pleas failed, however, as Stroman was executed tonight by the state of Texas. I agree with Bhuiyan that Stroman seemed to have gained a lot of insight into his crimes and was having a positive effect on the public discourse recently. It wasn’t just apologies, but a sort of ongoing reflection that showed flashes of real intelligence.

a common mistake about Iowa

Popular sportswriter Rick Reilly addresses the following to Nebraska, which is now switching to the Big Ten conference:

“Forget Oklahoma. Now it’s Iowa, like it or not. You close out your regular season with the Hawkeyes on the day after Thanksgiving at home. Iowa’s a natural for you. Both your states are so flat you can watch a train pull out for three days.”

Iowa is not flat. Try bicycling it some time.

Iowa tends to be rolling, glaciated land, and in the northeast it is filled with all kinds of very steep hills.

I walked up and down a steep hill to school every day. It’s not flat. Try Kansas.

marvelling at New York again

If I’m reading the numbers correctly, New York is responsible for about 15% of my book sales in the past four weeks, and I have no reason to think that’s not fairly typical. (And I barely know anyone there, so it’s not friends and relatives.) Where would we be without New York?

The Quadruple Object: feedback

Since I just finished saying that I can’t read my own books anymore, I’d better turn to a reader for promotional help:

“I’m really interested in how The Quadruple Object plays out as it’s such a nice, elegant statement of your thought. It’s bare bones, lean, and gorgeous.”

Others can decide about the “gorgeous” part, but it was definitely designed to be bare bones and lean.

I guess my Alex Lifeson thought was counterintuitive

Here’s what sounds like a mainstream account of Rush’s new post-“Signals” sound in 1984:

“Grace Under Pressure was the first Rush album since 1975’s Fly by Night to not be produced by Terry Brown, who was replaced by Peter Henderson (Supertramp, Paul McCartney). The change resulted in a slightly more accessible sound than its predecessor, Signals, and marked the beginning of a period where many Rush fans feel that synths and electronics were used too prominently — in effect pushing guitarist Alex Lifeson into the background.”

I have the rather contrary feeling that Alex Lifeson dominates “Grace Under Pressure.” As I see it, the drums and the bass become rather more predictable, while the guitar solos become less like rock guitar solos (admittedly) but more like ambient and sometimes borderline non-tonal solos.

While the reviewer’s comment makes sense, the only reason I love listening to “Grace Under Pressure” is for the increasingly weird and mournful guitar solos, so atypical in comparison with Lifeson’s earlier work.

For example, listen to “BETWEEN THE WHEELS” and tell me that guitar is not the most interesting instrument in this song by far. Drums, bass, and keyboard go along predictably, and only Lifeson’s guitar offers interesting surprises.

why I will not read my own books

My usual exercise when I have a new book come out is to read it immediately. But I’ve found this so unenjoyable in recent years (it’s like staring at yourself in the mirror or listening to your own voice on tape for hours at a time) that I’m simply going to stop reading my own books until some point late in life when I’m looking back and taking stock of everything. I already read the drafts and the proofs countless times before publication anyway.

Roland Barthes speaks in the interviews of having much the same feeling. Luckily, he did go back and read them all again shortly before his fatal accident. But it can really drag you down in a number of ways to read your own stuff.

The only problem with this approach, which I already sometimes face, is that occasionally you run into readers who know your own work better than you do, which can be a bit embarrassing. Once in awhile I’ve met people who an correct me if I say that I spoke about something in, say, Prince of Networks: “No, it was Guerrilla Metaphysics,” they’ll correct me.

That’s a strange sensation, and yes, an embarrassing one, but it’s a small price to me for not having to read your own books.

I’m guessing that this is something that varies greatly from one author to another. There are probably some people who profit greatly from regularly checking what they said here or there. Personally, I find it more and more excruciating as the years go by. In part, I think it’s the fear of being overly influenced by oneself and falling into repetition in that way, rather than continuing to move forward based on new experiences, new influences, and so forth.

In any case, though I’m happy to promote the newly released The Prince and the Wolf, The Quadruple Object, and Quentin Meillassoux: Philosophy in the Making as my publishers deserve to have me do, I’ve read them all more than enough in draft/proof form and may not open them again for 15-20 years. We’ll see. Odd motivations for doing things arise from time to time.

and one more Rush post just to push it over the top

Here’s a great live version of “YYZ,” which probably showcases their musicianship more than any other song. Wait for the Neil Peart drum solo at about 3:30. He was in his prime at this point.