I first met Eric McLuhan in March 1978 at the airport in New York. He and his father, Marshall, had flown in from Toronto for the "Tetrad Conference" I had organized at Fairleigh Dickinson University which would start the next day, March 10. Tina and I waited for Marshall and Eric in the baggage claim area. It was like a scene out of a movie. Maybe like Woody Allen's take on the closing scene in Casablanca. Except this was a beginning.
Everyone else had picked up their baggage. There were no cellphones then, so we could not be 100% positive they had boarded the plane in Toronto. There were no suitcases left on the conveyor. Finally, we saw the two of them in the far distance, as if walking out of a mist, carrying their bags. I had already met Marshall several times before that, after he'd invited me to lunch on an earlier visit to New York, after I'd written a Preface to his Laws of the Media. Every time, including at the airport, was one of the high points in my life.
We drove Marshall and Eric back to our apartment by Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. Tina had made pot roast - we forever after called it the McLuhan pot roast. Josh Meyrowitz and Ed Wachtel joined us after dinner. At the conference the next day, and at the pot roast dinner, what I most remember about Eric was our exchange of jokes. We continued this just about every time we saw each other over the years, in New York and Toronto, and somehow always came up with new material. (Often these jokes were about money - which Marshall had aptly examined as a medium of communication in Understanding Media. Jokes such as ... A woman walks into a bank and up to a teller, who asks her for identification. She pulls a mirror out of her purse, looks at herself, and informs the teller, 'Yes, it's definitely me' .... Or, a gunman walks into a diner, points the weapon at the cashier, and demands the money in the drawer. The cashier responds, 'to take out?' ...)
It wasn't easy being Marshall's son, elaborating upon the work of someone whose contribution was so extraordinary and incandescent, that many academics were not up to understanding it. But Eric gave it a go, and never lost his sense of humor, and the twinkle in his eye which he inherited from his father.
Paolo Granata emailed me last year with a great idea: how I would like to organize an event at Fordham to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Marshall's year at Fordham University as a visiting scholar, 1967-1968. Eric, who of course was with his father at Fordham in 1967-1968, too, would be available in 2017, too. I put together an evening on October 13, 2017, with talks by Eric, John Carey (who was a student at Fordham in 1967-1968, and attended Marshall's talks then) and me. (Thanks to Jackie Reich, our department chair, for supporting this.) The room which seated 100 was packed to standing room only. (The video of the event is below. I introduce Eric at about 8 minutes 5 seconds into the video, Eric begins his talk at 11 minutes 50 seconds.)
The night before, Tina and I took Eric and Andrew to dinner. Andrew had followed in his father's footsteps, being his essential and wonderful travel companion, as Eric had been for Marshall. The food and the jokes were still good.
I don't know about afterlives. I know about memories. RIP? That wasn't Eric's style. Maybe somewhere in the cosmos, but definitely in my head, he'll still be telling jokes.
Everyone else had picked up their baggage. There were no cellphones then, so we could not be 100% positive they had boarded the plane in Toronto. There were no suitcases left on the conveyor. Finally, we saw the two of them in the far distance, as if walking out of a mist, carrying their bags. I had already met Marshall several times before that, after he'd invited me to lunch on an earlier visit to New York, after I'd written a Preface to his Laws of the Media. Every time, including at the airport, was one of the high points in my life.
We drove Marshall and Eric back to our apartment by Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. Tina had made pot roast - we forever after called it the McLuhan pot roast. Josh Meyrowitz and Ed Wachtel joined us after dinner. At the conference the next day, and at the pot roast dinner, what I most remember about Eric was our exchange of jokes. We continued this just about every time we saw each other over the years, in New York and Toronto, and somehow always came up with new material. (Often these jokes were about money - which Marshall had aptly examined as a medium of communication in Understanding Media. Jokes such as ... A woman walks into a bank and up to a teller, who asks her for identification. She pulls a mirror out of her purse, looks at herself, and informs the teller, 'Yes, it's definitely me' .... Or, a gunman walks into a diner, points the weapon at the cashier, and demands the money in the drawer. The cashier responds, 'to take out?' ...)
It wasn't easy being Marshall's son, elaborating upon the work of someone whose contribution was so extraordinary and incandescent, that many academics were not up to understanding it. But Eric gave it a go, and never lost his sense of humor, and the twinkle in his eye which he inherited from his father.
Paolo Granata emailed me last year with a great idea: how I would like to organize an event at Fordham to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Marshall's year at Fordham University as a visiting scholar, 1967-1968. Eric, who of course was with his father at Fordham in 1967-1968, too, would be available in 2017, too. I put together an evening on October 13, 2017, with talks by Eric, John Carey (who was a student at Fordham in 1967-1968, and attended Marshall's talks then) and me. (Thanks to Jackie Reich, our department chair, for supporting this.) The room which seated 100 was packed to standing room only. (The video of the event is below. I introduce Eric at about 8 minutes 5 seconds into the video, Eric begins his talk at 11 minutes 50 seconds.)
The night before, Tina and I took Eric and Andrew to dinner. Andrew had followed in his father's footsteps, being his essential and wonderful travel companion, as Eric had been for Marshall. The food and the jokes were still good.
I don't know about afterlives. I know about memories. RIP? That wasn't Eric's style. Maybe somewhere in the cosmos, but definitely in my head, he'll still be telling jokes.
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