Mission Impossible 7: Dead Reckoning: Well Beyond Bondian

With all the promotion of Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, set to debut in U.S. theaters in the next few days, I thought it was high time to see Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, released in 2023, and which is actually Part 1 of the two-part story which will conclude with The Final Recognition.

So I saw Dead Reckoning on Paramount+ last night.  And I was struck by several things, all of which have been inexorably building over this eight-movie run, which, as we all know, began as one of the best television series in history:

1. Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt has been getting more and more like the best secret agent in movie history, i.e., James Bond.  Hunt is a far better fighter than anyone ever was in the Mission Impossible TV team.  In fact, the strength of that team resided in its group prowess, and while Hunt has an impressive group behind him, he clearly has powers not only equal to Bond's but sometimes approach Superman's.  I mean, he leaps more than tall buildings, and in Dead Reckoning he jumps off a jagged mountainside, high above a fast-moving train he's attempting to intercept.

2. Cruise's Hunt shares another Bondian characteristic: a penchant for beautiful women.  In Dead Reckoning there are at least a handful.  My favorite is Ilsa Faust, played by Rebecca Ferguson, most recently in a crucially starring role in Silo.  Much like Bond's women, Hunt's are not only beautiful but keenly intelligent and resourceful, and they're central to events in which the narrative turns.

3. Whereas the MI team on television were invited to lend a hand in reducing or stopping significant challenges to US security, Hunt and his crew are called upon to stop challenges to the world order that verge on jeopardizing humanity itself.   In it that sense, Hunt may be even a little more than Bondian, and in Dead Reckoning he approached Terminator territory, fighting an AI menace that -- in the opinion of at least some so-called experts -- has become since 2023 the greatest threat our species has faced, and in this case engendered.

I don't share that view, but I do look very much forward to see how it all turns out on the screen in The Final Reckoning very soon.

See also Mission Impossible 6: Fallout: Better (These Days) Than Bond ... Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol

The Last of Us 2.6: Father and Daughter Flashbacks

A superb, emotionally wrenching flashback episode 2.6 of The Last of Us on Max tonight -- actually a series of flashbacks -- in which we learn why Ellie and Joel were so estranged in the opening episode of this second season.

[And I suppose there are spoilers ahead ... ]

The reason, in a nutshell, is that Joel swears to Ellie that he won't kill Eugene, who was bitten, but Ellie estimates has enough time see his beloved wife, Claire (played by Catherine O'Hara), the town's psychologist, but Joel kills Eugene anyway, then lies to Claire, saying Eugene killed himself, in front of a horrified Ellie.

Before this, we see Joel and Ellie at some of Ellie's earlier birthdays, as the two grow closer and closer together as father and daughter.   Flashbacks, if done well, can really make a series soar, as was demonstrated so brilliantly in Lost.  And this a standout episode in the second season of The Last of Us, where we already have seen the seen the immediate future to this father-and-daughter narrative:  after the two sort of reconcile as the last flashback in 2.6, Joel is tortured and killed in 2.1 by Abby, and her gang and a worse-than-horrified (too weak a word) Ellie, unable to do anything, look on.

Pedro Pascal puts in a masterful performance as Joel, as does Bella Ramsey as Ellie.  It was also great to see Joe Pantoliano back on the screen as Eugene, and Claire reading George R. Stewart's Earth Abides (made into a TV series that's pretty high up on my list of science fiction series to see).  And I really liked Ellie in the space exploration museum in the flashback that preceded the one in which Joel kills Eugene.  Getting out beyond this planet is arguably the greatest accomplishment of our species.  And it was potent indeed to see this astonishing accomplishment laid low by the fungus that has wiped most of our species.

And on that pessimistic note, I'll try to lighten the atmosphere by wishing Ellie a happy birthday.  I have a daughter, but I'm no expert on father-daughter relationships, because every one is different, not to mention that Ellie has been celebrating her birthdays in an apocalyptic nightmare of a world.  Ours certainly is no bargain these days, but we're nonetheless a lot better off on the other side of the screen than are Ellie and her cohorts.

See also The Last of Us 2.1-2.2: The Killing Cold

And see also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun ... 1.5: Tunnels ... 1.6: Joel ... 1.7: Riley's Wise Advice ... 1.8: Ellie vs. the Resort ... 1.9: The Limits of Utilitarianism

more about The Silk Code here

Law & Order Season 22 Finale: Another Prime Moral Quandary

Law & Order on NBC -- the original Law & Order -- has pretty much since the day it debuted in 1990 excelled in confronting some of the toughest ethical issues in the prosecution of crime.  Its focus on DAs, ADAs, and their assistants in the courtroom part of bringing criminals to justice could amount to a veritable MA in the ethics of criminal justice, and I'd wager that specific programs in this TV series have found their way into many a class in the John Jay College of Criminal Justice here in midtown Manhattan, a few blocks away from the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University, where I've been a Professor (at the Bronx Rose Hill Campus) about the same number of years that Law & Order has been on the air, taking into account its eleven-year hiatus from 2010-2021.

[There will be spoilers ahead ...]

And the Season 22 finale of Law & Order that aired last night provided a fine example of that ethical probing, in this case the problem of (a) if you know for a fact that someone committed multiple brutal murders over the years, but (b) the evidence via which you know this is ruled non-admissible by the judge (either thick-headed, or brilliant, or anywhere in between), is it (c) right to bend the rules, to the point of doing whatever it takes to get the guilty party off the street and behind bars or worse?

It was clear that this episode would be morally gut-punching about 30 minutes into the story, the beginning of the "Order" part, when we learn that ADA Samantha ("Sam") Maroun's sister was years ago one of the victims of the killer who would be on trial.  Executive ADA Nolan Price, who will be prosecuting the case in court, wants Sam to have a minimal role in this prosecution, but of course she doesn't, and in her zeal to see the killer brought to justice she coaches a witness to make sure he gives a conclusive ID of the suspect.  Nolan struggles with whether to let the defence attorney know.  The DA Nick Baxter subtly advises Nolan to forget that he knows what Sam did, but after agonizing over what to do, Nolan plays by rules. This in turn also of course results in the arrogant smirking killer being found not guilty.

And things only get worse from there.  Not only is killer found not guilty, he's soon shot dead.  Nolan pays Sam a visit.  He knocks on her door.  She opens it.  "Please tell me you had on nothing to do with this," Nolan says to her.  Sam, looking stricken (as she has for most of this episode), slams the door in his face.

Now the question of whether to take justice into your own hands is one which has arisen not only in crime fiction but science fiction, where the question of whether it would be right for a time traveler to kill Hitler as a baby has been considered in more than one narrative.  It would be hard to ipso facto say that course of action is out of the question, and the same is true about Sam and the man she knows brutally murdered her sister.  But I have to say I think there's a good chance that Sam didn't do it.  The parents of the latest victim were in court when their daughter's sicko killer was declared "not guilty," and they looked none too happy.  Sam's stricken look at the end of the episode (especially fine acting by Odelya Halevi as Sam and Hugh Dancy as Nolan in this episode, by the way) could well have been not one of guilt for what she did, but one of anger at Nolan for thinking she might have murdered her sister's killer.

The good thing about season rather than series finales is we'll learn more in September, when Law & Order will return for its next season.  Have a great summer!

See also Law & Order 22.16: The "Luigi Mangioni" Case

Paul Levinson interviews Tom Cooper re: Wisdom Weavers: The Lives & Thought of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan

Transcript of Complete Zoom Chat that Took Place During Interview

00:26:23 PHILIP MORAIS: Hi Tom. Hi Paul. Good to see you both.

00:32:32 Joe Kennedy: @#$%^&(!!

00:33:05 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Boa noite from São Paulo, Brazil! 🖖🌟

00:33:08 Michael McLuhan: Greetings from the Estate of Marshall McLuhan in Canada NOT THE 51ST STATE!

00:33:17 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "@#$%^&(!!" with 😁

00:33:20 Dr Greg Lewicki: Reacted to @#$%^&(!! with "😁"

00:33:23 Robin Levenson: Reacted to "Greetings from the E…" with 😂

00:33:31 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Greetings from the E..." with 😁

00:33:32 Dr Greg Lewicki: Reacted to Greetings from the E... with "😂"

00:35:01 Renee Peterson: Greetings from Australia 🇦🇺

00:35:14 jessicanicolet: Reacted to "Greetings from the E..." with ❤️

00:35:17 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Greetings from Austr..." with ❤️

00:35:51 Dr. Mary Donohue: Reacted to "Greetings from the E…" with 😂

00:35:59 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Greetings from the E..." with ❤️

00:37:03 Renee Peterson: Reacted to "Greetings from the E..." with ❤️

00:37:10 Renee Peterson: Reacted to "Boa noite from São P..." with ❤️

00:37:13 Thomas Klinkowstein: Greeting from Soho in Manhattan 🙂

00:37:17 Renee Peterson: Reacted to "Greeting from Soho i..." with ❤️

00:37:33 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Greeting from Soho i..." with ❤️

00:38:03 jessicanicolet: Reacted to "Boa noite from São P..." with ❤️

00:38:19 jessicanicolet: Reacted to "Greeting from Soho i..." with ❤️

00:38:25 jessicanicolet: Reacted to "Greetings from Austr..." with ❤️

00:38:52 Dr Greg Lewicki: Reacted to Greetings from Austr... with "❤️"

00:38:53 jessicanicolet: Howdy from Kansas

00:38:55 Dr Greg Lewicki: Reacted to Greeting from Soho i... with "❤️"

00:39:00 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Howdy from Kansas" with ❤️

00:39:06 Dr Greg Lewicki: Reacted to Howdy from Kansas with "🍻"

00:39:38 Phoebe Loew 'student': Greetings from Los Angeles!

00:39:49 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Greetings from Los A..." with 🌟

00:39:53 Renee Peterson: Reacted to "Greetings from Los A..." with ❤️

00:40:03 jessicanicolet: Reacted to "Greetings from Los A..." with ❤️

00:41:08 Dr Greg Lewicki: Reacted to Boa noite from São P... with "❤️"

00:41:45 Dr Greg Lewicki: Reacted to Greetings from Los A... with "🌟"

00:43:44 Thomas Klinkowstein: Reacted to "Greetings from Los A..." with ❤️

00:43:46 Thomas Klinkowstein: Reacted to "Howdy from Kansas" with ❤️

00:43:47 Thomas Klinkowstein: Reacted to "Greetings from Austr..." with ❤️

00:43:48 Thomas Klinkowstein: Reacted to "Greetings from the E..." with ❤️

00:43:50 Thomas Klinkowstein: Reacted to "Boa noite from São P..." with ❤️

00:43:54 Thomas Klinkowstein: Reacted to "@#$%^&(!!" with 😁

00:45:21 Howard: Greetings and salutations from Winnipeg, Manitoba where Marshall McLuhan grew up from ca. 1915 to 1934 upon graduating from the University of Manitoba to continue his studies at Cambridge University, England. Regards, Howard R. (J.) Engel, President & C.E.O. The Marshall McLuhan Initiative Inc.

00:45:32 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Greetings and saluta..." with 😲

00:50:42 Robin Levenson: Media Ecology was NEIL POSTMAN

00:51:40 Michael McLuhan, Estate of Marshall McLuhan: Regarding Gutenberg Galaxy, the contract was signed in that name in early '61 and the book was in progress from at least 1959.

00:52:04 williambuxton: Didn’t MM use a phrasing similar to media ecology somewhere?

00:52:36 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Media Ecology was NE..." with 🤔

00:53:17 Renee Peterson: Thank you for discussion on ‘media ecology’ I am currently finishing my final edits of my literature review for my PhD thesis featuring media ecology + celebrity + social media influencers + traditional media personality. I am now thinking about my chapter on media ecology.

00:53:42 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Thank you for discus..." with 👏

00:55:00 Michael Grabowski’s iPhone: Our brains fill in the gaps from incomplete perceptions

00:56:33 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Replying to "Thank you for discus..."

How great Renee! I'd like to read your PhD thesis as soon as it's ready. fabiolachechetto@gmail.com

00:56:57 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Our brains fill in t..." with 👍

00:57:11 Renee Peterson: Reacted to "How great Renee! I'd..." with ❤️

00:57:56 Renee Peterson: Replying to "Thank you for discus..."

Thank you! Fingers crossed submitted this year and finalised. Can you please connect with me via LinkedIn? https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-peterson/

00:58:46 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Thank you! Fingers c..." with ❤️

00:59:28 Robin Levenson: Neil was my teacher & head of my dissertation committee  & I believe he said he came up with Media Ecology to name our Dept.

00:59:49 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Replying to "Thank you for discus..."

I don't have any social networks (I'm from the 19th century), but I'll save this link of yours. Thanks :)

01:00:10 Renee Peterson: Replying to "Thank you for discus..."

no worries - here is my email: renee.peterson@me.com please connect

01:00:20 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Neil was my teacher ..." with 😲

01:00:30 Dr Greg Lewicki: Reacted to Thank you for discus... with "👍"

01:00:38 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "no worries - here is..." with ❤️

01:01:15 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Replying to "Thank you for discus..."

Got it! I finished my PhD last year and it will be a pleasure to talk to you!

01:01:15 Howard: AI is " A-1" according the U.S. Secretary of Education because we have so much stake in it. -- HR(J)E

01:01:50 Renee Peterson: Reacted to "Got it! I finished m..." with ❤️

01:01:59 Renee Peterson: Replying to "Thank you for discus..."

Congratulations! Amazing!

01:02:27 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "AI is " A-1" accordi..." with 🤖

01:02:28 Dr Greg Lewicki: Replying to "AI is " A-1" accordi..." 

 Absolutely. I work with military forecasters on that issue and it will be - already is - a multiplier of state power

01:03:36 Robin Levenson: Replying to "Thank you for discus…"

Yes, I finished mine in 2007 but feels like yesterday…..

01:03:51 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Congratulations! Ama..." with ❤️

01:03:55 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Yes, I finished mine..." with ❤️

01:04:14 Dr Greg Lewicki: Reacted to AI is " A-1" accordi... with "🤖"

01:05:30 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Replying to "Thank you for discus..."

(The truth is: it ‘never’ ends, because we keep wanting to learn... the research bug is contagious...)

01:05:39 Renee Peterson: Reacted to "(The truth is: it ‘n..." with 😂

01:06:08 Robin Levenson: Reacted to "(The truth is: it ‘n…" with 😂

01:08:21 John Donovan: Reacted to "(The truth is: it ‘n..." with 😂

01:13:25 Gabriel Kennedy: Replying to "Thank you for discus..."

How much of an influence was Joyce on McLuhan?

01:14:24 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "How much of an influ..." with 📚

01:16:25 williambuxton: Replying to "Thank you for discus..."

big! particularly Finnegans Wake.

01:17:01 Michael McLuhan, Estate of Marshall McLuhan: Reacted to "big! particularly Fi..." with 🎉

01:17:56 williambuxton: Replying to "Thank you for discus..."

Innis gave MM’s Mechanical Bride as an Xmas present to his son.

01:18:22 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Innis gave MM’s Mech..." with 😲

01:18:28 Tripp Whetsell: Replying to "Thank you for discus..."

What was your biggest surprise about McLuhan in terms of new discoveries while writing this book and were there any particularly formidable hurdles you had to overcome in writing it?

01:18:38 Dr Greg Lewicki: Quantum computing will boost AI. No opposition between the two here :)

01:20:30 williambuxton: Did you have much contact with A.J. Watson when doing your PhD?

01:27:44 Laura Trujillo: Congratulations to both!! This interview was great!!

01:28:16 Dr Greg Lewicki: Thank you for the invitation and insightful interview! I have to succumb to 3AM momentum in Europe. My utmost pleasure, let's stay in touch via LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grzegorzlewicki 

best regards, Greg

01:29:11 Prof. Paul Levinson: Thanks for attending this event, Greg!

01:29:18 Dr Greg Lewicki: Reacted to Thanks for attending... with "❤️"

01:30:04 Renee Peterson: Congratulations @tomcooper - this was amazing! Very insightful and inspiring! Thank you @Prof. Paul Levinson  for the invitation - I look forward to watching the recording of the questions. I am off to teach at The University of Melbourne. It was great to see familiar faces and new faces! Please feel free to connect with me via LinkedIn. Have a great day or evening!

01:31:06 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Congratulations @tom..." with ❤️

01:31:36 Prof. Paul Levinson: Thanks for coming by, Renee!

01:33:01 David Nostbakken: A mater class, Tom! Would loved to have been your student. Looking forward to your full book. Good on you. Unfortunately I have another session at 9:00 and must step away.

01:33:11 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "A mater class, Tom! ..." with ❤️

01:36:33 Joe Kennedy: For anyone looking for the Raise Hand, Click Reactions on the bottom and there's an option.

01:36:52 williambuxton: Innis’s daughter Anne often remarked on her fathers

01:36:53 Joe Kennedy: Not very intuitive IMO.

01:36:55 Prof. Paul Levinson: Thanks for coming to our interview, Laura — and thanks for all the promotion!

01:37:07 Laura Trujillo: Reacted to "Thanks for coming to…" with 👌

01:38:40 williambuxton: Fathers good sense of humour. This comes across in his correspondence

01:39:57 Michael Grabowski’s iPhone: Reacted to "Our brains fill in t…" with 👍

01:44:01 williambuxton: Very enjoyable! I look  forward to seeing the book. I have to go.

01:45:45 Gabriel Kennedy: Thank you for hosting this great conversation Paul. Best of luck with the book, Tom. It sounds like a great read.

01:46:28 Prof. Paul Levinson: Thanks for coming by, Gabriel!

01:49:41 Howard: As McLuhan said "There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew."

01:51:07 franklobuono@optonline.net LoBuono: It's tough enough for me!! LOL

01:52:00 Prof. Paul Levinson: Reacted to "As McLuhan said "The..." with 👍

01:52:36 Morgan Stone: I have to head out, but thank you so much for the talk! It was very insightful, and has been a fascinating conversation. Have a great evening!

01:52:36 Michael McLuhan, Estate of Marshall McLuhan: There is a McLuhan for young adults: Marshall McLuhan Wise Guy by Judith Fitzgerald . It is very good.

01:53:04 Prof. Paul Levinson: Thanks for coming to our interview, Morgan!

01:53:50 Prof. Paul Levinson: Replying to "There is a McLuhan f..."

Thanks — good to know!

01:54:46 Michael McLuhan, Estate of Marshall McLuhan: Replying to "There is a McLuhan f..."

Great job here Paul. Great book Tom! I must check out though.....

01:55:35 Howard: Another good title along these lines is W. Terrence Gordon's "McLuhan for Beginners" (2012)

01:56:28 Four Arrows, aka Don Jacobs: I think it would be useful to have Marshall here today. He did not hire me after my making it to his top three candidates in Marin County. He told me there was only on reason that was full of many possible reasons (or words to that effect.) He had asked me how many hours I slept each night and I told him, as an athlete, I sleep an average of 8 hours.  He said he did not think I would work out. I thought at first it was about work hours, but do you think it was that it’s also possible he saw 8 hours of sleep as a sign of being too "normal" or perhaps not radically committed enough. He surrounded himself with people who were intensely driven—sometimes to a fault, perhaps, but, I wish he were part of our team today!

01:57:59 franklobuono@optonline.net LoBuono: This was terrific!! So nice to meet everyone!! :)

01:58:32 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "This was terrific!! ..." with 😎

01:58:38 Kathy Merlock Jackson: Thanks for an enlightening interview and discussion.

01:58:51 Prof. Paul Levinson: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DM4GZ99J/ref=nosim/?tag=dexter2a-20

01:59:10 Matthew Lindia: Thanks! Great interview and insights!

01:59:42 Thomas Klinkowstein: Thank you Tom and Paul. A wonderful 90 minutes!

01:59:49 franklobuono@optonline.net LoBuono: Reacted to "Thank you Tom and Pa..." with 👍

01:59:52 Four Arrows, aka Don Jacobs: Thanks Tom , fourarrows73@gmail.com  or fourarrowsbooks.com

01:59:52 Prof. Paul Levinson: Thanks Tom!

01:59:58 tomcooper: Replying to "Thank you Tom and Pa..."

twcooper@comcast.net

02:00:08 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "twcooper@comcast.net" with 🖖

02:00:29 tomcooper: Tom Cooper  twcooper@comcast.net

02:00:45 PHILIP MORAIS: Replying to "Thank you Tom and Pa..."

Great talk.

02:00:46 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Muito agradecida! Grazie!!! Thanks 🙂 Great conversation. 📚

02:01:08 franklobuono@optonline.net LoBuono: Perfetto!!!!

02:01:19 Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto: Reacted to "Perfetto!!!!" with 😎

02:01:34 Michael Helm: Thanks so much for doing this and hope for more!

02:01:36 Howard: Many thanks fo a most enlightening and engaging evening.  Congratulations to Tom for a total de force of a book on two of Canada's world class thinkers! -- HR(J)E

Gary Gumpert's 1960 Gutenberg Galaxy, Featuring Marshall McLuhan, Harley Parker, and Robert Shafer

At the Gary Gumpert memorial organized by Lance Strate at The Players in Manhattan late last night: yours truly, Joshua Meyrowitz, Lance, Ed Wachtel, Susan Drucker, Thom Gencarelli (with Mark Twain and others in the back); photo by Michael Grabowski

I saw Gary Gumpert's 1960 Gutenberg Galaxy last night (April 29) at the Memorial Event for Gumpert (who left us late last year at the age of 91) organized by Lance Strate (sponsored by the Institute of General Semantics) at The Players in Manhattan.  The 30-minute black-and-white discussion between Marshall McLuhan, Harley Parker, and Robert Shafer of course is primitive -- but, hey, it had no AI, which should make some people happy (sorry, had to throw that in) -- and is easy enough to laugh at.  A TV on a stand is made to roll in, apparently of its own accord.  A single overburdened camera is made to do all the work.  But the conversation, particularly the things Marshall had to say, the comments he continually made ... well, they were more than enough for me to say this recondite bit of television is an outright, not to be missed, masterpiece.

McLuhan was 49 years old.  Much younger than I am now, just a few years older than my son is now.  His hair was jet black and his tongue was golden.  He had most of the pieces already in place that would populate every book and essay he would soon be writing.  He talked a lot about the global village.  And this was 1960, two years before the launch of the Telstar telecom satellite in 1962 that some people thought gave him the idea for his mini-essay on the global village that would appear in one of his two breakthrough books, entitled The Gutenberg Galaxy, that would appear that same year, in 1962, and would become (along with "the medium is the message" in Understanding Media in 1964) one of his two best-known "probes" (as he liked to call the brilliant insights that poured out of his mind), and indeed was recognized by scholars like me (see my Digital McLuhan in 1999) as nearly literally prescient about the Internet age.  He talked about ear-man vs. eye-man, a lesser-known but key probe he would come to call "acoustic space".  I recall walking down the street with him near the University of Toronto, must have been around 1978, when a glitzy car drove by with 1950s-style fins -- might have been a Chevy Impala -- and he looked at me with that trademark twinkle in his eyes and said, "you know, the automobile retrieves the knight in shining armor".  He didn't say that in Gutenberg Galaxy, the show Gary Gumpert directed, or in The Gutenberg Galaxy, the book McLuhan wrote, but the 30-minute televised conversation teemed with that kind of nonchalant genius that Marshall McLuhan was justly known for.  (I say "justly," because many self-appointed media "experts" who either were too jealous or lazy, or maybe just too creaky in their thinking, professed to not understand a single phrase that McLuhan so seemingly effortlessly produced.)

There does remain the question of who came up with the "Gutenberg Galaxy" phrase, Gumpert or McLuhan?  Gary Gumpert once told me point blank that he not Mcluhan had come up with that title.  I actually got to know McLuhan in person in the late 1970s a lot better than I ever knew Gumpert, and I regret that I never put the question to McLuhan in our many New York and Toronto meetings.  Thus, my final judgement on that question right now is:  I don't know.

But I do know that I hope the world, our 2025 world, gets to see Gumpert's Gutenberg Galaxy as soon as possible.  It's already been digitized.  Let's see it up on YouTube ASAP.

***

Two of my books about McLuhan: Digital McLuhan and McLuhan in Age of Social Media

McLuhan calls me after I sent him my doctoral dissertation, Human Replay: A Theory of the Evolution of Media

More about the Gumpert Memorial and the Institute of General Semantics

Published today: Tom Cooper's Wisdom Weavers: The Lives and Thoughts of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan