In-Depth Two-Part Interview about Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan

Here's the two-part interview Andrey Mir recently did with me about Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan.  I was Postman's student, and I wrote two books about McLuhan, as well as organized the one and only conference about the Tetrad.   

The Mosquito Coast 2.4: Motion Pictures on the Cave Wall

I've been watching and enjoying this second season of The Mosquito Coast on Apple TV+, but haven't had a chance to review more than the first episode.  Episode 2.4, however, was just too good not to review, or at least offer a few words about ...

First, let me just say, I really liked that scene with Dina and Adopho in the cave, with that vintage motion picture showing on one of the walls.  It reminded me of a paper my old friend and erstwhile colleague Ed Wachtel at Fordham University wrote back in the early 1990s -- "The First Picture Show: Cinematic Aspects of Cave Art" -- in which he theorized that the prehistoric art that depicted various animals in the caves in Lascaux, France were actually motion pictures brought to animation by the flicker of prehistoric lamps that burned fat.  That possibility always struck me as plausible, and I'm wondering if Adolpho was watching motion pictures in a way that was common in Mexico, and maybe other countries as well?  If it is, and Wachtel was right, that would be an example of a prehistoric custom evolving and surviving into our current world.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Otherwise, the story in episode 2.4 was riveting but not very plausible.  I get why Margot wants to leave Allie and take the kids back to the U.S., but surely she knows that Allie is right -- she would end up in prison here in the U.S. more quickly than anyone else in her family.  Also, I don't think she's given Allie quite enough credit for saving everyone in the family's lives, more than once, including hers.

Also, as long as I'm being critical, I'd like to see the story move a little more quickly.  We've already been introduced to William, the unflappable assassin, and we know how dangerous he is.  I look forward to his getting into range of the Foxes a little faster.  I mean, I know that they'll triumph -- at least I hope so -- and it will be fun to see how they do that.

See also The Mosquito Coast 2.1: Thirteen Years Ago

And see also The Mosquito Coast 1.1-2: Edgy, Attractive, Enlightened, and Important ... The Mosquito Coast 1.3: Broadening Horizons ... The Mosquito Coast 1.4: Charlie and the Gun ... The Mosquito Coast 1.5: Charlie and the Gun, Part II ... The Mosquito Coast 1.6: What Kind of Brother? ... The Mosquito Coast season 1 finale: I'm Well Bitten

Eric McLuhan: The Pot Roast and the Jokes

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.