McLuhan's Cake

Last night, on the occasion of Marshall McLuhan's 100th birthday, I had the exciting/daunting honour of addressing a gathering of family and admirers of his, arranged by the McLuhan Legacy Network.

It was quite a time! Some highlights:

Michael McLuhan gave an intimate talk about his father which included some amazing family photos. He also shared his feelings about the various McLuhan biographies: he was particularly perplexed/vexed by Douglas Coupland's recent Penguin volume, expressed some admiration for Philip Marchand's bio, and reserved the highest praise for W. Terence Gordon's 'Escape Into Understanding', which I will read asap.

He then introduced his older brother Eric, who he described as the only living person who really knows the answers to the multitude of questions the world may have about Marshall McLuhan's work.

Eric was presented with a surprise award for stewardship of his father's legacy, and he, in turn, presented John Ralston Saul with the inaugural Gutenberg Galaxy Award.

John Ralston Saul's speech was wide-ranging, fascinating, and a bit controversial, if my conversations with folks afterward were any indication. He made sure to defend Douglas Coupland a couple of times (after all, it was a book he commissioned), and took some (thrilling!) potshots at business schools...but I was a little distracted, because I had to follow him.

In the end, it went well I think. My new haircut helped bolster the old confidence.

Here's what I said:

*****

Good evening, everyone.

For the past decade, I've been a broadcast professional, though I'd prefer to call myself a (radio) amateur.
My current gig at the CBC is Director and Writer at Q with Jian Ghomeshi, which is ostensibly a radio show...but one that has quickly become a rather popular multi-platform concern.

And though I love radio, there are millions of people who have enjoyed our show without any way of receiving our FM signal.

That was unheard of when I got my first job 10 years ago.

I became a member of the McLuhan Legacy Network completely by chance, when I returned a voicemail message from someone on the committee who was searching for archival material.
It was the first I had heard of the centenary, and on that phone call, my brain and my tongue simultaneously said, 'I'd like to help with that'.

With that tiny explosion, I re-established a connection with one of the most important, most inspiring voices I'd ever heard.

Since then, I've worked to encourage the CBC - my employer - to ensure that Marshall McLuhan would have a presence on our airwaves and in our building this summer.

And I think I did OK. I know I did my best. As a stay at home father of three for the past few months, I've lived the dream of working remotely on this project...

...just the way Prof. McLuhan said I would. Using this mobile machine.

And it's thrilling to be 're-embodied' with everyone at the events this week...and in this room tonight.
All by chance, and maybe by synapse.

My introduction to Marshall McLuhan can also be attributed to chance, that flinty, yet elusive character.
It was December 1996. I was in Kingston Ontario, wrapping up a Bachelor of Arts at Queen's University.

And I was trapped in an academic vortex. I was supposed to have found myself by now. But I had no idea where I was.

I worked at the campus radio station and I did well in creative writing, but you couldn't major in either of those.

I realize now, that 15 years ago, the people who were really in the know were into ...computers.

But my own personal device was a restored 1940s Remington portable typewriter - love that infinite battery life and built-in printer!

...and my favourite haunts were record shops and bookstores.

And it was in one of these haunts of mine that I found a book like no other.

The Medium is the Massage.

It was my way 'in', and it was a tantalizing beginning.

Pow! Here's why you love radio!

Wham! Here's why you love books!

Feelin' a little...out of sorts? Could be that 'all at once-ness...!'

Here's why you might occasionally get the distinct impression that we're all going to hell in a handbasket - except we're not, really...or, not right away...

I'm paraphrasing, can you tell?

And...as long as you're working to achieve understanding, nothing is inevitable.

Those things you don't dig?
Don't poo-poo them, don't ignore them, don't deride them...get inside them, look for the buttons!
The...buttons!

For the first time, I could see the water I was swimming in.

And once you see it, you don't un-see it. Though you do forget from time to time.

Marshall McLuhan's wisdom was portable, accessible, and it lacked the academic strictures under which I had laboured - OK, occasionally laboured - for the previous four years.

And though I eventually joined the CBC, I could just as easily have become a teacher.

McLuhan's work didn't necessarily drive me into the media business - it did much more.
It woke me up to what was really happening, and helped me understand why it made me feel the way it did.

And from then on, I could occasionally glance away from the rearview mirror, and down the road ahead.
I'm now a father of three children under the age of 8...just a guy who takes the train to work...and home again.

And my relationship to Marshall McLuhan's work is only deepening as I realize that I have no idea how immersive my children's worlds will be as they grow up.

But I know I'll do all I can to make sure they can see the water they're swimming in.
I'm confident.

Because, you see, I've packed up some probes in my old kit bag.

And I'm grateful for the life of Marshall McLuhan.

Thank you.

Brand New Starts Ain't Just For Day 1s

Sure, day 1s and Mondays are fine times to get it together and try again...

...So are early mornins, before you speak a single word.

New Year's Day is a fine time for it too.

And Labour Day's like a new year's day. You can start over or buckle down on a big thing.

But our muscles are always ready for pullin, as surely on a Tuesday as on Monday. As surely in the middle of the afternoon as first thing in the morn.

A shower can help clean the slate, but a mere breath, a loosening grip can do the same.

Everything can change now. For as long as you can roll with it.

The mistakes are supposed to happen.

Cuz renewal is glorious. Nobody should be spared.

Begin fresh again as many times as you can between right now and whenever it's all done.

As many times as you can in a day, on a walk, as you enter, and when you leave.

@BanffNP's Wildlife Cameras: What is the Meaning of This? (I Ask, Nicely, in a Totally Non-Confrontational Way)

This past week, thanks to the Twitter, I came across this new video montage created by Parks Canada...

...It's a time-lapse video of a year in the life of one of their (relatively new) wildlife cameras, set up throughout Banff National Park, and tended now and then by the rangers.

I love it, right down to the well-chosen Creative Commons Soundtrack.

Not only is it compelling, fly-on-a-tree-trunk viewing for the nature lover (ahem), but it's a fascinating glimpse at the possible applications of 'watching' wild animals in this way.

Granted, it's kind of ominous, too. Urban/suburban/semi-rural humans are already under surveillance 24/7...and we now extend the honour to the animals? There's ecological value to the surveillance project, though...and park rangers hardly conjure suspicious feelings in me, so, OK.

Plus, Parks Canada refers to it as a 'privileged view', which is rather poetic, I reckon.

But it put me in mind, as so many things do, of something Marshall McLuhan said.  It was during a TV debate with Norman Mailer that I reviewed prior to including it in a program of public screenings celebrating the centenary of his birth this month at the CBC Broadcasting Centre in Toronto.  With the launch of Earth-orbiting satellites, McLuhan said:

'The planet is no longer nature. It's no longer the external world. It's now the content of an artwork. Nature has ceased to exist.'

(By the way...this part of the debate is also transcribed, to different ends, in Jeet Heer's recent, invigorating article in the Walrus, too: http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2011.07-media-divine-inspiration/1/)

Yes, yes...the content of an artwork, in this case, one courtesy of Parks Canada, with the intention of fascinating us, giving us the 'courage' to sit in complete safety before our screens, while a predatory cat saunters by in the dead of night, eyes ablaze.

Engaging us in the notion of nature, employing a language (surveillance), and an editing style that even the most citified soul can find a way into.

Would we stream a live feed of one of these b&w cameras in hopes of spotting a moose by chance? Not likely. It wouldn't come close to conjuring the sensory experience of the real thing.

It's in the midst of the voyeuristic excitement of watching a montage of wild things be wild that I realize - yes, something has been lost: The idea of that place where a tree falls, and there is nobody around to hear it.

But it's already happened, it was underway decades ago...and it's still... happening. Satellites swarming; cameras in the trees.

It's a privileged view.