Episode 203 – Distant Early Warnings: A Return to Marshall McLuhan's 'Book of Probes'

About this episode

The episode revisits a previous gimmick of randomly selecting aphorisms from Marshall McLuhan's 'Book of Probes' to spark a lively discussion on various themes.

Back in episode 112, Phil and JF devised a gimmick for a show: randomly select one of the many aphorisms in The Book of Probes, a compendium of Marshall McLuhan’s prophetic quips designed by David Carson, and see what happens. It proved lively enough that they’re trying it again nearly a hundred episodes later. The resulting conversation touches the weird across a range of themes: tourism, the two kinds of truth, advertising, Kubrick’s marketing savvy, technology, orality versus literacy, and much more. A fitting feast for the mind as the year draws to a close. From all of us at Weird Studies, happy holidays. • Sign up for JF Martel and Erik Davis's upcoming course on Moby-Dick. • Join Phil, JF, and composer Pierre-Yves Martel for Weirdosphere's Solstice Story Hour on December 21. • For dates, venues, and the full slate of Weird Academia events in Bloomington this January, visit the Centre for Possible Minds website. • To participate in the Weird Academia Colloquium, email organizers Emma Stamm and Michael Garfield at elfthoughts@gmail.com Header Image: NASA. REFERENCES Marshall McLuhan, Distant Early Warning Deck Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain Plato, The Seventh Letter Marshall…

People in this episode

Hosts: Phil, JF

Topics covered

• Marshall McLuhan
• aphorisms
• advertising
• technology
• orality versus literacy
• tourism
• truth

Keywords

• Distant Early Warnings
• Weird Studies
• Weird Academia
• Solstice Story Hour
• Moby-Dick

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Moby-Dick course, Weirdosphere's Solstice Story Hour

Books & works: Distant Early Warnings: A Return to Marshall McLuhan's ', Book of Probes, The Book of Probes, Moby-Dick, Solstice Story Hour, The Magic Mountain Plato, The Seventh Letter Marshall McLuhan, Against the Machine, A Secular Age, The Republic

Places: Bloomington

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