Culture Is Our Business by Marshall McLuhan - came into the shop a few weeks back, then sat there behind the counter with a note from me to The Boss saying I was interested in it - finally he let me have it. Perks of the job. Not that I understand everything McLuhan says (who does? Cultural critics - OK) but it's the way he says what he does in a partly-prophetic reading of the culture...I s'pose...and maybe if you understood everything he said, you'd be him (or much smarter than me, which isn't difficult). Scanned a few pages for you...
Well, I would choose one featuring the typewriter.
We're all inside the 'new media' today...like so many odd socks tumbling around whilst the spin dry cycle of non-stop news shrinks our brains. But isn't it supposed to expand our knowledge? I dunno, but the more I think about the internet and it's effects on us the more I think it's harmful - yes, you - all-dayers and nighters trapped in the online world - I tell you - it ain't no good.
But, yes, yes, I know about and have benefited greatly from the good side of online life - contacts established, work gained - yes, but I'm from the bridging generation, who knew life before the internet therefore can exercise restraint, not being born into it. Talk about 'soft' brain...talk about 'rewiring'...I tell you, my concentration is damaged (but not quite broken) from all this scrolling, so I know the addicted must only be able to see info as a flickering succession of the briefest snippets. Never mind what goes on, what they ingest, from dangerous extremism to the pernicious influencers, the preening narcissists.
Meanwhile, I sit at the typewriter and do things like this...
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| RTomens, 2022 |
...you could say...I might think...that my Vispo is a result of so much...online word sewage, spat back out in the form of Visual Poetry - mebbe - but more likely I...just got into both Vispo and typewriters a few years ago...and here we are...
TTFN
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