McLuhan, RSS, and Dinosaurs
It's interesting to me that McLuhan stuck with the "massage" print because as I was reading the book I could feel my anxiety growing and growing. I started to feel like information was traveling too fast, like a top about to spin off of a table. Even the book itself is a fast read. I found myself turning the pages so fast that I was sure I had missed some key point or message or massage.
I wonder why I feel so agitated by my own inability to control all of the information zipping around the globe. Maybe it's the modernist in my struggling to cope with a postmodern world. I've actually given up on RSS feeds because each time I open up a browser there's forty more texts to encounter. The number sits there in my toolbar like a little reminder that there's forty tasks I have not yet accomplished. It doesn't clue me in to new information. Instead, it's a constant reminder of how much is passing me by. I'm reminded of a daytime talk show where they took a dude's blackberry away from him. After just a few hours he broke down in tears. Seriously, a grown man was weeping because he couldn't check his email. His life was passing him by.
All this talk makes me feel like a dinosaur. I'm 29 for Pete's sake! Goddamn whippersnappers, hooligans, and rabblerousers!
Comments
Fast or Slow, McLuhan Reads You Too
I already had this book for awhile, and must say it's a different read when it's not for a class. It's no secret that we read fast when books are for class, for a variety of understandable reasons. However, it's a book that despite its appearant ease really rewards a slow read. It may seem to encourage a quick one-- not a lot of actual text-- but that's the result of privilaging words to a certain extent. It's quite the experience when you slow down and really ponder the textual/visual juxtapositions. "A study in juxtapositions" would have been a great subtitle for this book! Stopping to consider the visual conventions of the book will certainly slow you down and possibly reduce the anxiety. I'm not saying you didn't do this, I'm just trying to highlight that the book kinda reads us in the way we choose to read it. Pretty nifty, methinks.