The avant-garde rock musician (Don Van Vliet), whose 1969 album Trout Mask Replica (produced by Zappa) Bob ranks "one of the top albums of all time." Bob invokes a period interview of Beefheart's as unwittingly media-ecological, and reads Beefheart's blunt perception of McLuhan as a model of childlike, anti-environmental seeing. New to it — start with dialogue 27.
Across the dialogues
Enters as an accidental media ecologist — a Beefheart interview on trading Van Gogh for Cadillacs, and a one-word verdict on McLuhan, become Bob's figures for perceptual change and the anti-environment
Bob takes a Beefheart interview line as unwitting media ecology — trading the contemplation of Van Gogh (the Gutenberg arts) for driving Cadillacs is a wholesale change of "aesthetic experience," not a matter of taste.
"I don't know why people gave up looking at Van Gogh paintings and started driving around in Cadillacs."
Beefheart's one-word verdict on McLuhan — "he's tall" — becomes Bob's model of childlike, anti-environmental perception: registering the plain outsized fact that everyone else's frame filters out.
"That's the anti-environment, being tall."
Connections
Beefheart's 1969 Trout Mask Replica, which Bob rates among the top albums of all time, was produced by Zappa.
Bob turns a Beefheart interview into a media-ecological text and reads Beefheart's "he's tall" as anti-environmental perception.