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."Captain Beefheart, read by Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 27 (24 Jun 2021), 38:58
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."Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 27 (24 Jun 2021), 41:27
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.