A McLuhan scholar and York University professor, co-editor with Eric McLuhan of the anthology Essential McLuhan, and a personal acquaintance of Bob's. Bob's estimate is pointedly mixed — he calls Zingrone McLuhan's "worst student," faulted for reading him too literally, yet credits him as the one other person to see McLuhan overwriting Jung's unconscious. New to the figure — start with dialogue 31 for the Essential McLuhan editorship and Bob's ambivalence.
Across the dialogues
The friendship traced — the young MIT professor who befriended William Irwin Thompson and turned to McLuhan after the 1965 MIT lecture
The biographical entry point — Zingrone and William Irwin Thompson met as young MIT professors and were drawn to McLuhan together after his 1965 MIT lecture, a friendship through which Zingrone later got Thompson a post at York.
"They were friends when they both got more interested in McLuhan in 1965 when McLuhan visited MIT and gave a lecture."
The ambivalent editor — the man Bob calls McLuhan's "worst student," faulted for taking him too literally, yet the one who put out Essential McLuhan with Eric
The credential and the ambivalence in one breath — Zingrone edited Essential McLuhan with Eric McLuhan, the standard reader, yet Bob insists "he didn't understand McLuhan" and only "got the gig."
"he worked with Eric to put out the Essential McLuhan book he got the gig he didn't understand McLuhan but he got the gig"
Glimpsed personally — the scholar who would not go to conferences and "hated people giving papers"
A personal-acquaintance detail — Bob knew Zingrone directly; the scholar refused the academic circuit, "hated people giving papers and all this stuff."
"I remember Zingrone telling me that he would not go to conferences."
Kept as an interlocutor — one of the few Bob "had a lot of good conversation with," who "struggled with it"
Zingrone kept as one of Bob's direct interlocutors on the material — a fellow reader who, in Bob's telling, "struggled with it."
"I had a lot of good conversation with Zingrone about it. He struggled with it."
Granted his due — named the only other reader to notice McLuhan creating "a new meaning for the unconscious," going past Jung
Zingrone's vindication — for all Bob's low estimate, he names Zingrone the only other reader to notice McLuhan remaking the unconscious, going past Jung toward the technology-as-archetype move.
"he's the only other guy who's noticing that McLuhan creating a new meaning for the unconscious."
Promoted from a name in the Toronto orbit to a source Bob builds on and then measures himself against — one italicized sentence of Zingrone's supplies the formula for the page being read, and Bob accepts the formula while rejecting the fifth-law ambition it came out of
Zingrone enters as a witness to the teaching problem rather than as a theorist — the report that Understanding Media had stopped landing is what the session's whole argument about examples and principles is answering.
"Frank Zingrone of York University told me that he couldn't really interest his students in the book Understanding Media because none of the students had any experience of the older analog media."
The passage Bob prizes locates change precisely where attention fails, which is why he can read it as a statement about involuntary ESP rather than about ignorance.
"This ignorance of the Cosmic Awareness aspects of any medium of communication is where action and change occur, particularly as one moves from one medium to another."
The three italicized words the second half of the session runs on — Zingrone's answer to whether one form-content relationship holds across all media, which Bob takes over whole and Cameron traces back to Nietzsche.
"Content consumes form."
The sentence is given its provenance — not a stray observation but the residue of a formal bid to extend the Tetrad, which is what lets Bob keep the formula while discarding the project.
"Frank's quotation is a result of the efforts Zingrone was making in the late 80s to come up with a fifth Laws of Media."
Bob's verdict separates the find from the ambition — content-consuming form is real and post-McLuhan, but it does not have the standing of a law, which is exactly the distinction he wants for his own coinages.
"he ends up with the fusion principle as the fifth law. But Zingrone also was trying to describe new things that McLuhan missed. This whole feature of content-consuming form is an aspect, but it's not the fifth law."
Connections
Co-editor, with Eric McLuhan, of the anthology Essential McLuhan.
Longtime friend and colleague; the two met as young professors and Zingrone later got Thompson a post at York.
His lifelong subject — the man Bob calls McLuhan's "worst student" who nonetheless edited the canon and, in Bob's telling, saw McLuhan go past Jung.