Administrator of McLuhan's Monday-night coach-house seminars and, from around 1972, McLuhan's first aide — succeeding Marshall's brother Maurice in the role. For Bob he is a fixture of the seminar years: the man who handed him an unpublished McLuhan interview transcript (preserved by Marge Stewart), and who regarded Bob's self-appointed archivist maneuvering with lasting suspicion. Distinct from the cultural philosopher William Irwin Thompson, to whom the bare surname "Thompson" refers elsewhere in the series.
Across the dialogues
The conduit — hands Bob the unpublished McLuhan interview transcript Marge Stewart kept
An unpublished McLuhan interview transcript — the Marge Stewart–preserved David Sohn interview — reached Bob through George Thompson.
"I got a transcript that Marge Stewart did, and George gave it to me, George Thompson."
Given a biography and a grievance he never voiced — art student under Harley Parker, then ROM colleague, then the man Bob says did Counterblast's design and told him nobody around McLuhan understood him
His route into the circle is traced through Parker rather than the university, which is what puts him in the room without any standing to speak in it.
"George was an art student, and he was a student of Harley's at school at the art college in Toronto. And then he was an employee at the Royal Ontario Museum with Harley, working under Harley. And that's how he met McLuhan, through Harley meeting McLuhan."
The private verdict Bob says he was given — and the reason Bob reads Thompson's reticence as irritation rather than deference.
"There ain't anybody here, Bob, that understands Marshall. And he felt that he did."
An independent sighting that matches Bob's account from the outside — the same silence, read by someone who had no access to what was behind it.
"When I met George in Nova Scotia, he was very sort of reticent."
Connections
Administrator of McLuhan's coach-house seminars and, from around 1972, his first aide — succeeding Marshall's brother Maurice in the role.
Handed Bob the unpublished McLuhan interview transcript that Marge Stewart had preserved.