The French composer and musique concrète pioneer, invoked here as McLuhan's interlocutor in a Paris dialogue conducted through translators. Bob relays the encounter as comic cross-purposes — Schaeffer "projecting at McLuhan" — but its payoff is McLuhan's self-description as an "esoteric observer." New to it — start with dialogue 27. (Distinct from the Canadian composer Murray Schafer.)
Across the dialogues
Enters as McLuhan's Parisian foil — the cross-purposes dialogue where, projected at by the Frenchman, McLuhan defines himself against mysticism as an "esoteric observer"
Bob reads the McLuhan–Schaeffer dialogue as talking past each other — Schaeffer projecting rather than listening, the translation layer ("Derek" for McLuhan, a woman for the Frenchman) compounding the comedy.
"But Schaeffer doesn't seem too interested in getting what McLuhan saying, and he's projecting at McLuhan."Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 27 (24 Jun 2021), 22:57
The encounter's payoff — pressed by Schaeffer, McLuhan draws the line that Cameron then reads back through the event horizon: not a mystic but a "special kind of observer that knows he's coming from the event horizon."
"But then McLuhan said, well, I'm not a mystic. I'm an esoteric observer."Marshall McLuhan, read by Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 27 (24 Jun 2021), 23:04
Connections
A Paris dialogue between McLuhan and the French Schaeffer, each speaking through a translator, in which McLuhan calls himself an "esoteric observer."
De Kerckhove ("Derek") translated for McLuhan in the encounter; a woman translated for Schaeffer.