The physicist and McLuhan collaborator (co-author of "The Alphabet Effect") who appears in dialogue 39 through two things Bob holds against him and for him: a strangely optimistic letter written the day McLuhan died, and a project to transcribe McLuhan's marginalia at the University of Toronto's Fisher library.
Across the dialogues
Introduced through two documents — the letter written the day McLuhan died and the Fisher marginalia project — the associate keeping the McLuhan archive in motion
Bob holds a letter Logan wrote on December 31, 1980, predicting McLuhan would soon be "back in public functioning" — a note Bob calls "incredibly optimistic or lying."
"I have a letter by Logan written on the day McLuhan died. So that's December 31st, 1980. And Logan's writing to somebody who's inquiring about McLuhan and… when can we see him, what's going to happen? And Logan's saying… He's great. He'll be probably back in public functioning in a few months or two."
Logan has students copying McLuhan's marginalia at the Fisher Rare Book Library — the aggregation of McLuhan's Wake commentary Cameron says ought to be transcribed.
"Logan has students, and they go into the Fisher Rare Book Library, and they're copying down, annotating or whatever, all the annotations of all the books going through the library."
Connections
McLuhan's physicist collaborator; wrote the day-of-death letter and runs the marginalia-transcription project.
his students are copying McLuhan's annotations of the Wake at the Fisher Rare Book Library.