McLuhan's 1951 first book, subtitled Folklore of Industrial Man — ads and comic strips read as the folklore of an industrial culture. Bob returns to it as the moralizing "early" McLuhan against which the detached 1960s figure is measured, as an homage to Giedion's interdisciplinary method, and, in the later dialogues, as one of the powers the Tech Body "captures." New to it — start with dialogue 06 for the Giedion connection.
Across the dialogues
Read as an homage to method — the book's interdisciplinary reach traced back to its dedicatee
Bob reads the 1951 book as a tribute to Giedion's method — the interdisciplinary mind McLuhan built his first study of ads and comics around.
"when McLuhan celebrates Giedion in the Mechanical Bride, it's his interdisciplinary mind, I guess, that McLuhan is celebrating."
Folded into the tech-body interview — the "application of what humans are supposed to know," now captured
In the tech-body interview Bob makes the book a stage in a capture sequence — the printing press, the Android Meme, and the Mechanical Bride all absorbed into the Tech Body.
"the mechanical bride, the application of what humans are supposed to know, has been attacked, captured, and moved to what is now known as the Tech Body."
Named the form the Tech Body completes — the yo-yo-slinger image as its "uber-conclusion"
Bob names the Tech Body the book's terminal form — the yo-yo-slinger image as what the Mechanical Bride was pointing toward all along.
"the uber-conclusion of the mechanical bride."
Turned into one end of a thirty-year bracket — the Pollstergeist passage on page 47 is produced to show the first book already carrying the term the last essay opens on
The citation that closes the bracket on McLuhan's career — the Pollstergeist of the 1980 Maclean's essay is found in the first book, which makes the last word he published a return rather than a late coinage.
"It's page 47."
The book's discarded title is recovered, and it points the same way as the Pollstergeist — a monster was the organising figure before the mechanical bride replaced it.
"Wasn't it Typhon? Typhon was a monster."
A question from the first book is traced straight to Innis, which puts the Canadian communication tradition inside the Mechanical Bride rather than after it.
"He said, why are we fascinated with the reporter, with the journalist?"
Connections
McLuhan's 1951 first book — ads and comic strips read as industrial folklore, the study Bob dates to the letter-to-Innis turn toward art analysis.
Bob reads the book as McLuhan's homage to Giedion's interdisciplinary mind.
In the tech-body interview the Mechanical Bride is one of the powers "attacked, captured" and absorbed into the Tech Body.