Explorations no. 8, 1957 — the issue McLuhan gave over to twenty-four segments of his own, with a second part of essays by, in Bob's phrase, "his arty friends." The archive returns to it for three separate things: the essay "Third Program in the Human Age," where McLuhan says Lewis was the first to treat the media en bloc; a remark on Wittgenstein coming to the edge and refusing to jump; and an image of nested spheres that Cameron and Bob read as a diagram. It is the archive's model of an obscure source — a thin 1957 magazine issue asked to carry claims the famous books do not make. Start at dialogue 01.
Across the dialogues
Opens the series as a piece of evidence in a priority dispute, valued for one sentence buried on a last page rather than for the issue as a whole
The issue is described by its architecture before its contents, and that structure is what makes it useful — a part two of invited essays is where a thesis can be stated more baldly than in a book.
"He does Verbi-Voco-Visual Explorations, Explorations number 8, and there's a section, a part two section with essays by a bunch of his arty friends."Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 1 (20 Oct 2020), 24:24
The whole issue is being mined for a single attribution, and its obscurity is the argument — a priority claim McLuhan made once, in passing, on a last page, is treated as more candid than anything he published under his own imprint.
"But he has one on Lewis called Third Program in the Human Age. And he says, it's only a few pages, but I think it's on the last page, he says, Lewis is the first writer or person to deal with the media en bloc."Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 1 (20 Oct 2020), 24:39
The issue is placed at a hinge in the biography rather than the bibliography — the last thing McLuhan makes while Lewis is alive, which is how the series dates his shift into solo work.
"So he does the Verbi-Voco-Visual in 1957, and then Lewis dies."Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 3 (19 Nov 2020), 45:17
Widened from a Lewis document into a philosophical one, supplying the figure — the edge, the refusal to jump — the pair reuse on other thinkers
A line about one philosopher becomes a portable verdict — the edge and the refusal are lifted out here and reused on every thinker the pair judge to have stopped short of percept.
"And now in Verbi-Voco-Visual, 1957, McLuhan. McLuhan comments on Wittgenstein, who came to the edge but refused to jump into the abyss."Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 4 (26 Nov 2020), 41:23
Read for its pictures rather than its prose, its nested spheres taken as a diagram the chart can be checked against
The issue is consulted as a visual source, which is rare in an archive that quotes — an image recalled from memory and then argued over is treated as evidence about the chart's structure.
"Do you remember in Verbi-Voco-Visual Explorations number eight, the picture of spheres vertical going into another sphere?"Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 17 (11 Mar 2021), 48:30
The citation is delivered with its own bibliographic pride attached, which names the value the archive places on this issue — obscurity is not incidental to its authority but the source of it.
"See third program in The Human Age, Explorations Magazine, number eight, part two. Now, that's a pretty good obscure McLuhan reference,"Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 39 (21 Oct 2021), 8:43
Turns from a citation into an adjective, its title used as a name for a whole class of postwar media
The title has stopped being a citation and become a category, applied to advertising and comics — the point at which a 1957 magazine issue supplies the series with working vocabulary rather than quotations.
"Comics is maybe rhetoric too. But they're new Verbi Voco Visual space media. So we're not in pure Trivium anymore."Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 43 (23 Dec 2021), 10:36
Connections
Explorations no. 8 (1957), the issue McLuhan gave over to his own experiments.
Twenty-four segments by McLuhan himself, plus a part two of essays by others.
The essay "Third Program in the Human Age," where McLuhan credits Lewis with treating the media en bloc.