American novelist, the subject of McLuhan's "Notes on Burroughs" (December 28, 1964). Cameron reads Burroughs's injunction to "listen to the murmur of the voices coming to you" as the literary twin of McLuhan's light through — reception rather than subjective broadcasting — and the occasion was a shared 1964 appearance in the Times Literary Supplement.
Across the dialogues
The 1964 encounter — the TLS exchange and McLuhan's "Notes on Burroughs"
McLuhan and Burroughs appeared together in the Times Literary Supplement in 1964 — and Burroughs's writing brought things to mind for McLuhan.
"There were parts of what Burroughs had to say in that same TLS issue with McLuhan in 1964. Burroughs brought things to mind for McLuhan."
McLuhan wrote "Notes on Burroughs" on December 28, 1964, months after their joint TLS appearance.
"McLuhan on Burroughs, and that's from December 28th, 1964."
Returns through McLuhan's Burroughs review — media inflation as a heroin high, and Burroughs read as satirizing the drugs
From McLuhan's Burroughs review — LSD gives consumer dreams, heroin lets you "put on the whole universe"; today's media inflate people like heroin.
"LSD gives you consumer dreams, but heroin allows you to put on the whole universe."
McLuhan reads Burroughs as satirizing the drugs — presenting a conflict of worlds in which no single world is the answer.
"He reads Burroughs as presenting a conflict of worlds where no one world is the answer."
Connections
McLuhan's "Notes on Burroughs" (Dec 1964) followed their joint appearance in the Times Literary Supplement that August.
Burroughs's "don't write from the eye — listen to the murmur of the voices coming to you" is, for Cameron, the literary form of light through — reception over subjective broadcast.
The Watson letter and the "Notes on Burroughs" were written together (Oct–Nov 1964), converging on the pharaonic "perception lab."