Dialogue 55 — Transcript

[00:01] Bob Dobbs: Welcome,

[00:02] Bob Dobbs: this is

[00:03] Bob Dobbs: Cameron McEwen and Bob Dobbs with episode number 55 and it is September 1st,

[00:09] Bob Dobbs: 2022.

[00:12] Bob Dobbs: And we are looking at my booklet and we're at page 109 in my system,

[00:19] Bob Dobbs: but it's the beginning of chapter 3 called Global Membrane or Android Meme,

[00:25] Bob Dobbs: colon,

[00:25] Bob Dobbs: Phase 1.

[00:28] Bob Dobbs: So,

[00:29] Bob Dobbs: Ewen Cameron has some questions,

[00:30] Bob Dobbs: I think,

[00:30] Bob Dobbs: right off.

[00:31] Bob Dobbs: What are they,

[00:32] Bob Dobbs: Ewen Cameron?

[00:33] Cameron McEwen: Yes,

[00:33] Cameron McEwen: sir.

[00:34] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[00:35] Cameron McEwen: I don't understand the term that you often use,

[00:38] Cameron McEwen: which is lockdown.

[00:42] Cameron McEwen: And

[00:42] Cameron McEwen: I think it would be interesting to hear how you think the global theater is transformed into the Global Membrane.

[00:56] Cameron McEwen: And there,

[00:57] Cameron McEwen: I think,

[00:58] Cameron McEwen: if you start with the question of...

[01:01] Cameron McEwen: roles in global theater and explain what happens to roles in the Global Membrane.

[01:08] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[01:09] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[01:11] Bob Dobbs: the first part,

[01:12] Bob Dobbs: lockdown.

[01:14] Bob Dobbs: When I made my chart,

[01:16] Bob Dobbs: Tiny Note chart,

[01:17] Bob Dobbs: well,

[01:17] Bob Dobbs: that's part of this book,

[01:19] Bob Dobbs: in 95,

[01:21] Bob Dobbs: the different phases ends in 2020 with a lockdown Bob Rule,

[01:29] Bob Dobbs: okay?

[01:30] Bob Dobbs: I used to say that on the radio.

[01:32] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[01:32] Bob Dobbs: when we get to lockdown,

[01:34] Bob Dobbs: Bob Rule.

[01:35] Bob Dobbs: And to me,

[01:36] Bob Dobbs: it had two meanings.

[01:37] Bob Dobbs: There's the lockdown they do in prisons,

[01:40] Bob Dobbs: right?

[01:42] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[01:42] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[01:43] Bob Dobbs: so lockdown Bob Rule.

[01:45] Bob Dobbs: That could mean Bob's implementing lockdown someplace or Bob is subject to lockdown.

[01:52] Bob Dobbs: And then there's the,

[01:55] Bob Dobbs: is that the only meaning?

[01:56] Bob Dobbs: Lockdown Bob Rule.

[01:58] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[01:58] Bob Dobbs: I guess it means.

[02:01] Bob Dobbs: Some kind of,

[02:03] Bob Dobbs: what is that,

[02:04] Bob Dobbs: executive fiat,

[02:06] Bob Dobbs: what's that phrase,

[02:08] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[02:08] Bob Dobbs: where you kind of just impose a pattern on people.

[02:11] Bob Dobbs: So the ambivalence was it didn't,

[02:15] Bob Dobbs: you didn't know if it meant that I was doing it to you or it was being done to me.

[02:21] Bob Dobbs: So the general term lockdown,

[02:25] Bob Dobbs: is that the phrase they were using two years ago?

[02:28] Bob Dobbs: COVID lockdown?

[02:29] Bob Dobbs: I think it was.

[02:30] Bob Dobbs: Right?

[02:31] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[02:31] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[02:32] Cameron McEwen: Sometimes.

[02:32] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[02:33] Bob Dobbs: That popularized it.

[02:34] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[02:35] Bob Dobbs: people who knew my chart thought that was pretty funny that on my chart lockdown Bob Rule happens in 2020.

[02:41] Bob Dobbs: And we got locked down in a very unique way.

[02:46] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan media fast was turn off TV,

[02:50] Bob Dobbs: say for a few weeks,

[02:52] Bob Dobbs: and sort of liberate the physical chemical body from the pressures of TV.

[03:01] Bob Dobbs: What happened in 2020 was the exact opposite.

[03:04] Bob Dobbs: They turned off the chemical body in the sense it could not go to restaurants,

[03:08] Bob Dobbs: movies,

[03:09] Bob Dobbs: and the normal services.

[03:10] Bob Dobbs: They had to stay home.

[03:12] Bob Dobbs: And everybody went on

[03:14] Bob Dobbs: Zoom and the Internet,

[03:16] Bob Dobbs: right?

[03:16] Bob Dobbs: Exact opposite.

[03:18] Bob Dobbs: So that was ironic,

[03:20] Bob Dobbs: and there's a whole joking level about that I could go into,

[03:24] Bob Dobbs: but I won't.

[03:25] Bob Dobbs: So lockdown,

[03:29] Bob Dobbs: what did it mean?

[03:30] Bob Dobbs: for the public.

[03:31] Bob Dobbs: It meant a kind of imprisonment of people.

[03:34] Bob Dobbs: They had to follow the state rules.

[03:37] Bob Dobbs: And there were a lot of yellings about whether it was constitutional or whatever.

[03:41] Bob Dobbs: So does that explain lockdown,

[03:44] Bob Dobbs: the term?

[03:45] Cameron McEwen: A little bit.

[03:45] Cameron McEwen: I think on

[03:47] Cameron McEwen: 110, we'll come to that again and maybe we can take it up.

[03:57] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[03:58] Bob Dobbs: the next part was

[04:01] Cameron McEwen: global theater and Global Membrane.

[04:05] Bob Dobbs: So when everybody was on the telephone in the teens or

[04:10] Bob Dobbs: 20s or maybe even earlier,

[04:12] Bob Dobbs: they called it a party line.

[04:14] Bob Dobbs: So everybody was discarnate and in the resonant node or the node,

[04:21] Bob Dobbs: wherever the phone company was.

[04:23] Bob Dobbs: Everybody is in that space that you can't really visualize.

[04:29] Bob Dobbs: Right now we're in a space.

[04:30] Bob Dobbs: space we can't visualize and we could have uh 10 million people listening to us and they'd be in the same space and we could visually say well i'm in every one of those persons home and they every one of those people are in my

[04:46] Bob Dobbs: place so McLuhan used to talk about this the sender is sent that simple little point he'd say when you're on the phone you know you're two places at once or more

[04:56] Bob Dobbs: So that electric...

[04:59] Bob Dobbs: node

[05:01] Bob Dobbs: What is this electricity that links everything?

[05:05] Bob Dobbs: They say we don't know how to define electricity.

[05:08] Bob Dobbs: So I call that unified zone that can't be visualized,

[05:13] Bob Dobbs: but everybody can experience it at the same time and think they're in the same spot.

[05:18] Bob Dobbs: That's the membrane.

[05:20] Bob Dobbs: That's the Global Membrane,

[05:22] Bob Dobbs: which actually membrane is the surface,

[05:23] Bob Dobbs: I mean the edge of a cell,

[05:25] Bob Dobbs: right?

[05:27] Bob Dobbs: I think membrane is the rim.

[05:29] Bob Dobbs: So actually,

[05:30] Bob Dobbs: the rim,

[05:32] Bob Dobbs: you can use that as an image because it means everybody's on the rim,

[05:36] Bob Dobbs: but they aren't really necessarily outside the center of the cell.

[05:41] Bob Dobbs: They're in the middle of the cell or somewhere else.

[05:44] Bob Dobbs: The point is there's no visual space there.

[05:46] Bob Dobbs: So that nowhere place,

[05:49] Bob Dobbs: the resonant bond,

[05:50] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan would say from chemistry,

[05:53] Bob Dobbs: is the membrane.

[05:55] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[05:55] Bob Dobbs: the global theater...

[05:57] Bob Dobbs: is all the old analog media,

[05:59] Bob Dobbs: movies,

[06:00] Bob Dobbs: bulldozers,

[06:01] Bob Dobbs: buildings,

[06:02] Bob Dobbs: everything that people could see and mechanically move around and then eventually a lot of it gets electrified.

[06:11] Bob Dobbs: Those objects which are not the resonant node or the membrane,

[06:16] Bob Dobbs: the membrane,

[06:17] Bob Dobbs: you could sit in a bulldozer and be on the Global Membrane,

[06:21] Bob Dobbs: right?

[06:22] Bob Dobbs: You'd be on the phone or communicating.

[06:25] Bob Dobbs: So

[06:25] Bob Dobbs: I...

[06:26] Bob Dobbs: see the global theater as all the anti-environment that humans have made interacting,

[06:33] Bob Dobbs: however they do it.

[06:35] Bob Dobbs: They move the oil across the oceans or whatever,

[06:39] Bob Dobbs: and the trucks are moving the equipment to build homes and things.

[06:44] Bob Dobbs: Just all the hardware in the world is the global theater,

[06:50] Bob Dobbs: but it's inside a resonant node which sculpts it,

[06:54] Bob Dobbs: moves it.

[06:55] Bob Dobbs: If it breaks...

[06:56] Bob Dobbs: Nothing gets moved.

[06:58] Bob Dobbs: So

[06:59] Bob Dobbs: I would say that the global theater is the content of the Global Membrane.

[07:04] Cameron McEwen: So could you say that it's the movement from various types of individuality to various types of language?

[07:15] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[07:16] Bob Dobbs: they're media,

[07:17] Bob Dobbs: old media,

[07:18] Bob Dobbs: language,

[07:20] Bob Dobbs: speaking,

[07:22] Bob Dobbs: gesture,

[07:23] Bob Dobbs: all that bodies do.

[07:25] Bob Dobbs: would be visible content of the Global Membrane.

[07:30] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[07:30] Bob Dobbs: people could be dancing while having their phone earbuds on and listening or communicating with a billion people,

[07:41] Bob Dobbs: right?

[07:41] Bob Dobbs: So the body would be dancing around visually that resonant node,

[07:46] Bob Dobbs: which you can't see,

[07:47] Bob Dobbs: but everybody is there.

[07:49] Bob Dobbs: And that's what I meant by everything's disappeared.

[07:51] Bob Dobbs: We have gone into that node.

[07:55] Bob Dobbs: And we don't know where or what it is,

[07:58] Bob Dobbs: other than we know how to make it,

[07:59] Bob Dobbs: right?

[08:00] Bob Dobbs: What materials,

[08:01] Bob Dobbs: as McLuhan said,

[08:02] Bob Dobbs: when information brushes against information,

[08:04] Bob Dobbs: the results are startling and effective.

[08:07] Bob Dobbs: The Global Membrane is a startling effect.

[08:11] Bob Dobbs: And so then,

[08:12] Bob Dobbs: so the global theater,

[08:15] Bob Dobbs: interacting with the Global Membrane,

[08:18] Bob Dobbs: I imagine that the hologram effect of that interplay.

[08:23] Bob Dobbs: So the hologram...

[08:25] Bob Dobbs: is a visualization of the global theater,

[08:28] Bob Dobbs: which gets tinier and tinier as the computers get more powerful,

[08:32] Bob Dobbs: more compressed and miniaturized.

[08:35] Bob Dobbs: But it's all revolving around that void,

[08:39] Bob Dobbs: that black hole,

[08:40] Bob Dobbs: the Global Membrane.

[08:42] Bob Dobbs: And so the hologram effect,

[08:45] Bob Dobbs: the sense that everybody is equally in the same spot,

[08:51] Bob Dobbs: whatever that definition of the hologram is,

[08:53] Bob Dobbs: the macros in the micro,

[08:54] Bob Dobbs: micros in the macro,

[08:56] Bob Dobbs: that's a visualization,

[08:59] Bob Dobbs: again,

[08:59] Bob Dobbs: a failed visualization of the Global Membrane.

[09:02] Bob Dobbs: As a matter of fact,

[09:03] Bob Dobbs: the Global Membrane,

[09:03] Bob Dobbs: can you shrink it or make it big,

[09:07] Bob Dobbs: do the opposite of shrinking it?

[09:09] Bob Dobbs: No,

[09:09] Bob Dobbs: you can't see that.

[09:11] Bob Dobbs: So the holeopathic effect,

[09:13] Bob Dobbs: which I explained later and probably talked about it before,

[09:18] Bob Dobbs: the homeopathizing,

[09:20] Bob Dobbs: the shrinking and miniaturizing of the Global Membrane,

[09:25] Bob Dobbs: It's a metaphor,

[09:29] Bob Dobbs: what's the word,

[09:32] Bob Dobbs: a bad-ass concrete,

[09:34] Bob Dobbs: it's a metaphor,

[09:37] Bob Dobbs: because you can't shrink the membrane because you wouldn't know if you had or not,

[09:41] Bob Dobbs: you can't see it.

[09:43] Cameron McEwen: Do you think it's necessarily a singular?

[09:47] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[09:47] Bob Dobbs: okay,

[09:48] Bob Dobbs: now I made a number to symbolize it.

[09:50] Bob Dobbs: On my Tiny Note chart,

[09:51] Bob Dobbs: it's number 14.

[09:52] Bob Dobbs: So the 1 represents that integrated membrane,

[09:56] Bob Dobbs: and the 4 is the tetrad interplay of the hardware,

[10:02] Bob Dobbs: the mutations they go through,

[10:04] Bob Dobbs: going to enhancement,

[10:05] Bob Dobbs: obsolescence,

[10:06] Bob Dobbs: retrieval,

[10:06] Bob Dobbs: and reversal.

[10:07] Bob Dobbs: So I put the 1 and the 4 together.

[10:10] Bob Dobbs: Are they touching?

[10:11] Bob Dobbs: I don't think so.

[10:12] Bob Dobbs: They're parallel.

[10:13] Bob Dobbs: So if you have some mystical semantic meaning for 14,

[10:17] Bob Dobbs: I don't mean that.

[10:18] Bob Dobbs: They are visual.

[10:20] Bob Dobbs: symbols of the oneness and the fourness,

[10:23] Bob Dobbs: which I say becomes,

[10:24] Bob Dobbs: for people,

[10:25] Bob Dobbs: there's the individual,

[10:26] Bob Dobbs: becomes quadrophrenia,

[10:28] Bob Dobbs: and they go through phases of paranoia,

[10:30] Bob Dobbs: schizophrenia,

[10:32] Bob Dobbs: hysteria,

[10:32] Bob Dobbs: panic,

[10:33] Bob Dobbs: and ecstasy.

[10:34] Bob Dobbs: People roll through those up and down,

[10:36] Bob Dobbs: and they're mood mud,

[10:37] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan called it,

[10:38] Bob Dobbs: that line from Fitting His Wake.

[10:40] Bob Dobbs: So the four is the knowable changes that people communicate while they remain paralyzed in the global one,

[10:49] Bob Dobbs: the global unit.

[10:50] Bob Dobbs: the global resonating node you see i put the two they're parallel so you mentioned individuals that's the four side that's what four represents what the individuals um the proportions its moods and attitudes and experiences uh go through but

[11:10] Cameron McEwen: isn't but um if we just look at the word individual um isn't um uh what happens

[11:19] Cameron McEwen: in the transition at stake here is that the content or the concept of the individual goes through explosive change.

[11:35] Cameron McEwen: The individual in the global theater is some sort of movement between a mask and a background figure.

[11:46] Bob Dobbs: And a wavicle.

[11:48] Bob Dobbs: It's a wavicle.

[11:49] Bob Dobbs: Wave in a particle.

[11:50] Cameron McEwen: Say that.

[11:52] Cameron McEwen: But there is,

[11:56] Cameron McEwen: behind that,

[11:57] Cameron McEwen: is some sort of wave that makes it possible,

[12:02] Cameron McEwen: and that's the Global Membrane.

[12:04] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[12:07] Bob Dobbs: Just hold it there,

[12:07] Bob Dobbs: because this might clarify what you're going through.

[12:10] Bob Dobbs: I've explained how Theall said there's synesthesia,

[12:13] Bob Dobbs: and then there's the co-anesthetic,

[12:15] Bob Dobbs: C-O-E-N,

[12:17] Bob Dobbs: aesthetic.

[12:18] Bob Dobbs: The co-anesthetic is more and more putting the individual in the director's chair digitally.

[12:25] Bob Dobbs: So Web 2.0 puts you in the director's chair because you can start making your own space.

[12:31] Bob Dobbs: You start off with MySpace,

[12:32] Bob Dobbs: then your YouTubes,

[12:34] Bob Dobbs: you start broadcasting.

[12:35] Bob Dobbs: You couldn't do that with

[12:38] Bob Dobbs: Web 1.0.

[12:39] Bob Dobbs: It was dial,

[12:40] Bob Dobbs: phone,

[12:40] Bob Dobbs: dial,

[12:41] Bob Dobbs: get on the phone and dial in and then send typing.

[12:47] Bob Dobbs: and maybe crude pictures or something.

[12:49] Bob Dobbs: And that is a kind of broadcasting,

[12:52] Bob Dobbs: one to many,

[12:52] Bob Dobbs: many to one and all that,

[12:53] Bob Dobbs: many to many.

[12:54] Bob Dobbs: But the autonomy that's increasingly developed since 2004,

[13:00] Bob Dobbs: when you talk about

[13:02] Bob Dobbs: World Wide Web

[13:03] Bob Dobbs: 2.0, that is the more and more development of co-anesthetic.

[13:08] Bob Dobbs: So the four is more and more getting into the one position.

[13:14] Bob Dobbs: And everybody's there.

[13:15] Bob Dobbs: You can be in the one,

[13:18] Bob Dobbs: in that resonating node,

[13:19] Bob Dobbs: and you and I could be both making websites right now,

[13:23] Bob Dobbs: if we were that talented.

[13:24] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[13:25] Bob Dobbs: While talking,

[13:26] Bob Dobbs: we could be making stuff and sending it out.

[13:29] Bob Dobbs: So I would be in the membrane in the same space as you,

[13:32] Bob Dobbs: the same non-space,

[13:33] Bob Dobbs: but I could be making content.

[13:35] Bob Dobbs: So those contents are transmissions or emissions or waves that the particle sends out.

[13:41] Bob Dobbs: I'm a particle.

[13:42] Bob Dobbs: I'm an individual.

[13:44] Bob Dobbs: I've

[13:44] Bob Dobbs: developed that sensibility through media.

[13:46] Bob Dobbs: The Global Membrane absorbs the individual,

[13:50] Bob Dobbs: but the individual more and more through the co-anesthetic thinks it is more in charge of sculpting it,

[13:58] Bob Dobbs: the Global Membrane,

[14:00] Bob Dobbs: or sculpting around it.

[14:02] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[14:03] Bob Dobbs: You can't do anything with the membrane.

[14:04] Bob Dobbs: It's just there.

[14:05] Bob Dobbs: But you can communicate in all kinds of shapes and levels.

[14:10] Cameron McEwen: But isn't this more or less

[14:13] Cameron McEwen: what language is for anybody.

[14:16] Cameron McEwen: So if we think back

[14:19] Cameron McEwen: 300,000 years and there's various little groups in Africa and maybe in other parts of the world as well,

[14:33] Cameron McEwen: people exist always within some kind of language,

[14:40] Cameron McEwen: they're unable to see.

[14:43] Cameron McEwen: that language as a unit,

[14:47] Cameron McEwen: anti-environment.

[14:51] Cameron McEwen: hidden anti-environment what makes everything possible.

[14:55] Cameron McEwen: And then in the

[14:56] Cameron McEwen: 20th century,

[14:59] Cameron McEwen: that kind of sort of hidden subjectivity begins to be explored by Malinowski and other people like that.

[15:10] Cameron McEwen: So that when McLuhan comes to talk about media at the end of the

[15:16] Cameron McEwen: 1950s,

[15:17] Cameron McEwen: He talks about...

[15:20] Cameron McEwen: the media as language.

[15:24] Cameron McEwen: That's what he says is the key point to media.

[15:30] Cameron McEwen: So aren't we talking here about sort of a further consciousness of what it means to exist within language?

[15:45] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[15:46] Bob Dobbs: so language people...

[15:52] Bob Dobbs: They experience it,

[15:53] Bob Dobbs: but they don't know where it comes from.

[15:54] Bob Dobbs: It's similar to the mind,

[15:55] Bob Dobbs: right?

[15:56] Bob Dobbs: We don't know what the mind is.

[15:58] Bob Dobbs: So language is somehow intimately beside and inside of the mind.

[16:05] Bob Dobbs: So we don't know how much people had ESP.

[16:09] Bob Dobbs: There's lots of romantic ideas about ancient cultures having ESP.

[16:13] Bob Dobbs: That would be within the mind.

[16:15] Bob Dobbs: And they didn't need to utter verbs,

[16:17] Bob Dobbs: words.

[16:18] Bob Dobbs: They had maybe verbal.

[16:20] Bob Dobbs: They could grunt.

[16:21] Bob Dobbs: and people knew what they meant.

[16:22] Bob Dobbs: So the human condition is always in that mind space of people sharing the same space,

[16:37] Bob Dobbs: and then however they make gestures,

[16:40] Bob Dobbs: make grunts,

[16:41] Bob Dobbs: or throw something,

[16:44] Bob Dobbs: that's the hardware communicating and responding to the membrane part.

[16:50] Bob Dobbs: So,

[16:50] Bob Dobbs: yeah.

[16:51] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan said language was tactile,

[16:53] Bob Dobbs: so he's putting it back at the beginning,

[16:54] Bob Dobbs: if you think that we began with tactility,

[16:56] Bob Dobbs: which would be,

[16:57] Bob Dobbs: to me,

[16:58] Bob Dobbs: kind of a super sensitive

[17:00] Bob Dobbs: ESP or whatever strange ways,

[17:02] Bob Dobbs: I mean,

[17:03] Bob Dobbs: people could leave,

[17:05] Bob Dobbs: maybe they could float someplace,

[17:07] Bob Dobbs: astral project or something.

[17:08] Bob Dobbs: So the original form of communication would be what I'm calling the four in the 14.

[17:18] Bob Dobbs: And the membrane part would be...

[17:21] Bob Dobbs: the ineffable mind consciousness of humans interacting with different levels of skill.

[17:27] Bob Dobbs: So the electric age is a direct extension.

[17:30] Bob Dobbs: When we say television extends the central nervous system,

[17:33] Bob Dobbs: the central nervous system is a technical word for that mysterious place inside ourselves,

[17:38] Bob Dobbs: the brain or it could be even outside of our bodies and other subtle realms.

[17:45] Bob Dobbs: So the mystery of being...

[17:51] Bob Dobbs: could be called the central nervous system.

[17:53] Bob Dobbs: So television is an enhancement extension of the mind,

[17:56] Bob Dobbs: of tactility,

[17:57] Bob Dobbs: of language.

[18:00] Bob Dobbs: But it does move us back to a primitive condition before writing and maybe before speech.

[18:09] Bob Dobbs: So we have gone back to,

[18:12] Bob Dobbs: if there was a beginning,

[18:14] Bob Dobbs: we've gone back to the most primitive or most sensitive,

[18:19] Bob Dobbs: the most...

[18:21] Bob Dobbs: intangible form of communication,

[18:25] Bob Dobbs: which was in the mind.

[18:27] Bob Dobbs: Which was,

[18:28] Bob Dobbs: in the mind,

[18:29] Bob Dobbs: I don't mean necessarily the image of some space in the brain or in the skull.

[18:35] Bob Dobbs: We don't know where the mind is or what its extensions are.

[18:38] Bob Dobbs: Remember Gregory Bateson,

[18:39] Bob Dobbs: he started writing about the mind was anti-environment and all that.

[18:42] Bob Dobbs: So his visual parameters are starting to melt away.

[18:46] Bob Dobbs: And he could have used a little McLuhan to...

[18:49] Bob Dobbs: get out of whatever mess he got himself into in his final books.

[18:53] Bob Dobbs: But so

[18:54] Bob Dobbs: I agree that we are,

[18:58] Bob Dobbs: the Global Membrane always was here.

[19:01] Bob Dobbs: It could be,

[19:02] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[19:02] Bob Dobbs: solar,

[19:03] Bob Dobbs: intergalactic membrane,

[19:05] Bob Dobbs: but the structure of the electric age is by the fact it's different,

[19:12] Bob Dobbs: it's not the mind,

[19:13] Bob Dobbs: is the difference between then and now.

[19:17] Bob Dobbs: We've got this electronic stuff.

[19:20] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[19:21] Bob Dobbs: we might be melting away all the software and hardware,

[19:26] Bob Dobbs: and then we'll be in some ineffable communicating weirdness that everybody is tuned into.

[19:33] Bob Dobbs: That's a science fiction fantasy,

[19:35] Bob Dobbs: right?

[19:35] Bob Dobbs: And it might be a Gutenbergian fantasy.

[19:38] Bob Dobbs: But

[19:40] Bob Dobbs: I don't mind calling today the Global Membrane,

[19:44] Bob Dobbs: and that refers to something that...

[19:46] Bob Dobbs: didn't happen before,

[19:49] Bob Dobbs: even though the qualities of it...

[19:52] Bob Dobbs: We just made Cayce that it's the same thing as the original condition we were in.

[19:58] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[19:59] Cameron McEwen: well,

[20:00] Cameron McEwen: maybe you could talk a little bit about that transition in comparison to the transition between orality and literacy.

[20:14] Cameron McEwen: Is it a transition that's kind of a shortcut,

[20:18] Cameron McEwen: like letters are,

[20:21] Cameron McEwen: compared to...

[20:21] Cameron McEwen: speech so that we become more conscious of anti-environment,

[20:33] Cameron McEwen: but we do so at a certain cost.

[20:40] Cameron McEwen: Our enhanced consciousness loses something at the same time that it gains something.

[20:48] Bob Dobbs: Right,

[20:48] Bob Dobbs: and that's maybe the differences

[20:50] Bob Dobbs: I'm trying to express.

[20:53] Bob Dobbs: So you had the initial,

[20:54] Bob Dobbs: and maybe that had services and Ivins,

[20:57] Bob Dobbs: and then you get into language,

[20:59] Bob Dobbs: spoken language and music and rhythm and all that.

[21:05] Bob Dobbs: That would be a new experience,

[21:07] Bob Dobbs: but would have an effect on the original membrane,

[21:12] Bob Dobbs: international intergalactic membrane.

[21:16] Bob Dobbs: It gets people too involved with what their mouth says,

[21:20] Bob Dobbs: and they might lose other sensitivities.

[21:22] Bob Dobbs: If they didn't have other sensitivities,

[21:24] Bob Dobbs: then you're enhancing the mouth zone,

[21:26] Bob Dobbs: and that's fine.

[21:27] Bob Dobbs: And then when you get into writing,

[21:29] Bob Dobbs: and all the phases of that,

[21:30] Bob Dobbs: that's a new benefit,

[21:32] Bob Dobbs: a new service,

[21:33] Bob Dobbs: a novelty in perception,

[21:35] Bob Dobbs: and evokes different thoughts and attitudes,

[21:39] Bob Dobbs: but you are shifted from somewheres,

[21:43] Bob Dobbs: and you might say you've lost something.

[21:45] Bob Dobbs: The tetrad tries to point out what you've lost,

[21:48] Bob Dobbs: but then you retrieve something else.

[21:50] Bob Dobbs: So that fluid in negotiating,

[21:53] Bob Dobbs: fluid tactility,

[21:55] Bob Dobbs: is always going on with each new innovation.

[22:00] Bob Dobbs: Then you go from writing to kinetic machinery,

[22:04] Bob Dobbs: the industrial phase,

[22:05] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[22:06] Bob Dobbs: railroads and levers and pulleys and early factories.

[22:10] Bob Dobbs: Then when you get the electric breakthrough,

[22:14] Bob Dobbs: What is the electric breakthrough?

[22:15] Bob Dobbs: The arc light in the cities in the 1850s or something?

[22:19] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[22:20] Bob Dobbs: lighting?

[22:21] Bob Dobbs: What is the first electric?

[22:24] Bob Dobbs: You got the telegraph.

[22:25] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[22:25] Cameron McEwen: the telegraph.

[22:26] Cameron McEwen: Telegraph,

[22:27] Cameron McEwen: I think.

[22:27] Bob Dobbs: Basically the telegraph.

[22:28] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[22:29] Bob Dobbs: so...

[22:29] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[22:31] Cameron McEwen: electric lighting and all those things from Madison,

[22:35] Cameron McEwen: that came at the end of the

[22:37] Cameron McEwen: 1900s.

[22:39] Cameron McEwen: But

[22:40] Cameron McEwen: Faraday and people like that were...

[22:45] Cameron McEwen: looking into electricity,

[22:47] Cameron McEwen: I believe,

[22:47] Cameron McEwen: in the

[22:49] Bob Dobbs: 1830s. Yeah.

[22:50] Bob Dobbs: So the electric technologies start to happen with the telegraph,

[22:54] Bob Dobbs: and that moves you beyond the kinetic and the hardware muscular pulleys and levers and stuff.

[23:04] Bob Dobbs: You get into the original tactile condition of language or the membrane,

[23:10] Bob Dobbs: or you have a squaring of it,

[23:11] Bob Dobbs: an overlaying.

[23:13] Bob Dobbs: of technology.

[23:15] Bob Dobbs: So humans,

[23:16] Bob Dobbs: they might have once been able to have ESP and communicate with people over the whole planet.

[23:21] Bob Dobbs: But by 1850,

[23:23] Bob Dobbs: they couldn't do that.

[23:24] Bob Dobbs: So it was a big deal to be able to communicate over industrial spaces,

[23:30] Bob Dobbs: what you'd call nations in that.

[23:32] Bob Dobbs: So that started the implosion into the Global Membrane.

[23:36] Bob Dobbs: And it's been modulated.

[23:40] Bob Dobbs: You never left the telegraph

[23:43] Bob Dobbs: Interplay,

[23:44] Bob Dobbs: right?

[23:44] Bob Dobbs: You never leave the electric.

[23:46] Bob Dobbs: I think that Kirchhoff says that.

[23:48] Bob Dobbs: The common denominator of the last 50 years is,

[23:50] Bob Dobbs: 150 years,

[23:51] Bob Dobbs: is electricity,

[23:52] Bob Dobbs: which we're not sure what it is.

[23:54] Bob Dobbs: So we break through and,

[23:56] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[23:58] Bob Dobbs: Teilhard de Chardin called it a biological event,

[24:01] Bob Dobbs: a new biological event,

[24:02] Bob Dobbs: getting into the electric extensions.

[24:05] Bob Dobbs: So the Global Membrane,

[24:08] Bob Dobbs: electrically,

[24:09] Bob Dobbs: is a squaring or a new wrinkle.

[24:12] Bob Dobbs: to the original condition of our minds and whatever associations,

[24:17] Bob Dobbs: social life we had with that.

[24:20] Bob Dobbs: Then you have the refinement of the different senses.

[24:24] Bob Dobbs: They're the figures,

[24:25] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[24:25] Bob Dobbs: the sight,

[24:26] Bob Dobbs: movies,

[24:27] Bob Dobbs: and kinesis in movies,

[24:29] Bob Dobbs: and then the audio and radio,

[24:31] Bob Dobbs: then the synesthesia of the screen.

[24:35] Bob Dobbs: Did you say something?

[24:37] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[24:37] Cameron McEwen: I just wanted to say that...

[24:39] Cameron McEwen: Uh,

[24:41] Cameron McEwen: we...

[24:42] Cameron McEwen: This movement that you're describing is a new grasp,

[24:51] Cameron McEwen: a new concept of what was always there.

[24:56] Cameron McEwen: But it's always a shortcut.

[25:00] Cameron McEwen: It's always something that puts a handle on things,

[25:08] Cameron McEwen: but it's a handle for us,

[25:11] Cameron McEwen: not for it.

[25:12] Cameron McEwen: So what that means is when we get a handle on things,

[25:19] Cameron McEwen: we can manipulate them.

[25:22] Cameron McEwen: There's another word with hand in it.

[25:26] Cameron McEwen: We can manipulate them and can do things which were never possible before,

[25:33] Cameron McEwen: but because it's a shortcut and because we've taken over something more or less illegitimately,

[25:40] Cameron McEwen: it's very dangerous.

[25:42] Cameron McEwen: So this movement you're describing of having more and more power over more and more senses because we can imitate them in some way,

[25:55] Cameron McEwen: That's what seems like scientific progress is also a kind of scientific retreat.

[26:03] Bob Dobbs: And numbing,

[26:05] Bob Dobbs: increasingly numbing people to the implications on older media of what they have now established or added to the situation.

[26:15] Cameron McEwen: Correct.

[26:15] Bob Dobbs: Nobody wants to look at the inventory of what's happening with the new wrinkle.

[26:22] Bob Dobbs: When you say,

[26:23] Bob Dobbs: how did you say that?

[26:24] Bob Dobbs: It's always happened,

[26:26] Bob Dobbs: something like that.

[26:27] Bob Dobbs: It's always been there.

[26:29] Bob Dobbs: That's a little too general.

[26:31] Bob Dobbs: The electricity,

[26:32] Bob Dobbs: yeah,

[26:32] Bob Dobbs: has always been there,

[26:33] Bob Dobbs: but we didn't experience it.

[26:36] Bob Dobbs: We might have been close to it with our language,

[26:38] Bob Dobbs: spoken language,

[26:39] Bob Dobbs: and our ESP that we have.

[26:41] Bob Dobbs: And ESP to me is,

[26:43] Bob Dobbs: I like McLuhan definition,

[26:45] Bob Dobbs: mental gesture,

[26:46] Bob Dobbs: is it?

[26:47] Bob Dobbs: On page

[26:48] Bob Dobbs: 23 of Counterblast.

[26:50] Bob Dobbs: Non-verbal mental gesture,

[26:53] Bob Dobbs: I think it is.

[26:54] Bob Dobbs: Right?

[26:55] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[26:55] Cameron McEwen: it sounds right to me.

[26:57] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[26:57] Bob Dobbs: that's ESP,

[26:58] Bob Dobbs: extrasensory perception.

[26:59] Bob Dobbs: And he said,

[27:00] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[27:00] Bob Dobbs: our electronics ESP.

[27:02] Bob Dobbs: So whatever people could do interacting what I would call their chemical bodies,

[27:08] Bob Dobbs: and they wouldn't have an image of the chemical body that we have.

[27:11] Bob Dobbs: We don't know what they thought they were.

[27:13] Bob Dobbs: I mean,

[27:13] Bob Dobbs: they had humors and moods and gases,

[27:16] Bob Dobbs: all kinds of crazy notions or images of what they thought they were made up of.

[27:20] Cameron McEwen: Right,

[27:20] Cameron McEwen: but the main thing is that...

[27:23] Cameron McEwen: No matter if they thought themselves as physical bodies or as imitations of totemic animals or whatever they thought they were,

[27:35] Cameron McEwen: if they were human,

[27:37] Cameron McEwen: they were somehow able to communicate with other humans.

[27:42] Cameron McEwen: And that question of somehow able to communicate,

[27:46] Cameron McEwen: I believe that's what the membrane is behind.

[27:52] Cameron McEwen: or around or structuralizing a human being from start to finish.

[28:00] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[28:00] Bob Dobbs: that would be the eternal potential of what humans could interact with,

[28:05] Bob Dobbs: negotiate with others,

[28:06] Bob Dobbs: and manipulate or interplay.

[28:09] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[28:09] Cameron McEwen: human beings are the swimmers in that membrane.

[28:15] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[28:19] Bob Dobbs: I'm using the word which McLuhan used,

[28:21] Bob Dobbs: and you pointed out the several places he used it in the early

[28:24] Bob Dobbs: 60s, because people don't think of the membrane.

[28:30] Bob Dobbs: For example,

[28:32] Bob Dobbs: when they think of speed up,

[28:33] Bob Dobbs: they'll think of rapid cinematic images,

[28:36] Bob Dobbs: getting faster and blurry,

[28:37] Bob Dobbs: blurrier,

[28:38] Bob Dobbs: right?

[28:39] Bob Dobbs: It's getting faster and better.

[28:40] Bob Dobbs: They don't recognize that at some point the blurriness stops,

[28:44] Bob Dobbs: and you've arrived someplace,

[28:46] Bob Dobbs: and they kind of have instant access everywhere.

[28:49] Bob Dobbs: You've overcome kinetic movement,

[28:51] Bob Dobbs: kinetic speed.

[28:53] Bob Dobbs: That's what the Global Membrane is,

[28:54] Bob Dobbs: and maybe it began with the telegraph.

[28:58] Bob Dobbs: If we don't want to get precise and point out your stuff that we always had it,

[29:04] Bob Dobbs: that's not the issue.

[29:06] Bob Dobbs: When we got the Global Membrane and people understand that it has no visual coordinates,

[29:11] Bob Dobbs: then what does that do to us and our older media?

[29:14] Bob Dobbs: That's what I would focus on.

[29:16] Bob Dobbs: It's a metaphysical question where how long or what is the exact nature of language and our sensitivities before that.

[29:25] Bob Dobbs: The Global Membrane is referring to something that people don't think about.

[29:30] Bob Dobbs: When they're on the phone,

[29:31] Bob Dobbs: remember,

[29:32] Bob Dobbs: they're all in the same space,

[29:33] Bob Dobbs: right?

[29:34] Bob Dobbs: Which is an invisible,

[29:36] Bob Dobbs: inaudible space.

[29:38] Bob Dobbs: But we're there and we can communicate with people,

[29:42] Bob Dobbs: Marchand match.

[29:45] Bob Dobbs: That's

[29:45] Bob Dobbs: pretty miraculous the more you think about the membrane.

[29:49] Bob Dobbs: In fact,

[29:50] Bob Dobbs: that would be...

[29:53] Bob Dobbs: I don't know,

[29:53] Bob Dobbs: is it Pascal?

[29:55] Bob Dobbs: It would be.

[29:55] Bob Dobbs: Theall liked to mention Pascal and his image of

[29:59] Bob Dobbs: God or something.

[30:02] Bob Dobbs: It was like a centralized implosion,

[30:03] Bob Dobbs: but also a decentralizing.

[30:07] Bob Dobbs: So the Global Membrane is the prince of the air,

[30:11] Bob Dobbs: when McLuhan called it something.

[30:14] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[30:14] Bob Dobbs: it's you.

[30:16] Bob Dobbs: You're the prince of the air.

[30:17] Bob Dobbs: And are you the king over other people?

[30:21] Bob Dobbs: Or where are you?

[30:23] Bob Dobbs: Can you manipulate it?

[30:24] Bob Dobbs: You can manipulate it a little bit,

[30:26] Bob Dobbs: but you're going to get a lot of resistance in linguistic communication or other kinds.

[30:33] Bob Dobbs: Drones and stuff are sent at you if you try to hijack the Global Membrane.

[30:40] Bob Dobbs: So it's a kind of unity that people rhapsodize about heaven or God,

[30:46] Bob Dobbs: and we have done it technically.

[30:49] Bob Dobbs: We have a technical expression.

[30:51] Bob Dobbs: of everybody being in the same spot,

[30:56] Bob Dobbs: which is not a spot.

[30:57] Bob Dobbs: What is it?

[30:58] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[30:59] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[30:59] Bob Dobbs: God's a mystery name,

[31:01] Bob Dobbs: so it's a God thing.

[31:02] Bob Dobbs: It's a mystery.

[31:04] Bob Dobbs: Interior landscape,

[31:04] Bob Dobbs: I like to say.

[31:06] Bob Dobbs: But it's not land or escape.

[31:11] Bob Dobbs: So keep it temporary,

[31:13] Bob Dobbs: you know.

[31:14] Bob Dobbs: And so then I'll bring in Android Meme.

[31:18] Bob Dobbs: So Global Memorandum tries to shift it to the...

[31:20] Bob Dobbs: Cosmic Awareness of it,

[31:22] Bob Dobbs: but Android Meme shifts to the mental part of it.

[31:26] Bob Dobbs: Memes are generally mental things,

[31:29] Bob Dobbs: or mental images,

[31:31] Bob Dobbs: or ineffable,

[31:33] Bob Dobbs: intangibles.

[31:35] Bob Dobbs: And to point out its automatic nature,

[31:37] Bob Dobbs: I put Android Meme in front of it.

[31:40] Bob Dobbs: And so you've got these young kids that talk about,

[31:42] Bob Dobbs: yeah,

[31:42] Bob Dobbs: we're spreading our memes.

[31:45] Bob Dobbs: They use that term all the time.

[31:47] Bob Dobbs: We don't know how they imagine it,

[31:50] Bob Dobbs: but...

[31:51] Bob Dobbs: It became an acceptable term to represent all the different icons and imagery that they get every day texting,

[31:59] Bob Dobbs: right?

[32:00] Bob Dobbs: And they might think,

[32:02] Bob Dobbs: I don't know,

[32:03] Bob Dobbs: if you stop and ask them,

[32:06] Bob Dobbs: this is automatic and almost like robotic.

[32:10] Bob Dobbs: It might even be artificial intelligence.

[32:12] Bob Dobbs: They go,

[32:12] Bob Dobbs: yeah,

[32:13] Bob Dobbs: they would agree with you.

[32:14] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[32:15] Bob Dobbs: they can't explain artificial intelligence,

[32:17] Bob Dobbs: neither can ION some level.

[32:20] Bob Dobbs: For a scientist who's maybe making and developing AI,

[32:24] Bob Dobbs: they need it more precise.

[32:25] Bob Dobbs: But we always are vague anyways.

[32:28] Bob Dobbs: Remember,

[32:28] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan used to say,

[32:29] Bob Dobbs: communication between people on the matching level is a miracle.

[32:33] Bob Dobbs: Very rare,

[32:35] Bob Dobbs: precise matching.

[32:36] Cameron McEwen: Correct.

[32:37] Bob Dobbs: And you may not want precise matching.

[32:39] Bob Dobbs: Everybody gets stuck on the same image,

[32:41] Bob Dobbs: but how long would that last?

[32:43] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[32:45] Cameron McEwen: that's a false goal anyway.

[32:46] Cameron McEwen: It's not even possible.

[32:48] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[32:49] Bob Dobbs: So

[32:53] Bob Dobbs: I'm for what I thought McLuhan was doing.

[32:56] Bob Dobbs: It's tentative.

[33:00] Bob Dobbs: I'm not going to be a scientist who's going to say,

[33:03] Bob Dobbs: I've got to have this definition.

[33:04] Bob Dobbs: You've got to understand the math of it.

[33:05] Bob Dobbs: You've got to know what I'm doing.

[33:07] Bob Dobbs: If we were making some technology,

[33:08] Bob Dobbs: you've got to know that.

[33:09] Bob Dobbs: But I'm not doing that.

[33:10] Bob Dobbs: So I'm interacting with people in different ways in a casual,

[33:15] Bob Dobbs: informal situation until I'm forced to be formal.

[33:19] Bob Dobbs: So

[33:21] Bob Dobbs: I'm not making what I'm showing there my chart.

[33:25] Bob Dobbs: The Tiny Note chart is just a visual aid.

[33:30] Bob Dobbs: You might say just a novelty.

[33:33] Bob Dobbs: But if you are looking for something to think about,

[33:36] Bob Dobbs: I can communicate a lot about it and make a lot of thoughts about it.

[33:40] Bob Dobbs: But

[33:41] Bob Dobbs: I wouldn't demand everybody memorize it unless...

[33:48] Bob Dobbs: They get really into talking about it,

[33:51] Bob Dobbs: and they want to talk about it for a long time.

[33:52] Bob Dobbs: Then they've got to memorize it so that

[33:54] Bob Dobbs: I know it.

[33:55] Bob Dobbs: So then you've got to catch up with me,

[33:57] Bob Dobbs: memorize it,

[33:57] Bob Dobbs: so we can move faster in our discussion of it.

[34:01] Bob Dobbs: That would just be a convenience.

[34:04] Bob Dobbs: So you're vague,

[34:07] Bob Dobbs: I think.

[34:09] Bob Dobbs: You keep the vagueness in mind,

[34:11] Bob Dobbs: the imprecision in all that you write.

[34:15] Cameron McEwen: Definitely.

[34:16] Bob Dobbs: You're always...

[34:17] Bob Dobbs: making questions out of every sentence you make almost.

[34:19] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[34:20] Bob Dobbs: Yes,

[34:21] Cameron McEwen: sir.

[34:22] Bob Dobbs: So that's probably the way to think.

[34:26] Bob Dobbs: Until you have to make something precise,

[34:31] Bob Dobbs: and that's culturally conditioned.

[34:33] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[34:33] Bob Dobbs: some cultures probably didn't eat the buffalo,

[34:37] Bob Dobbs: but other cultures did.

[34:39] Bob Dobbs: So depending where you were,

[34:41] Bob Dobbs: you had a different relationship to the buffalo,

[34:42] Bob Dobbs: and that would apply to everything else,

[34:44] Bob Dobbs: fishing,

[34:44] Bob Dobbs: hunting,

[34:45] Bob Dobbs: what you grew.

[34:47] Bob Dobbs: It's all different in each culture.

[34:51] Bob Dobbs: The problem with humans is they gut.

[34:56] Bob Dobbs: too locked into their cultural forms.

[35:01] Bob Dobbs: And because there was always weather problems and harvest problems,

[35:05] Bob Dobbs: you would get attacked,

[35:07] Bob Dobbs: right?

[35:07] Bob Dobbs: So there's a level of paranoia in earlier cultures.

[35:12] Bob Dobbs: So you defended your culture.

[35:14] Bob Dobbs: You made sure that it had certain definitions of rules so you knew who wasn't part of it,

[35:19] Bob Dobbs: and therefore you knew who to trust or not.

[35:21] Bob Dobbs: So is...

[35:23] Bob Dobbs: that eroding?

[35:27] Bob Dobbs: McCloughan said to me through the evergreens once,

[35:29] Bob Dobbs: he said,

[35:30] Bob Dobbs: it's the end of paranoia.

[35:31] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[35:31] Bob Dobbs: it seems we're getting more paranoid.

[35:33] Bob Dobbs: At least the end where he was.

[35:36] Bob Dobbs: But of course,

[35:36] Cameron McEwen: you have to ask what he meant by that.

[35:38] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[35:39] Cameron McEwen: Right?

[35:39] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[35:40] Cameron McEwen: When you say the end of paranoia,

[35:43] Cameron McEwen: I always like to point out that the genitive of paranoia comes in two very different...

[35:52] Cameron McEwen: flavors,

[35:53] Cameron McEwen: right?

[35:55] Cameron McEwen: The end of what is an object of genitive,

[35:59] Cameron McEwen: the end of paranoia,

[36:01] Cameron McEwen: or a subject of a genitive,

[36:05] Cameron McEwen: like the ball of the boy.

[36:07] Cameron McEwen: If you say the end of paranoia,

[36:10] Cameron McEwen: the end belongs to paranoia.

[36:13] Cameron McEwen: So instead of paranoia being ended,

[36:16] Cameron McEwen: it supplies the end or the end belongs to paranoia.

[36:20] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[36:22] Bob Dobbs: And did you say the boy and the ball?

[36:25] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[36:25] Cameron McEwen: he said as an example of the subjective genitive,

[36:29] Cameron McEwen: the ball of the boy.

[36:30] Cameron McEwen: That is to say the ball belongs to the boy.

[36:33] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[36:33] Cameron McEwen: And so if you say the end of paranoia,

[36:37] Cameron McEwen: if you take that as a subjective genitive,

[36:40] Cameron McEwen: then it's not the end of paranoia.

[36:42] Cameron McEwen: Rather,

[36:43] Cameron McEwen: it's the end of what?

[36:44] Bob Dobbs: The end is made up of paranoia.

[36:47] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[36:47] Cameron McEwen: it belongs to paranoia.

[36:49] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[36:49] Cameron McEwen: Instead of...

[36:50] Cameron McEwen: paranoia disappearing Innis end.

[36:55] Cameron McEwen: The end is the full flavor,

[36:58] Cameron McEwen: the full expression,

[36:59] Cameron McEwen: the full blooming of paranoia.

[37:03] Bob Dobbs: So one of them is a subjective genitive and the other is an objective.

[37:07] Bob Dobbs: Explain the difference,

[37:08] Bob Dobbs: maybe,

[37:09] Bob Dobbs: of how you apply those.

[37:10] Cameron McEwen: The subjective genitive is the ball of the boy.

[37:15] Cameron McEwen: It belongs to the boy.

[37:16] Cameron McEwen: Possession,

[37:17] Cameron McEwen: that's right.

[37:18] Cameron McEwen: An objective tentative is the end of paranoia where paranoia disappears.

[37:24] Cameron McEwen: It's the object of the end.

[37:26] Cameron McEwen: So what I'm saying is that of and the end of paranoia,

[37:31] Cameron McEwen: that needs to be thought both ways.

[37:34] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[37:34] Bob Dobbs: and you're always using those terms in your call.

[37:37] Cameron McEwen: Correct.

[37:37] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[37:37] Bob Dobbs: in your blog.

[37:39] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[37:39] Cameron McEwen: because I think that's very important to thinking.

[37:42] Cameron McEwen: And what's interesting about those,

[37:45] Cameron McEwen: or one of the things that's interesting about those terms

[37:48] Cameron McEwen: is that in other languages,

[37:51] Cameron McEwen: for example,

[37:52] Cameron McEwen: Latin and Greek,

[37:54] Cameron McEwen: the different kinds of genitive are very important to the language itself,

[38:01] Cameron McEwen: whereas in modern English,

[38:03] Cameron McEwen: we've more or less lost that distinction,

[38:06] Cameron McEwen: and that makes thinking very difficult.

[38:09] Cameron McEwen: We nearly always think of genitives as objective,

[38:14] Cameron McEwen: But that's...

[38:17] Cameron McEwen: a problem of thought there.

[38:19] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[38:20] Bob Dobbs: Okay.

[38:21] Bob Dobbs: So,

[38:25] Bob Dobbs: so I'm,

[38:26] Bob Dobbs: I'm being casual about the terms,

[38:28] Bob Dobbs: but print makes them solid.

[38:30] Bob Dobbs: You do a book,

[38:30] Bob Dobbs: it looks pretty solid,

[38:31] Bob Dobbs: right?

[38:31] Bob Dobbs: It looks like you're trying to lock it down and be fascist about it.

[38:36] Bob Dobbs: Impose it on people.

[38:37] Bob Dobbs: Phase three is the Global Membrane.

[38:39] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[38:40] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[38:40] Bob Dobbs: It's always,

[38:40] Bob Dobbs: it's always,

[38:40] Bob Dobbs: it's always,

[38:40] Bob Dobbs: it's always,

[38:41] Bob Dobbs: it's always,

[38:41] Cameron McEwen: it's always,

[38:41] Cameron McEwen: it's always,

[38:41] Bob Dobbs: it's always,

[38:41] Bob Dobbs: it's always,

[38:42] Bob Dobbs: it's always,

[38:42] Bob Dobbs: it's always,

[38:42] Bob Dobbs: it's always,

[38:42] Bob Dobbs: it's always,

[38:42] Bob Dobbs: it's always,

[38:43] Bob Dobbs: it's always,

[38:44] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[38:44] Bob Dobbs: what is that line that Barry Nevitt got from Mallarmé?

[38:47] Bob Dobbs: To define is to kill,

[38:49] Bob Dobbs: to suggest is to create.

[38:53] Bob Dobbs: Matching and making.

[38:54] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[38:54] Bob Dobbs: so do you have another question?

[38:56] Bob Dobbs: Something about individuals or we did that?

[38:59] Cameron McEwen: No,

[38:59] Cameron McEwen: I would just say that to me,

[39:02] Cameron McEwen: this conversation we're having is reminiscent of the new criticism.

[39:10] Cameron McEwen: So when the new criticism began to look at poetry in the

[39:15] Cameron McEwen: 1920s, it came to understand that poems were forms of ambiguity.

[39:25] Cameron McEwen: The poet would enter into the ambiguous relationship of words and try to manipulate that ambiguity in some way or ways.

[39:39] Cameron McEwen: And it seems to me that what we're doing here is we're attempting a new sort of new criticism.

[39:49] Cameron McEwen: We're not dealing with literary ambiguity.

[39:53] Cameron McEwen: We're dealing with the membranes.

[39:58] Cameron McEwen: That's right.

[40:00] Cameron McEwen: the membranes or the media that are like languages that are pools.

[40:08] Cameron McEwen: of relationships in which people are always situated,

[40:13] Cameron McEwen: but not consciously.

[40:15] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[40:21] Bob Dobbs: The ambiguous,

[40:24] Bob Dobbs: what was that,

[40:26] Bob Dobbs: environmental,

[40:27] Bob Dobbs: but negotiability,

[40:32] Bob Dobbs: that's a new word you got from Henry Wright.

[40:36] Cameron McEwen: From Havelock.

[40:38] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[40:38] Bob Dobbs: from Havelock,

[40:39] Bob Dobbs: right.

[40:39] Bob Dobbs: And so where am

[40:44] Bob Dobbs: I? I have all these media anti-environment.

[40:47] Bob Dobbs: in my rearview mirror to look at.

[40:51] Bob Dobbs: I'm not just looking at language like they did 150 years ago.

[40:54] Bob Dobbs: They got shifted and they all started structuralism.

[40:59] Bob Dobbs: They're so sure and peers started looking at language,

[41:02] Bob Dobbs: talking and literate talking.

[41:05] Bob Dobbs: And then Malinowski will discover phatic communion.

[41:09] Bob Dobbs: They don't recognize that the electric telegraph has shifted their attention.

[41:15] Bob Dobbs: It's moved them to another...

[41:17] Bob Dobbs: level,

[41:17] Bob Dobbs: another telescope,

[41:20] Bob Dobbs: another microscope,

[41:21] Bob Dobbs: another mountain range,

[41:24] Bob Dobbs: looking at the valley.

[41:26] Bob Dobbs: And we have gone through that many times over the last hundred years.

[41:31] Bob Dobbs: And we're sitting here where it's,

[41:34] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[41:34] Bob Dobbs: my kind of thinking or media quality thinking that you know about.

[41:40] Bob Dobbs: Our minds are different from

[41:42] Bob Dobbs: James Joyce and

[41:43] Bob Dobbs: Mallarmé or

[41:45] Bob Dobbs: Darwin.

[41:46] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[41:47] Bob Dobbs: The content,

[41:47] Bob Dobbs: what we're aware of.

[41:49] Bob Dobbs: We're sitting here talking about shifting anti-environment,

[41:52] Bob Dobbs: and intelligence agencies,

[41:54] Bob Dobbs: they work on that level.

[41:56] Bob Dobbs: They manipulate,

[41:58] Bob Dobbs: through the White House,

[41:59] Bob Dobbs: the word that makes the market,

[42:00] Bob Dobbs: they're manipulating all these interacting hardware anti-environment that are inside or parallel to the Global Membrane.

[42:09] Bob Dobbs: What a lofty view it is.

[42:13] Bob Dobbs: That's what we have unwittingly,

[42:15] Bob Dobbs: unconsciously gravitated to.

[42:19] Bob Dobbs: And in the popular culture,

[42:21] Bob Dobbs: they have terms for that.

[42:24] Bob Dobbs: They call Bill Gates and Steve Jobs masters of the universe,

[42:29] Bob Dobbs: right?

[42:29] Bob Dobbs: Or the Federal Reserve,

[42:31] Bob Dobbs: masters of the universe.

[42:32] Bob Dobbs: These popular images usually of outer space,

[42:36] Bob Dobbs: which is an eye perspective.

[42:39] Bob Dobbs: And so people...

[42:40] Bob Dobbs: Expanded the eye vistas to galaxies and constellations and multiple worlds.

[42:46] Bob Dobbs: That is the eye catching up to the shifts.

[42:50] Bob Dobbs: But there are shifts on the ear and kinetic and even tactility or proprioception.

[42:57] Bob Dobbs: I like to think of proprioception and haptic.

[43:00] Bob Dobbs: That's the Internet,

[43:02] Bob Dobbs: the Global Membrane.

[43:04] Bob Dobbs: Maybe the Android Meme is proprioceptive and haptic.

[43:07] Bob Dobbs: It's not tactility because tactility is not a sense.

[43:10] Bob Dobbs: But they're the closest to it.

[43:12] Bob Dobbs: And Eric,

[43:12] Bob Dobbs: in his book,

[43:13] Bob Dobbs: Electric Language,

[43:14] Bob Dobbs: which came out in 98 or 99,

[43:16] Bob Dobbs: he said the Internet was an extension of our proprioception.

[43:20] Cameron McEwen: So he would make what?

[43:22] Bob Dobbs: Eric,

[43:23] Bob Dobbs: in his book,

[43:23] Bob Dobbs: Electric Language,

[43:25] Bob Dobbs: he said that the Internet was an extension of our proprioception.

[43:31] Bob Dobbs: Uh-huh,

[43:31] Bob Dobbs: uh-huh.

[43:32] Bob Dobbs: I would agree with that.

[43:34] Bob Dobbs: Because when you do psychedelics or ayahuasca or any of these drugs,

[43:40] Bob Dobbs: You go into some place,

[43:41] Bob Dobbs: you go into the resonant node of the Global Membrane,

[43:45] Bob Dobbs: you start swimming through,

[43:47] Bob Dobbs: in an intense way,

[43:48] Bob Dobbs: interior landscape.

[43:51] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[43:51] Bob Dobbs: you're doing that every day with your smartphone and computers and that.

[43:56] Bob Dobbs: You're doing a drug trip,

[43:57] Bob Dobbs: which you call the interior landscape.

[44:01] Bob Dobbs: That's proprioceptive.

[44:03] Bob Dobbs: When people get into yoga and meditation,

[44:06] Bob Dobbs: you know...

[44:08] Bob Dobbs: for long periods of time,

[44:09] Bob Dobbs: they start to,

[44:09] Bob Dobbs: quote,

[44:10] Bob Dobbs: hallucinate and start to fill in,

[44:12] Bob Dobbs: make spaces.

[44:13] Bob Dobbs: So we would call that the proprioceptive and maybe the haptic.

[44:17] Bob Dobbs: That's how we live today.

[44:19] Bob Dobbs: That's our main extension today,

[44:21] Bob Dobbs: next to tactility.

[44:23] Bob Dobbs: So the membrane is tactility,

[44:26] Bob Dobbs: and the Android Meme is proprioception,

[44:29] Bob Dobbs: haptic,

[44:29] Bob Dobbs: what you call waves.

[44:34] Cameron McEwen: So can we say that the...

[44:38] Cameron McEwen: Android Meme is a kind of a shortcut of the membrane.

[44:43] Cameron McEwen: It's a shortcut that makes it,

[44:47] Cameron McEwen: it illuminates at least part of it,

[44:49] Cameron McEwen: and it makes it applicable in some way.

[44:54] Cameron McEwen: And the membrane is so powerful and so ubiquitous that even bits and pieces of it

[45:08] Cameron McEwen: can take over the world.

[45:13] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[45:13] Bob Dobbs: how about the Global Membrane has taken over the world.

[45:16] Bob Dobbs: Bits and pieces,

[45:17] Bob Dobbs: chips off the block,

[45:19] Bob Dobbs: are the scraps McLuhan talks about and Take Today,

[45:21] Bob Dobbs: the scraps in the world of old media,

[45:23] Bob Dobbs: and people toss those around and jockey for

[45:26] Bob Dobbs: King of the Mountain or something,

[45:28] Bob Dobbs: with the scraps,

[45:29] Bob Dobbs: but nothing,

[45:30] Bob Dobbs: remember,

[45:31] Bob Dobbs: the anti-environment can't be bought,

[45:32] Bob Dobbs: sold,

[45:33] Bob Dobbs: or stolen.

[45:34] Bob Dobbs: Global Membrane can't be bought,

[45:35] Bob Dobbs: sold,

[45:35] Bob Dobbs: or stolen,

[45:37] Bob Dobbs: and it's beyond economic measurement.

[45:39] Cameron McEwen: But not the Global Membrane.

[45:44] Cameron McEwen: in order to be bought or stolen,

[45:47] Cameron McEwen: it needs to enable that,

[45:49] Cameron McEwen: right?

[45:49] Cameron McEwen: There is no enabling aside from the Global Membrane.

[45:53] Cameron McEwen: So when the Global Membrane is bought or sold,

[45:58] Cameron McEwen: that's something that doesn't happen aside from the ubiquity of the Global Membrane.

[46:08] Cameron McEwen: And it happens as a shortcut,

[46:11] Cameron McEwen: as something that...

[46:14] Cameron McEwen: is humans can hijack it,

[46:18] Cameron McEwen: as you say,

[46:19] Cameron McEwen: but it's not the membrane itself which can never be hijacked.

[46:27] Cameron McEwen: It's a hijacking of a part of it.

[46:29] Bob Dobbs: Of the ratio among parts that you're making a pattern with or trying to control.

[46:36] Bob Dobbs: You're trying to control the bits,

[46:37] Bob Dobbs: all for a bit,

[46:38] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[46:38] Bob Dobbs: is the line in Finley's Wake.

[46:40] Cameron McEwen: But isn't that what the Android Meme is?

[46:43] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[46:43] Cameron McEwen: This taking over part of the membrane where that part is conscious,

[46:53] Cameron McEwen: organic.

[46:57] Bob Dobbs: It's an involvement.

[46:59] Bob Dobbs: It's a complementary action to the Global Membrane.

[47:04] Bob Dobbs: It's the knowable.

[47:05] Bob Dobbs: You get involved into the senses,

[47:07] Bob Dobbs: but it's very subtle senses or proprioception.

[47:10] Bob Dobbs: or wavicles.

[47:11] Bob Dobbs: That is how we know the Global Membrane,

[47:15] Bob Dobbs: even though it's nowhere near the unknowable Global Membrane.

[47:19] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[47:19] Cameron McEwen: it's not a matching,

[47:20] Cameron McEwen: it's a making.

[47:22] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[47:22] Bob Dobbs: it's an agreed upon bit.

[47:25] Bob Dobbs: It's a bitcoin.

[47:27] Bob Dobbs: It's a bit,

[47:30] Bob Dobbs: which is what people do.

[47:31] Bob Dobbs: If they start to control something,

[47:33] Bob Dobbs: they get locked into a bit or a part.

[47:35] Bob Dobbs: And that's...

[47:37] Bob Dobbs: in the long run a mistake because you cut off your whole sensibilities by emphasizing one aspect too much.

[47:47] Bob Dobbs: So you have people,

[47:49] Bob Dobbs: they take all the entertainment industries as people engaging bits.

[47:55] Bob Dobbs: Then you take all the engineering industries and people engaging bits.

[48:00] Bob Dobbs: Run through the whole gamut of institutions,

[48:02] Bob Dobbs: technologies,

[48:03] Bob Dobbs: and schools,

[48:04] Bob Dobbs: and they're all bits.

[48:06] Bob Dobbs: And they're all bumping into each other and not stopping and contemplating the ineffable Global Membrane,

[48:15] Bob Dobbs: which you wouldn't need to.

[48:17] Bob Dobbs: Remember,

[48:21] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan says at the end of Chapter 8,

[48:24] Bob Dobbs: the spoken word,

[48:24] Bob Dobbs: he talks about the computer promises an era of SubGenius and weightlessness.

[48:33] Bob Dobbs: Do you remember that?

[48:34] Bob Dobbs: He said we wouldn't need the translations of languages.

[48:37] Bob Dobbs: That is what we're up against when we're dealing with the Global Membrane.

[48:41] Bob Dobbs: It's the piece that passes all technology,

[48:45] Bob Dobbs: you could say.

[48:46] Bob Dobbs: Every technology being a retrieved bit.

[48:50] Bob Dobbs: A meme,

[48:50] Bob Dobbs: an afterimage.

[48:52] Cameron McEwen: Can we say that the

[48:53] Cameron McEwen: Android Meme is the conscious manipulation of...

[49:03] Cameron McEwen: bits.

[49:04] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[49:06] Bob Dobbs: The era of pattern recognition.

[49:07] Bob Dobbs: It's a pattern.

[49:09] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[49:12] Bob Dobbs: The Copernican revolution of pattern recognition.

[49:16] Cameron McEwen: So is the Android Meme necessarily singular?

[49:21] Bob Dobbs: No,

[49:21] Bob Dobbs: there's many memes.

[49:24] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[49:25] Bob Dobbs: so

[49:25] Bob Dobbs: I don't know what

[49:27] Bob Dobbs: I mean about Android Meme because there's obviously many memes.

[49:33] Bob Dobbs: But maybe people tend to like to have a frame.

[49:39] Bob Dobbs: So the Android Meme is a frame for all the memes.

[49:43] Bob Dobbs: It's a,

[49:43] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[49:45] Bob Dobbs: a basket,

[49:46] Bob Dobbs: a frame.

[49:47] Bob Dobbs: Isn't that what Heidegger,

[49:51] Bob Dobbs: who's the guy,

[49:52] Bob Dobbs: the German guy?

[49:53] Bob Dobbs: Heidegger?

[49:54] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[49:54] Bob Dobbs: Heidegger calls it sense-making,

[49:56] Bob Dobbs: right?

[49:57] Cameron McEwen: Yes.

[49:58] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[49:59] Bob Dobbs: it's an sense-making.

[50:01] Bob Dobbs: He has a...

[50:02] Bob Dobbs: a whole bunch of different ways to understand and framing.

[50:04] Bob Dobbs: So I'm just grabbing the word as a bit and sticking it on your question.

[50:11] Bob Dobbs: But,

[50:12] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[50:12] Bob Dobbs: the Android Meme,

[50:15] Bob Dobbs: at the moment there is a meme that everybody's engaging,

[50:18] Bob Dobbs: it's in charge.

[50:19] Bob Dobbs: It's very close to the trap of the Global Membrane.

[50:23] Bob Dobbs: It has a short life,

[50:25] Bob Dobbs: but it's as consolidated,

[50:28] Bob Dobbs: a black hole Innis time of action and attention,

[50:31] Bob Dobbs: as the Global Membrane is.

[50:33] Bob Dobbs: So there's where the bit is.

[50:35] Bob Dobbs: What do you call it?

[50:36] Bob Dobbs: It's a mirror.

[50:37] Bob Dobbs: It's an exact replay or echo of the membrane.

[50:41] Bob Dobbs: But it's in the knowable part,

[50:43] Bob Dobbs: you know.

[50:44] Bob Dobbs: Our cognition is an interplay of the something and the nothing.

[50:50] Bob Dobbs: You've got to have the nothing to see the something.

[50:52] Bob Dobbs: You've got to have the gap to see the connection.

[50:56] Bob Dobbs: So Global Membrane or Android Meme,

[50:59] Bob Dobbs: that sentence,

[51:00] Bob Dobbs: that title is hendieties.

[51:03] Bob Dobbs: One by means of two.

[51:06] Bob Dobbs: And the all-at-onceness is what we are.

[51:09] Bob Dobbs: Lewis was right about that.

[51:10] Bob Dobbs: He didn't believe in...

[51:11] Bob Dobbs: And one of us,

[51:11] Bob Dobbs: we're in Tunis,

[51:13] Bob Dobbs: and we're always engaging in Tunis of ourselves.

[51:17] Bob Dobbs: And then you start looking at the tech body or developments of the Android Meme.

[51:23] Bob Dobbs: That's a squaring,

[51:24] Bob Dobbs: cubing,

[51:24] Bob Dobbs: and Worringer of the Hendiades.

[51:30] Bob Dobbs: And that's why physics had to get into multiple dimensions,

[51:33] Bob Dobbs: right?

[51:34] Bob Dobbs: Don't they get into infinite dimensions?

[51:36] Bob Dobbs: That was just articulating the...

[51:40] Bob Dobbs: fill in and echoes that the bits make on each other as they spiral around the Global Membrane or through it.

[51:51] Bob Dobbs: You call it Schwartz,

[51:53] Bob Dobbs: shortcuts.

[51:56] Bob Dobbs: I don't know if they're short or long.

[51:58] Bob Dobbs: They're travelings.

[51:59] Bob Dobbs: They're sidebars.

[52:00] Bob Dobbs: They are a sense of going somewhere to counter the being of the Global Membrane.

[52:10] Bob Dobbs: So the Android Meme is becoming,

[52:12] Bob Dobbs: that old dialectic,

[52:13] Bob Dobbs: right?

[52:13] Bob Dobbs: Being versus becoming.

[52:17] Bob Dobbs: See,

[52:17] Bob Dobbs: humans want both.

[52:19] Bob Dobbs: They like to be where they Marchand relax there,

[52:22] Bob Dobbs: but then they got up and want to move around a bit.

[52:25] Bob Dobbs: So we're always Being and Time becoming.

[52:30] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[52:30] Bob Dobbs: So if you want to always go back to Plato or the history of philosophy,

[52:36] Bob Dobbs: which you like to do.

[52:38] Bob Dobbs: Global Membrane or Android Meme is being or becoming.

[52:46] Bob Dobbs: But,

[52:46] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[52:47] Bob Dobbs: the images we've had of Being and Time becoming through the centuries,

[52:51] Bob Dobbs: we have a whole bunch of new images for that now,

[52:54] Bob Dobbs: if we agree that Being and Time becoming relate to Global Membrane and Android Meme.

[53:02] Bob Dobbs: Most of the imagery we have today is laughable.

[53:07] Bob Dobbs: You can't take it seriously or you're cynical about it or it's not something that you can invest in.

[53:19] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[53:19] Cameron McEwen: so that sort of sums up your radio career right there,

[53:23] Cameron McEwen: right?

[53:24] Bob Dobbs: Yep.

[53:25] Cameron McEwen: You personify exactly that,

[53:28] Cameron McEwen: that tactility,

[53:30] Cameron McEwen: that ridiculousness.

[53:31] Cameron McEwen: The absurdity.

[53:32] Bob Dobbs: That was the word I was going to bring in,

[53:33] Bob Dobbs: the absurdity of the interplay.

[53:35] Cameron McEwen: Amen.

[53:37] Bob Dobbs: If you know from an early age,

[53:43] Bob Dobbs: it would be desirable,

[53:45] Bob Dobbs: that that's the situation you're in,

[53:46] Bob Dobbs: regardless of your physical age,

[53:50] Bob Dobbs: that's a training of perception people should get.

[53:52] Bob Dobbs: What we're talking about is what everybody should hear,

[53:56] Bob Dobbs: I say,

[53:58] Bob Dobbs: in school.

[53:59] Bob Dobbs: Kids should hear this talk,

[54:01] Bob Dobbs: and they figure out what it means,

[54:03] Bob Dobbs: because they need to hear...

[54:05] Bob Dobbs: The perceptions we're pointing out,

[54:08] Bob Dobbs: maybe we're specialized in McLuhan SubGenius,

[54:11] Bob Dobbs: right?

[54:12] Bob Dobbs: So we can sound like geniuses if someone doesn't know anything about this.

[54:16] Bob Dobbs: But

[54:20] Bob Dobbs: I think it's very important what we're talking about.

[54:26] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[54:26] Bob Dobbs: so...

[54:27] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[54:27] Bob Dobbs: go ahead.

[54:29] Cameron McEwen: Aren't we trying to articulate Wimsatt?

[54:34] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[54:35] Cameron McEwen: Right,

[54:35] Cameron McEwen: so a while ago you were talking about how purse and people like that were talking about language over a century ago.

[54:50] Cameron McEwen: But what they were talking about as language is not what

[54:56] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan meant when he said that media were languages.

[55:00] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[55:01] Bob Dobbs: uh...

[55:01] Cameron McEwen: what he was what he was trying to do is

[55:04] Cameron McEwen: redefine what language is all about.

[55:09] Cameron McEwen: And when you lose

[55:14] Cameron McEwen: markers in the world that are concrete,

[55:18] Cameron McEwen: that can be pointed out,

[55:20] Cameron McEwen: that have clear borders.

[55:22] Cameron McEwen: When you lose all that,

[55:24] Cameron McEwen: it becomes very difficult to articulate where you are or who you are or what you're doing or what you're supposed to be doing.

[55:33] Cameron McEwen: So the world is kind of a bunch of fragments that are thrown up in the air.

[55:41] Cameron McEwen: And the whole question is,

[55:42] Cameron McEwen: well,

[55:42] Cameron McEwen: what...

[55:43] Cameron McEwen: kind of cohesion or what sort of meaning is to those particles up in the air that we are,

[55:52] Cameron McEwen: well,

[55:52] Cameron McEwen: aren't we trying to articulate what's going on with them?

[55:57] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[55:59] Bob Dobbs: we're watching the men of 1914,

[56:00] Bob Dobbs: Joyce Pound,

[56:01] Bob Dobbs: Eliot

[56:02] Bob Dobbs: Yeats, and Lewis crack up because it was so impossible for them to figure out how to inframe what they were experiencing that they're different.

[56:11] Bob Dobbs: respective artworks are puzzles for people because they uh you know Joyce could have looked more complete than pounds cantos but Joyce told me he wasn't sure if he really got anywhere and

[56:26] Bob Dobbs: he said there's a lot of pages that were on the cutting room floor that he that were better than ones he put in the book and you know and then pound himself said it doesn't hold together at the end of the cantos.

[56:38] Bob Dobbs: So we have...

[56:41] Bob Dobbs: The advantage of deeper into accepting,

[56:46] Bob Dobbs: allowing the incompletion,

[56:48] Bob Dobbs: the nemesis of creativity,

[56:50] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan called it.

[56:52] Bob Dobbs: Pound and them were trying to solve it in a way.

[56:56] Bob Dobbs: And remember,

[56:56] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan says,

[56:58] Bob Dobbs: Mr.

[56:58] Bob Dobbs: Pound,

[56:59] Bob Dobbs: you guys discovered dimensions of the word back in your day.

[57:03] Bob Dobbs: I think he italicized it.

[57:05] Bob Dobbs: And that's what Saussure and Pierce did,

[57:08] Bob Dobbs: all under the telegraph effect.

[57:10] Bob Dobbs: But he said,

[57:11] Bob Dobbs: I'm dealing with a new problem.

[57:13] Bob Dobbs: Words have become drugs.

[57:15] Bob Dobbs: So that's the old languages becoming drugs.

[57:18] Bob Dobbs: And what new languages make the old languages drugs?

[57:22] Bob Dobbs: That's what you're trying to say.

[57:24] Bob Dobbs: The new languages is what he was talking about.

[57:26] Bob Dobbs: He wasn't concerned about the word itself.

[57:29] Bob Dobbs: And you see Kenner in his book on the Pound Era,

[57:32] Bob Dobbs: that's a lot of what he talks about.

[57:34] Bob Dobbs: The great discovery of language or words or something,

[57:37] Bob Dobbs: that's what pound was about,

[57:39] Bob Dobbs: right?

[57:42] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[57:42] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan said that for Americans,

[57:45] Bob Dobbs: young people,

[57:47] Bob Dobbs: the poetry is in the machines,

[57:49] Bob Dobbs: the cars and trains and dump trucks.

[57:53] Bob Dobbs: Whereas in Europe,

[57:53] Bob Dobbs: the poetry is still in literate language and words.

[57:58] Bob Dobbs: So that Joyce and them,

[58:00] Bob Dobbs: they verbalize the machinic anti-environment and Hemingway and the Americans machinize the verbal book.

[58:12] Bob Dobbs: Maybe Lewis did that more than anybody.

[58:13] Bob Dobbs: You remember that sentence?

[58:15] Bob Dobbs: The European verbalizes the machine and the

[58:18] Bob Dobbs: North American mechanizes the verbal.

[58:20] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[58:21] Cameron McEwen: yeah.

[58:22] Cameron McEwen: He talks about that in many different places.

[58:24] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[58:28] Bob Dobbs: So that's what,

[58:30] Bob Dobbs: now what's dramatic now is we're all staying in the Global Membrane.

[58:37] Bob Dobbs: We're in a way becoming aware of it and staying there.

[58:41] Bob Dobbs: and watching the ripples of the Android Meme collide with each other and it looks pretty dangerous more and more people don't want to travel they're sitting in lockdown they're sitting in the paralyzed Global Membrane they

[58:58] Bob Dobbs: intuit that why should i get fly anyplace they just got the same content as i have here the same media the same noise right so people are starting to get used to you

[59:11] Bob Dobbs: And enjoying and being lazy within the paralysis of the Global Membrane.

[59:20] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[59:20] Bob Dobbs: that's just a new pattern.

[59:21] Bob Dobbs: I'm just making that up right now.

[59:22] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[59:23] Bob Dobbs: I'm just sort of thinking about that occurred to me to say that.

[59:30] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[59:30] Cameron McEwen: so just to make clear what I think we're doing here is you're talking about things like

[59:41] Cameron McEwen: global theater than the Global Membrane and how that relates to the Android Meme and what phases there are to the Android Meme so um i i think it's a service

[59:53] Cameron McEwen: you know,

[59:55] Cameron McEwen: to the world,

[59:56] Cameron McEwen: but in particular to the conversation that we're having,

[1:00:01] Cameron McEwen: just to have you talk about these terms so that instead of being,

[1:00:08] Cameron McEwen: you know,

[1:00:10] Cameron McEwen: pieces of sound,

[1:00:14] Cameron McEwen: they get articulated into a larger context.

[1:00:20] Cameron McEwen: And through that...

[1:00:24] Cameron McEwen: a new kind of understanding takes place.

[1:00:28] Cameron McEwen: We get to understand as a kind of play how these terms operate.

[1:00:41] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:00:41] Cameron McEwen: Right?

[1:00:41] Cameron McEwen: And especially how they operate in your mind.

[1:00:44] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:00:45] Bob Dobbs: And I'm thinking that,

[1:00:46] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:00:46] Bob Dobbs: teachers are beloved.

[1:00:48] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[1:00:48] Bob Dobbs: a good teacher,

[1:00:49] Bob Dobbs: the students really like them because they get to listen to the guy think out loud and interact with them every day,

[1:00:54] Bob Dobbs: every class.

[1:00:56] Bob Dobbs: Frank Zappa didn't get a chance to talk about xenochrony too much.

[1:01:01] Bob Dobbs: One interview here and there over,

[1:01:02] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:01:03] Bob Dobbs: 20-year career and all that stuff.

[1:01:05] Bob Dobbs: But Innis case,

[1:01:06] Bob Dobbs: I'm able to talk and you're able to talk.

[1:01:08] Bob Dobbs: And so we're being a classroom to each other.

[1:01:11] Bob Dobbs: And that's what always should be.

[1:01:13] Bob Dobbs: There should always be the time to do that in people's lives.

[1:01:18] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.

[1:01:21] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan said you couldn't lead a proper life unless you were just conversing for three or four hours a day,

[1:01:30] Cameron McEwen: right?

[1:01:30] Bob Dobbs: That's right.

[1:01:31] Bob Dobbs: I was trying to remember that quote as I was speaking 30 seconds ago,

[1:01:34] Bob Dobbs: and then you remembered it.

[1:01:35] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:01:36] Bob Dobbs: that's exactly the point there,

[1:01:38] Bob Dobbs: right?

[1:01:38] Bob Dobbs: And he was correct about that.

[1:01:41] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[1:01:41] Bob Dobbs: what's interesting is that in lockdown,

[1:01:44] Bob Dobbs: people had supposedly an opportunity to do that.

[1:01:48] Bob Dobbs: They were forced to,

[1:01:49] Bob Dobbs: but they went into packaging.

[1:01:51] Bob Dobbs: They go look at celebrities do a song or some thinker would hold forth in the seminar.

[1:01:57] Bob Dobbs: They weren't too good at contributing to it.

[1:02:01] Bob Dobbs: They gave a passive response to it.

[1:02:03] Bob Dobbs: They had to engage their attention,

[1:02:04] Bob Dobbs: so they put themselves in classes.

[1:02:07] Bob Dobbs: But the ideal class is like a Socratic dialogue.

[1:02:10] Bob Dobbs: There's nobody completely in charge of what's going on in it.

[1:02:17] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:02:18] Cameron McEwen: you subject yourself to the dialogue instead of trying to subject the dialogue to you.

[1:02:24] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:02:24] Bob Dobbs: you participate the dialogue.

[1:02:26] Bob Dobbs: Wasn't that the definition of the sun?

[1:02:30] Bob Dobbs: Early aboriginal definitions was you participate the sun.

[1:02:35] Bob Dobbs: I remember reading that in Ted Carpenter or somebody.

[1:02:38] Bob Dobbs: You ever seen that?

[1:02:40] Cameron McEwen: No,

[1:02:40] Cameron McEwen: but I can,

[1:02:41] Cameron McEwen: or at least I don't remember seeing it,

[1:02:43] Cameron McEwen: but

[1:02:43] Cameron McEwen: I can easily imagine that as one kind of mythological articulation that some tribe lived in.

[1:02:55] Cameron McEwen: Sounds a little bit like

[1:02:59] Cameron McEwen: Zuni or one of the southwest

[1:03:05] Cameron McEwen: Indian cultures.

[1:03:07] Bob Dobbs: Of America.

[1:03:09] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:03:09] Cameron McEwen: would think of themselves like that.

[1:03:11] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[1:03:13] Cameron McEwen: And we think of ourselves like that,

[1:03:14] Cameron McEwen: right?

[1:03:15] Cameron McEwen: We talk about solar energy and all that sort of stuff.

[1:03:19] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:03:20] Bob Dobbs: Okay.

[1:03:20] Bob Dobbs: So more and more the wealth of our time,

[1:03:28] Bob Dobbs: now thinking like Bucky Fuller,

[1:03:30] Bob Dobbs: scarcity had pretty well disappeared technically,

[1:03:35] Bob Dobbs: but the obsessions interrupted the distribution of it.

[1:03:38] Bob Dobbs: different kinds of old-fashioned media obsessions.

[1:03:44] Bob Dobbs: But the abundance of our situation allows people to sit around and think and talk like we're doing.

[1:03:52] Bob Dobbs: And that is what,

[1:03:55] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:03:55] Bob Dobbs: before that society,

[1:03:56] Bob Dobbs: everybody had to work to supposedly keep it going.

[1:04:00] Bob Dobbs: There wasn't much time to sit around and do it.

[1:04:03] Bob Dobbs: But we do have time now.

[1:04:04] Bob Dobbs: So that's actually the renaissance.

[1:04:07] Bob Dobbs: As long as we have food being made by somebody,

[1:04:13] Bob Dobbs: those people can be allowed to take a break three or four hours a day.

[1:04:21] Bob Dobbs: People talk about they get self-help classes and they learn how to focus on a goal and all this stuff.

[1:04:27] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[1:04:28] Bob Dobbs: a big thing that we're now just advocating is make sure you set aside two or three,

[1:04:35] Bob Dobbs: four hours of conversation with some.

[1:04:37] Bob Dobbs: situation.

[1:04:39] Bob Dobbs: You have to do that every day.

[1:04:40] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[1:04:40] Bob Dobbs: imagine,

[1:04:41] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:04:41] Bob Dobbs: mandating that.

[1:04:43] Bob Dobbs: That would help disperse the hectic pace that people supposedly live at,

[1:04:50] Bob Dobbs: right?

[1:04:51] Bob Dobbs: Make it a civilized value,

[1:04:53] Bob Dobbs: a sign of wealth.

[1:04:57] Bob Dobbs: And that's actually Media Ecology,

[1:04:58] Bob Dobbs: isn't it?

[1:04:59] Bob Dobbs: That's what McLuhan meant Media Ecology.

[1:05:02] Bob Dobbs: Having a conversation.

[1:05:04] Cameron McEwen: Isn't that a good example of how shortcuts can lose what they're supposedly about?

[1:05:14] Cameron McEwen: We do have whole industries sitting around thinking about artificial intelligence

[1:05:23] Cameron McEwen: having their little seminars,

[1:05:25] Cameron McEwen: having their educational programs,

[1:05:27] Cameron McEwen: having their research and corporations and all that sort of stuff.

[1:05:32] Cameron McEwen: But there,

[1:05:33] Cameron McEwen: what's happening is there's an attempt to sort of take over,

[1:05:40] Cameron McEwen: to hijack the whole process of thinking about thinking.

[1:05:49] Cameron McEwen: And so there you have...

[1:05:52] Cameron McEwen: Not only three or four hours a day,

[1:05:53] Cameron McEwen: you have people thinking about this stuff 18 hours a day,

[1:05:58] Cameron McEwen: but the whole problem is because they are subjecting it to us rather than us to it,

[1:06:07] Cameron McEwen: it becomes a shortcut,

[1:06:09] Cameron McEwen: it becomes something out of which products can be made,

[1:06:13] Cameron McEwen: and therefore the essential thing,

[1:06:18] Cameron McEwen: namely us.

[1:06:20] Cameron McEwen: subjecting ourselves to it,

[1:06:22] Cameron McEwen: that becomes lost.

[1:06:23] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:06:24] Cameron McEwen: Because the direction is lost.

[1:06:27] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:06:27] Bob Dobbs: you've got to learn to do the purpose.

[1:06:29] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[1:06:29] Bob Dobbs: bring in John Cage.

[1:06:30] Bob Dobbs: Highest purpose have no purpose.

[1:06:32] Bob Dobbs: A good part of your day should be purposeless.

[1:06:36] Bob Dobbs: Not the whole day,

[1:06:37] Bob Dobbs: but certainly not as much as people think they have to do it,

[1:06:41] Bob Dobbs: have purpose.

[1:06:42] Bob Dobbs: And then you have just sheer manipulation.

[1:06:45] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[1:06:46] Bob Dobbs: people hijacking populations and putting them to work.

[1:06:51] Bob Dobbs: How do you get cultures to relax on that around the world?

[1:06:56] Bob Dobbs: Like if you're Mr.

[1:06:57] Bob Dobbs: Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum and you think you're bringing in a new situation where nobody will own anything but they'll be happy,

[1:07:05] Bob Dobbs: lots of luck with that.

[1:07:06] Bob Dobbs: There's a lot of,

[1:07:07] Bob Dobbs: as McLuhan said,

[1:07:08] Bob Dobbs: a lot of obsessions and craziness that nut people want to engage and will create.

[1:07:14] Bob Dobbs: They can't stop themselves from imposing order.

[1:07:18] Bob Dobbs: They're like fascists.

[1:07:19] Bob Dobbs: They've got to impose some order in their identity.

[1:07:23] Bob Dobbs: So we're hoping.

[1:07:25] Bob Dobbs: And if you know that's what he was going to do,

[1:07:27] Bob Dobbs: then you have to bring in police and intelligence surveillance.

[1:07:30] Bob Dobbs: You've got to have all this protection,

[1:07:32] Bob Dobbs: all this paranoia.

[1:07:34] Cameron McEwen: So on page 110,

[1:07:36] Cameron McEwen: you use the phrase,

[1:07:38] Cameron McEwen: the lockdown of the solar government.

[1:07:40] Cameron McEwen: Is that what you're talking about right there with the fascist lockdown?

[1:07:50] Cameron McEwen: of social life?

[1:07:51] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:07:52] Bob Dobbs: people think a new world order is coming in,

[1:07:54] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:07:55] Bob Dobbs: George Bush,

[1:07:55] Bob Dobbs: a thousand points of light,

[1:07:58] Bob Dobbs: a world government.

[1:07:59] Bob Dobbs: That's so rearview mirror,

[1:08:00] Bob Dobbs: that happened you know a hundred years ago.

[1:08:03] Bob Dobbs: What we're witnessing is the the fascization,

[1:08:08] Bob Dobbs: fascism,

[1:08:09] Bob Dobbs: of the solar global theater and I call it the solar government.

[1:08:13] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:08:14] Bob Dobbs: you could say lockdown of solar government has happened

[1:08:19] Bob Dobbs: The,

[1:08:20] Bob Dobbs: and

[1:08:20] Bob Dobbs: Bernard talked about this,

[1:08:22] Bob Dobbs: the orbiting economy.

[1:08:24] Bob Dobbs: You had the natural economy,

[1:08:26] Bob Dobbs: the industrial economy,

[1:08:27] Bob Dobbs: but around it was this digital movement going through the fiber optics and satellite connections,

[1:08:33] Bob Dobbs: that grid.

[1:08:34] Bob Dobbs: And there were people,

[1:08:37] Bob Dobbs: many groups who knew how to hijack it,

[1:08:39] Bob Dobbs: make so-called profit from it.

[1:08:42] Bob Dobbs: And so,

[1:08:43] Bob Dobbs: yeah,

[1:08:43] Bob Dobbs: lockdown solar government.

[1:08:44] Bob Dobbs: Then I say we go lockdown into universal government.

[1:08:46] Bob Dobbs: Because the...

[1:08:48] Bob Dobbs: Space is,

[1:08:48] Bob Dobbs: as I was saying,

[1:08:49] Bob Dobbs: people's imagery of space.

[1:08:52] Bob Dobbs: You look back in the 40s and 50s,

[1:08:53] Bob Dobbs: people said,

[1:08:54] Bob Dobbs: oh,

[1:08:54] Bob Dobbs: we're going to go to Mars.

[1:08:56] Bob Dobbs: There might be life on Mars.

[1:08:58] Bob Dobbs: And then,

[1:08:59] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:08:59] Bob Dobbs: in the 60s,

[1:09:00] Bob Dobbs: 70s,

[1:09:00] Bob Dobbs: you get the solar system imagery.

[1:09:02] Bob Dobbs: Now you have people with universal landscapes,

[1:09:06] Bob Dobbs: universes and galaxies and black holes.

[1:09:09] Bob Dobbs: But superimposed on that is their drug visions,

[1:09:13] Bob Dobbs: their psychedelic swirling,

[1:09:15] Bob Dobbs: overlaid.

[1:09:17] Bob Dobbs: on the external universal landscape because you have gone inner into another space of both attempts to visualize the mind uh the membrane so there's a lockdown mythic government is a lockdown and

[1:09:33] Bob Dobbs: what do i have the lockdown bob is the final phase right with holeopathic replays that's that's

[1:09:47] Cameron McEwen: Do you mean the final phase in terms of unlocking the absurdity of it?

[1:09:56] Bob Dobbs: unlocking the previous lockdowns of world government,

[1:10:00] Bob Dobbs: solar government,

[1:10:02] Bob Dobbs: universal government,

[1:10:03] Bob Dobbs: mythic government.

[1:10:04] Cameron McEwen: But doesn't that take place through laughter?

[1:10:07] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[1:10:07] Bob Dobbs: yeah.

[1:10:08] Bob Dobbs: We laugh a lot whenever

[1:10:10] Bob Dobbs: I'm running my seminar.

[1:10:14] Bob Dobbs: It's a lot of laughter.

[1:10:17] Bob Dobbs: I like that line.

[1:10:17] Bob Dobbs: I don't know if I made it up.

[1:10:19] Bob Dobbs: When you're laughing,

[1:10:19] Bob Dobbs: you're learning.

[1:10:22] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[1:10:23] Cameron McEwen: I like the idea of...

[1:10:27] Cameron McEwen: all sorts of different lockdowns,

[1:10:30] Cameron McEwen: and then they get exploded one by one or all together by laughter.

[1:10:39] Bob Dobbs: That's right,

[1:10:40] Bob Dobbs: which is perception.

[1:10:41] Bob Dobbs: When you perceive it,

[1:10:44] Bob Dobbs: you get tickled.

[1:10:46] Bob Dobbs: So laughter may not be an aggressive attacking laughter.

[1:10:50] Bob Dobbs: It's a tickle of recognition.

[1:10:53] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.

[1:10:54] Bob Dobbs: of the absurdity of the situation,

[1:10:55] Bob Dobbs: the tactile non-negotiability of the incompletion.

[1:11:02] Cameron McEwen: But isn't that an example of what I was talking about earlier in terms of direction?

[1:11:10] Cameron McEwen: If the powers of the universe are subjected to us and we're capable of anything,

[1:11:20] Cameron McEwen: including the complete destruction of the world,

[1:11:24] Cameron McEwen: If the powers of the universe are subjected to us,

[1:11:28] Cameron McEwen: you get sort of the worst possible lockdown.

[1:11:34] Cameron McEwen: But if you reverse that to where we subject ourselves to the powers of the universe through laughter at the lockdowns,

[1:11:46] Cameron McEwen: then there is not only a laughter at...

[1:11:53] Cameron McEwen: you're laughing at,

[1:11:54] Cameron McEwen: there's a laughter of relief,

[1:11:57] Cameron McEwen: a laughter of...

[1:12:01] Bob Dobbs: You know what Huxley called it?

[1:12:02] Bob Dobbs: The reconciliation of yes and no.

[1:12:04] Bob Dobbs: That's the laughter.

[1:12:07] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.

[1:12:08] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.

[1:12:09] Cameron McEwen: And it's a laughter of pure enjoyment.

[1:12:16] Cameron McEwen: It's like suddenly walking into a new space and thinking,

[1:12:22] Cameron McEwen: No.

[1:12:22] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[1:12:22] Cameron McEwen: my God,

[1:12:22] Cameron McEwen: I can relax.

[1:12:26] Cameron McEwen: Imagine that this form of completion was always there,

[1:12:35] Cameron McEwen: but

[1:12:36] Cameron McEwen: I couldn't get into it because I couldn't let go.

[1:12:39] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:12:40] Bob Dobbs: And,

[1:12:40] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:12:40] Bob Dobbs: different times,

[1:12:42] Bob Dobbs: McComb would Wright sentence or two expressing that.

[1:12:45] Bob Dobbs: Can't think of any right now,

[1:12:46] Bob Dobbs: but he would sort of point out the...

[1:12:50] Bob Dobbs: The laughter at the conclusion slash no finish line,

[1:12:55] Bob Dobbs: you know?

[1:12:56] Cameron McEwen: Definitely.

[1:12:57] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:12:58] Bob Dobbs: He had some neat words on there.

[1:12:59] Bob Dobbs: I don't know what I'm thinking of,

[1:13:00] Bob Dobbs: but it makes me think of something that he was saying that expressed what you just said,

[1:13:06] Bob Dobbs: walking into a new vista.

[1:13:09] Cameron McEwen: It may come to you.

[1:13:11] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:13:11] Bob Dobbs: Exploring ignorance for discovery.

[1:13:13] Bob Dobbs: That's one of the phrases,

[1:13:14] Bob Dobbs: exploring ignorance for discovery.

[1:13:16] Bob Dobbs: But he had it,

[1:13:17] Bob Dobbs: he would...

[1:13:17] Bob Dobbs: lapse into being a novelist almost and Wright poetic sentence or two.

[1:13:23] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean by that?

[1:13:25] Cameron McEwen: Yes,

[1:13:25] Cameron McEwen: absolutely.

[1:13:26] Cameron McEwen: Absolutely.

[1:13:27] Cameron McEwen: That's how

[1:13:28] Cameron McEwen: I think of your mind.

[1:13:30] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:13:30] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[1:13:30] Bob Dobbs: that's great.

[1:13:32] Bob Dobbs: Good.

[1:13:34] Bob Dobbs: Don't know about your mind yet.

[1:13:36] Bob Dobbs: We're still working on it.

[1:13:40] Bob Dobbs: Which is a funny response,

[1:13:42] Bob Dobbs: right?

[1:13:42] Bob Dobbs: So the...

[1:13:49] Bob Dobbs: I just think that we're communicating very well and that it needs to be displayed.

[1:13:57] Bob Dobbs: I think young people,

[1:13:59] Bob Dobbs: 15,

[1:13:59] Bob Dobbs: 16,

[1:14:00] Bob Dobbs: 17-year-old,

[1:14:00] Bob Dobbs: reasonable,

[1:14:00] Bob Dobbs: intelligent kids,

[1:14:01] Bob Dobbs: not too Neurotica,

[1:14:04] Bob Dobbs: would enjoy hearing adults talking beyond normal adult morality talk.

[1:14:12] Bob Dobbs: Or,

[1:14:12] Bob Dobbs: don't do this,

[1:14:13] Bob Dobbs: shouldn't do that,

[1:14:14] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:14:15] Bob Dobbs: what's up with you?

[1:14:16] Bob Dobbs: That kind of talk is not useful.

[1:14:19] Bob Dobbs: And you find if you get anywhere near that with young people,

[1:14:22] Bob Dobbs: they really like it.

[1:14:23] Bob Dobbs: If a professor can bring that out in class,

[1:14:27] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:14:29] Bob Dobbs: like today on Office Hours,

[1:14:33] Bob Dobbs: Brian,

[1:14:34] Bob Dobbs: he had gone to the seed school in Toronto.

[1:14:37] Bob Dobbs: Did you ever hear of that?

[1:14:39] Cameron McEwen: No.

[1:14:40] Bob Dobbs: It was for kids who couldn't handle high school,

[1:14:42] Bob Dobbs: weren't doing too well.

[1:14:43] Bob Dobbs: So influenced by McLuhan,

[1:14:46] Bob Dobbs: they made Rochdale.

[1:14:48] Bob Dobbs: a place and these things they called seed where they allowed the kids to kind of just study at their own pace do what they want to do and he had a professor

[1:14:58] Bob Dobbs: who just died the other day.

[1:15:00] Bob Dobbs: But he was a big influence on Brian in his high school.

[1:15:03] Bob Dobbs: So Brian had a tape of the guy reading his poetry.

[1:15:08] Bob Dobbs: And it was all about lying.

[1:15:12] Bob Dobbs: I think one line was,

[1:15:14] Bob Dobbs: let me wake up every morning and at first engage the lie.

[1:15:19] Bob Dobbs: And then it talked about children engaging the lie and making you take their marbles.

[1:15:24] Bob Dobbs: A whole string of human activities.

[1:15:28] Bob Dobbs: that we're expressing,

[1:15:30] Bob Dobbs: interacting with the lie.

[1:15:31] Bob Dobbs: And it was a nice poem.

[1:15:33] Bob Dobbs: So he thought that said a lot,

[1:15:36] Bob Dobbs: and he said,

[1:15:37] Bob Dobbs: that reminds me of the Church of the SubGenius,

[1:15:40] Bob Dobbs: Bob,

[1:15:41] Bob Dobbs: working with the lie and maybe slack.

[1:15:44] Bob Dobbs: So this guy was a very slackful professor,

[1:15:48] Bob Dobbs: he said.

[1:15:50] Bob Dobbs: He knew how to make the kids come to school with no tests or anything,

[1:15:55] Bob Dobbs: But...

[1:15:56] Bob Dobbs: I made sure they learned something every day at some point.

[1:16:00] Bob Dobbs: So it's just the way Brian was talking about this unique poetic professor makes me,

[1:16:07] Bob Dobbs: I think of him in light of what I was trying to say about how to run a classroom or how to have an exploratory classroom that is a benefit to everybody.

[1:16:18] Bob Dobbs: Because always remember,

[1:16:19] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan said he got all his breakthroughs from his students.

[1:16:27] Bob Dobbs: Did you know he said that?

[1:16:28] Cameron McEwen: Oh,

[1:16:29] Cameron McEwen: sure.

[1:16:29] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:16:30] Cameron McEwen: That's a commonplace.

[1:16:35] Cameron McEwen: You could say it's a...

[1:16:38] Cameron McEwen: Not only McLuhan says that.

[1:16:40] Bob Dobbs: Many teachers say that.

[1:16:42] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:16:43] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:16:44] Bob Dobbs: But the thing is,

[1:16:45] Bob Dobbs: he would get new insights from their problems,

[1:16:50] Bob Dobbs: what they talked about.

[1:16:52] Bob Dobbs: And they would talk about it in a way...

[1:16:54] Bob Dobbs: that wouldn't be uttered around their parents or something.

[1:16:57] Bob Dobbs: So it would...

[1:16:59] Cameron McEwen: He got new energy from their energy.

[1:17:01] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:17:02] Cameron McEwen: In one place,

[1:17:04] Cameron McEwen: I remember him talking about the Gutenberg Galaxy.

[1:17:08] Cameron McEwen: And he says,

[1:17:09] Cameron McEwen: oh,

[1:17:10] Cameron McEwen: my team corrected all of the quotations in Gutenberg Galaxy in a single night or in two single nights or something.

[1:17:21] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:17:22] Cameron McEwen: And he said,

[1:17:23] Cameron McEwen: the only problem is

[1:17:24] Cameron McEwen: I couldn't publish the book using them.

[1:17:27] Cameron McEwen: I had to go to the

[1:17:29] Cameron McEwen: University of

[1:17:30] Cameron McEwen: Toronto Press.

[1:17:32] Cameron McEwen: That took months and months.

[1:17:34] Bob Dobbs: You mean the professional editors had to do it?

[1:17:39] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:17:40] Bob Dobbs: They had to check the students'

[1:17:41] Bob Dobbs: work.

[1:17:42] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:17:44] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:17:44] Bob Dobbs: I know that Joe Keogh,

[1:17:46] Bob Dobbs: who,

[1:17:46] Bob Dobbs: when I was in Ottawa,

[1:17:47] Bob Dobbs: he pretty well had the largest...

[1:17:49] Bob Dobbs: volume of correspondence with McLuhan.

[1:17:51] Bob Dobbs: Did you ever hear about Joe Keogh?

[1:17:53] Bob Dobbs: He was an interesting guy.

[1:17:55] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[1:17:55] Cameron McEwen: I know a little bit of him,

[1:17:57] Cameron McEwen: but I don't know much about him,

[1:17:59] Cameron McEwen: so I'd be happy to hear more.

[1:18:02] Bob Dobbs: Mary McLuhan,

[1:18:03] Bob Dobbs: when I brought up Joe Keogh years ago,

[1:18:05] Bob Dobbs: she said,

[1:18:06] Bob Dobbs: oh my God,

[1:18:07] Bob Dobbs: that guy was always in our home.

[1:18:09] Bob Dobbs: The girls didn't like him.

[1:18:10] Bob Dobbs: He was a bit of a nerdy guy,

[1:18:12] Bob Dobbs: but it was one of her headaches when she was a teenager.

[1:18:16] Bob Dobbs: Irritating Joe was around.

[1:18:18] Bob Dobbs: But you couldn't keep Joe away.

[1:18:19] Bob Dobbs: He had a lively mind.

[1:18:20] Bob Dobbs: He saw McLuhan was the guy to hang out with.

[1:18:24] Cameron McEwen: He was like a graduate student at the time?

[1:18:26] Bob Dobbs: Yes,

[1:18:26] Bob Dobbs: he was a student at McLuhan.

[1:18:32] Bob Dobbs: I think in 69,

[1:18:34] Bob Dobbs: 70,

[1:18:34] Bob Dobbs: he went to Chicago and taught somewhere in that area.

[1:18:39] Bob Dobbs: And then

[1:18:44] Bob Dobbs: I'd be in the Coach House in 76,

[1:18:46] Bob Dobbs: 77.

[1:18:48] Bob Dobbs: And he always showed up,

[1:18:50] Bob Dobbs: come wandering in and see if Mark had anything for him or something.

[1:18:53] Bob Dobbs: So we became acquaintances and had chances to talk a lot.

[1:18:58] Bob Dobbs: Then he invited me up to Acadia University where he was teaching in 77.

[1:19:03] Bob Dobbs: So,

[1:19:03] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:19:04] Bob Dobbs: he was in the States in 70,

[1:19:05] Bob Dobbs: but eventually got him back to York.

[1:19:07] Bob Dobbs: But reading his letters,

[1:19:08] Bob Dobbs: his correspondence through those years,

[1:19:10] Bob Dobbs: he had a tough time getting a decent gig anywhere.

[1:19:14] Bob Dobbs: And he was always getting McLuhan to...

[1:19:16] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[1:19:17] Bob Dobbs: lobby to get him a gig in some place in the States.

[1:19:21] Bob Dobbs: But he,

[1:19:22] Bob Dobbs: in that probably stressful economic situation,

[1:19:27] Bob Dobbs: because he was married,

[1:19:28] Bob Dobbs: I don't know if he had any children,

[1:19:30] Bob Dobbs: but the demands of surviving,

[1:19:35] Bob Dobbs: I noticed in his letters he was always coming up with etymologies of stuff.

[1:19:40] Bob Dobbs: He basically wrote to McLuhan as an equal.

[1:19:43] Bob Dobbs: And he was saying,

[1:19:43] Bob Dobbs: well,

[1:19:43] Bob Dobbs: you're saying this,

[1:19:44] Bob Dobbs: but what about that?

[1:19:45] Bob Dobbs: and he would lay out all kinds of interesting stuff.

[1:19:47] Bob Dobbs: So his letters are almost the best letters,

[1:19:50] Bob Dobbs: the most intelligent letters,

[1:19:51] Bob Dobbs: the most interactive.

[1:19:53] Bob Dobbs: So he helped organize the Gutenberg Galaxy team.

[1:19:57] Bob Dobbs: He may have been the leader of the guys who did the editing.

[1:20:01] Bob Dobbs: Because he seems to be the first student,

[1:20:04] Bob Dobbs: the first to De Kerckhove,

[1:20:05] Bob Dobbs: the first Logan around McLuhan in the late 50s.

[1:20:09] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[1:20:10] Bob Dobbs: The student is always there,

[1:20:11] Bob Dobbs: and McLuhan will put him to work doing stuff.

[1:20:14] Bob Dobbs: So he gets the credit of editing Gutenberg Galaxy.

[1:20:18] Bob Dobbs: So he must have been part of that team.

[1:20:21] Bob Dobbs: So

[1:20:23] Bob Dobbs: I went out to his class,

[1:20:24] Bob Dobbs: and...

[1:20:26] Bob Dobbs: We were driving home from New York,

[1:20:27] Bob Dobbs: and we were going back to Toronto to meet Harley Parker,

[1:20:30] Bob Dobbs: who had only met here and there,

[1:20:31] Bob Dobbs: but

[1:20:32] Bob Dobbs: Joe was a really good friend,

[1:20:33] Bob Dobbs: so you hang out with Joe,

[1:20:36] Bob Dobbs: and then you get to spend a couple hours talking friendly with Harley,

[1:20:41] Bob Dobbs: because he liked Joe.

[1:20:42] Bob Dobbs: And on the way back,

[1:20:44] Bob Dobbs: he said something in the car.

[1:20:45] Bob Dobbs: I'm in the passenger seat.

[1:20:46] Bob Dobbs: I said,

[1:20:47] Bob Dobbs: what did you say?

[1:20:48] Bob Dobbs: He said,

[1:20:48] Bob Dobbs: I don't repeat myself.

[1:20:53] Bob Dobbs: I've never heard anybody say that.

[1:20:54] Bob Dobbs: I don't repeat myself.

[1:20:56] Bob Dobbs: I had a feeling he got that from McLuhan in some way.

[1:21:00] Bob Dobbs: But that was a great line.

[1:21:03] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[1:21:03] Bob Dobbs: I've done it a lot.

[1:21:06] Bob Dobbs: You didn't get what I said.

[1:21:07] Bob Dobbs: I don't repeat myself.

[1:21:09] Bob Dobbs: The guy was forever living in Persep.

[1:21:11] Bob Dobbs: He wasn't going to do a conceptual replay.

[1:21:13] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[1:21:14] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:21:15] Cameron McEwen: yeah,

[1:21:15] Bob Dobbs: yeah.

[1:21:17] Cameron McEwen: When you met Harley,

[1:21:19] Cameron McEwen: Harley at least,

[1:21:21] Cameron McEwen: um,

[1:21:22] Cameron McEwen: For somebody that doesn't know anything about the guy,

[1:21:26] Cameron McEwen: didn't he have a drinking problem so that he was,

[1:21:30] Cameron McEwen: or I don't know if it was a problem,

[1:21:32] Cameron McEwen: maybe it was a drinking advantage or something.

[1:21:36] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[1:21:36] Bob Dobbs: well,

[1:21:36] Bob Dobbs: I talked to Harley.

[1:21:37] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[1:21:38] Bob Dobbs: Marge Stewart would tell me stuff like that.

[1:21:39] Bob Dobbs: So

[1:21:40] Bob Dobbs: Marshall had to let Harley go by 73 or so whenever he left because he was drunk and sleeping and not doing anything.

[1:21:47] Bob Dobbs: So he got in bad shape.

[1:21:48] Bob Dobbs: Thank you.

[1:21:50] Bob Dobbs: When I called one time in 71,

[1:21:53] Bob Dobbs: he answered,

[1:21:54] Bob Dobbs: and I wanted to speak to Marshall.

[1:21:56] Bob Dobbs: He said

[1:21:57] Bob Dobbs: Marshall wasn't there or something.

[1:21:59] Bob Dobbs: So

[1:21:59] Bob Dobbs: I had some things on my mind,

[1:22:01] Bob Dobbs: so I said,

[1:22:03] Bob Dobbs: have you ever,

[1:22:04] Bob Dobbs: do you think Marshall knows about

[1:22:06] Bob Dobbs: Krishnamurti works?

[1:22:08] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[1:22:08] Bob Dobbs: no,

[1:22:08] Bob Dobbs: no,

[1:22:08] Bob Dobbs: he doesn't know about Krishnamurti.

[1:22:09] Bob Dobbs: I do.

[1:22:10] Bob Dobbs: I know a lot about Krishnamurti.

[1:22:13] Bob Dobbs: So he starts to tell me a lot about Krishnamurti.

[1:22:15] Bob Dobbs: And then I said,

[1:22:16] Bob Dobbs: well,

[1:22:16] Bob Dobbs: I really liked your book,

[1:22:17] Bob Dobbs: Through the Vanishing Point.

[1:22:19] Bob Dobbs: And there was a dialogue he and Marshall did that was transcribed later in his Herald.

[1:22:26] Bob Dobbs: But anyways,

[1:22:27] Bob Dobbs: I knew that he'd been doing things around that book publicly in little seminars.

[1:22:32] Bob Dobbs: They show the slides of that.

[1:22:34] Bob Dobbs: And so as we get into it,

[1:22:35] Bob Dobbs: he quickly told me,

[1:22:37] Bob Dobbs: Marshall knows nothing about art.

[1:22:38] Bob Dobbs: I've taught Marshall everything about art.

[1:22:42] Bob Dobbs: I heard for the next 45 minutes,

[1:22:44] Bob Dobbs: this guy was running the center at everything.

[1:22:47] Bob Dobbs: He was the real man.

[1:22:48] Bob Dobbs: He was the guy behind the throne,

[1:22:49] Bob Dobbs: right?

[1:22:50] Bob Dobbs: He was the throne behind the idiot who everybody knew but clued.

[1:22:55] Bob Dobbs: So what a megalomaniac.

[1:22:58] Bob Dobbs: Maybe it's because he was alcoholic and nuts and hyper-subjective,

[1:23:02] Bob Dobbs: but that was my experience of him in the early

[1:23:05] Bob Dobbs: 70s. Then when I met him with Joe Keough in 77,

[1:23:09] Bob Dobbs: the interplay of them was really delightful.

[1:23:11] Bob Dobbs: The way they would talk and quickly refer to things and move on,

[1:23:15] Bob Dobbs: a lot of talk.

[1:23:16] Bob Dobbs: I don't remember any of it,

[1:23:17] Bob Dobbs: but it was very fascinating.

[1:23:21] Bob Dobbs: Two friendly minds reviewing whatever they had to review.

[1:23:26] Bob Dobbs: And then shortly after that,

[1:23:28] Bob Dobbs: Harley got cancer in the throat,

[1:23:31] Bob Dobbs: and he had to have a device to speak in his throat.

[1:23:35] Bob Dobbs: So he got into a little more discomfort there.

[1:23:40] Bob Dobbs: But I'll never forget that

[1:23:42] Bob Dobbs: Joe Keogh and Harley,

[1:23:45] Bob Dobbs: it was like seeing the real

[1:23:48] Bob Dobbs: Center for Cultural Technology,

[1:23:50] Bob Dobbs: the key people interacting,

[1:23:52] Bob Dobbs: you know?

[1:23:53] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:23:54] Bob Dobbs: And doing their Explorations.

[1:23:57] Cameron McEwen: And how did they interact with

[1:24:00] Cameron McEwen: Barry and Evan?

[1:24:01] Bob Dobbs: I never saw them.

[1:24:03] Bob Dobbs: I think that the

[1:24:05] Bob Dobbs: Harley Parker,

[1:24:06] Bob Dobbs: Ted Carpenter,

[1:24:08] Bob Dobbs: Joe Keogh.

[1:24:10] Bob Dobbs: I think he wrote some,

[1:24:11] Bob Dobbs: in the 80s,

[1:24:12] Bob Dobbs: there was a magazine called The Idler.

[1:24:14] Bob Dobbs: Did you ever hear of that?

[1:24:15] Bob Dobbs: Put out in Toronto,

[1:24:17] Bob Dobbs: I think by a guy named Michael Corrin.

[1:24:18] Cameron McEwen: I've heard of it.

[1:24:19] Cameron McEwen: I know nothing about it.

[1:24:20] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:24:20] Bob Dobbs: Michael Corrin.

[1:24:21] Bob Dobbs: I'd recommend you find some issues in the library.

[1:24:25] Bob Dobbs: Joe wrote several articles,

[1:24:27] Bob Dobbs: really great articles.

[1:24:30] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[1:24:31] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan,

[1:24:31] Bob Dobbs: developing,

[1:24:32] Bob Dobbs: pushing McLuhan in The Idler.

[1:24:34] Bob Dobbs: And he could have,

[1:24:35] Bob Dobbs: if it kept going,

[1:24:36] Bob Dobbs: he could have become a figure in Toronto culture.

[1:24:40] Bob Dobbs: by the late 80s because he was writing such unique stuff.

[1:24:43] Bob Dobbs: But that was in the 80s.

[1:24:45] Bob Dobbs: Back in the

[1:24:46] Bob Dobbs: 70s, what did,

[1:24:47] Bob Dobbs: what was I going to say?

[1:24:49] Bob Dobbs: So he,

[1:24:50] Bob Dobbs: oh yeah,

[1:24:50] Bob Dobbs: Barry Nevitt.

[1:24:51] Bob Dobbs: So

[1:24:53] Bob Dobbs: Frank Zingrone gave good reviews to Barry Nevitt.

[1:24:57] Bob Dobbs: I am sure we talked to Joe Keogh.

[1:24:59] Bob Dobbs: Me and Nelson talked to Joe Keogh about Barry,

[1:25:01] Bob Dobbs: but I don't recall much.

[1:25:02] Bob Dobbs: Basically,

[1:25:04] Bob Dobbs: the first wave didn't like Barry.

[1:25:08] Bob Dobbs: Ted Carpenter didn't like him.

[1:25:11] Bob Dobbs: You don't like him.

[1:25:14] Bob Dobbs: Let's see.

[1:25:16] Bob Dobbs: And Harley Parker,

[1:25:17] Bob Dobbs: who else would be there?

[1:25:21] Bob Dobbs: No?

[1:25:21] Bob Dobbs: George Thompson.

[1:25:22] Bob Dobbs: Maurice McNamee.

[1:25:23] Bob Dobbs: So Maurice McNamee a friend of Barry's and they did that book,

[1:25:26] Bob Dobbs: Who Was Marshall McLuhan?

[1:25:27] Bob Dobbs: Right?

[1:25:28] Bob Dobbs: They did that together.

[1:25:29] Bob Dobbs: And so I saw Morris hanging around Barry a lot.

[1:25:32] Bob Dobbs: But Morris left the center,

[1:25:34] Bob Dobbs: he told me,

[1:25:35] Bob Dobbs: because you can't sit under an oak tree.

[1:25:37] Bob Dobbs: It's not good to just be sitting under an oak tree all the time.

[1:25:41] Bob Dobbs: So for me,

[1:25:42] Bob Dobbs: Barry Nevitt was so accessible.

[1:25:46] Bob Dobbs: He was my favorite guy there,

[1:25:48] Bob Dobbs: you know.

[1:25:48] Bob Dobbs: And he was around in the dead zone of the

[1:25:52] Bob Dobbs: 70s.

[1:25:52] Bob Dobbs: Nobody cared about McLuhan,

[1:25:53] Bob Dobbs: so to speak.

[1:25:55] Bob Dobbs: And he was keeping it going.

[1:25:57] Bob Dobbs: And he would critically talk about Ted Carpenter and Harley and that.

[1:26:02] Bob Dobbs: If you got them going,

[1:26:04] Bob Dobbs: he'd point out what they didn't get.

[1:26:06] Bob Dobbs: And basically,

[1:26:06] Bob Dobbs: they didn't get that later McLuhan,

[1:26:09] Bob Dobbs: the global thermostat guy.

[1:26:11] Bob Dobbs: Ted told me that.

[1:26:12] Bob Dobbs: He said,

[1:26:13] Bob Dobbs: I don't like McLuhan doing that stuff.

[1:26:15] Bob Dobbs: I was an estate.

[1:26:16] Bob Dobbs: I like the aesthetic

[1:26:17] Bob Dobbs: 50s McLuhan,

[1:26:19] Bob Dobbs: he said.

[1:26:19] Cameron McEwen: Yeah.

[1:26:20] Bob Dobbs: And Harley.

[1:26:21] Bob Dobbs: So yeah,

[1:26:21] Bob Dobbs: no,

[1:26:21] Bob Dobbs: Barry Nevitt was never...

[1:26:26] Bob Dobbs: These guys,

[1:26:27] Bob Dobbs: Harley and them,

[1:26:27] Bob Dobbs: by 75,

[1:26:28] Bob Dobbs: 76,

[1:26:29] Bob Dobbs: they weren't coming to the Monday night seminars.

[1:26:31] Bob Dobbs: And Joe Keough was not available.

[1:26:33] Bob Dobbs: He lived far away or something.

[1:26:35] Bob Dobbs: So it was only Barry Nevitt was the only,

[1:26:39] Bob Dobbs: in quotes,

[1:26:40] Bob Dobbs: equal to McLuhan there.

[1:26:42] Bob Dobbs: De Kerckhove and Logan were still students,

[1:26:44] Bob Dobbs: so to speak.

[1:26:45] Bob Dobbs: They were in awe.

[1:26:48] Bob Dobbs: Barry wasn't.

[1:26:49] Bob Dobbs: He wrote Take Today.

[1:26:51] Bob Dobbs: Look at that book.

[1:26:53] Bob Dobbs: I like that book.

[1:26:54] Bob Dobbs: A lot of it was done by Barry.

[1:26:59] Bob Dobbs: So what else?

[1:27:00] Bob Dobbs: So then Joe Keogh,

[1:27:01] Bob Dobbs: when I used to go up to Marge Stewart in the 80s,

[1:27:03] Bob Dobbs: her cottage up there north of Toronto,

[1:27:07] Bob Dobbs: Joe Keogh would come over occasionally.

[1:27:10] Bob Dobbs: He was a great friend of Marge Stewart.

[1:27:11] Bob Dobbs: He knew the value of hanging around Marge Stewart.

[1:27:14] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[1:27:16] Cameron McEwen: But he didn't.

[1:27:17] Cameron McEwen: So on.

[1:27:18] Cameron McEwen: When she was on vacation,

[1:27:19] Cameron McEwen: she didn't mind.

[1:27:21] Cameron McEwen: She wasn't on vacation.

[1:27:22] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:27:23] Cameron McEwen: exactly.

[1:27:24] Bob Dobbs: She broke her hip.

[1:27:27] Cameron McEwen: Well,

[1:27:27] Cameron McEwen: that was very late,

[1:27:29] Cameron McEwen: right?

[1:27:29] Cameron McEwen: No,

[1:27:30] Bob Dobbs: that's 78.

[1:27:32] Bob Dobbs: And I'm working with

[1:27:34] Bob Dobbs: Marge again,

[1:27:34] Bob Dobbs: 75,

[1:27:35] Bob Dobbs: 76,

[1:27:35] Bob Dobbs: 77.

[1:27:36] Bob Dobbs: She's a secretary.

[1:27:37] Bob Dobbs: And then when she broke her hip,

[1:27:40] Bob Dobbs: she had just met Carolyn just before that.

[1:27:43] Bob Dobbs: And so when she broke her hip,

[1:27:44] Bob Dobbs: Carolyn became the advisory doctor to her.

[1:27:47] Bob Dobbs: family doctor and then she started inviting us up to her cottage so we went at to the cottage from 78 up to the early

[1:27:55] Bob Dobbs: 90s so we went to new york so many times and she'd just be up there sitting there all day with her cane she never got her hip healed yeah yeah she never went back to work after right and so so she was always was that what

[1:28:11] Bob Dobbs: which lake what is um

[1:28:17] Bob Dobbs: What do you call a braze wood?

[1:28:19] Bob Dobbs: What's the word up there that begins with B?

[1:28:24] Cameron McEwen: Not me.

[1:28:25] Cameron McEwen: I know very little about that area north of Toronto.

[1:28:29] Bob Dobbs: So let me just look at a map of Ontario here.

[1:28:37] Cameron McEwen: The reason I'm asking is that a lot of those lakes had little enclaves of people from the University of Toronto.

[1:28:46] Cameron McEwen: They would go up there and their colleagues would be there and their kids of the different colleagues would get together.

[1:28:57] Cameron McEwen: It was like a transportation of parts of Toronto up to some lake.

[1:29:02] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:29:03] Bob Dobbs: a relative of mine was the vice president of the University of Toronto in the Bissell era,

[1:29:09] Bob Dobbs: and he would have students up there.

[1:29:13] Bob Dobbs: Bob Rae,

[1:29:13] Bob Dobbs: when they were doing the SDS students,

[1:29:15] Bob Dobbs: stuff in the late 60s,

[1:29:16] Bob Dobbs: they would go up to my relative's cottage and hash it out there with this old man.

[1:29:25] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:29:25] Bob Dobbs: I saw there were a lot of people with good money up there in the Muskoka Lakes and that,

[1:29:31] Bob Dobbs: whatever they

[1:29:32] Bob Dobbs: I'm just looking,

[1:29:34] Bob Dobbs: a map of Ontario,

[1:29:35] Bob Dobbs: there's Barrie but

[1:29:37] Bob Dobbs: I'm looking at...

[1:29:39] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:29:40] Cameron McEwen: that's too far to the west.

[1:29:42] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:29:43] Bob Dobbs: let's see

[1:29:51] Bob Dobbs: put in Barry and just get that area and then you can expand on it.

[1:29:58] Cameron McEwen: But there's literally a million lakes there.

[1:30:02] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:30:02] Bob Dobbs: but they had a place by the lake.

[1:30:04] Bob Dobbs: But you turned off at this place,

[1:30:09] Bob Dobbs: which is a well-known word.

[1:30:14] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[1:30:15] Bob Dobbs: so I'm going along here.

[1:30:30] Cameron McEwen: Should I be talking as you're looking?

[1:30:32] Bob Dobbs: No.

[1:30:34] Bob Dobbs: Give the listener a break here.

[1:30:35] Bob Dobbs: Uh-huh.

[1:30:51] Bob Dobbs: It's not Barry,

[1:30:52] Bob Dobbs: but it begins with

[1:30:54] Bob Dobbs: B.

[1:30:56] Bob Dobbs: Why aren't I getting it?

[1:30:58] Bob Dobbs: So if I go down here to Toronto,

[1:31:00] Bob Dobbs: and you just go north of Toronto,

[1:31:33] Bob Dobbs: Wasaga Beach.

[1:31:36] Bob Dobbs: It's up near Wasaga Beach.

[1:31:37] Bob Dobbs: Does that mean anything to you?

[1:31:38] Bob Dobbs: No,

[1:31:38] Bob Dobbs: nothing.

[1:31:39] Bob Dobbs: And I think there's another W up there.

[1:31:44] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:31:45] Bob Dobbs: I would say

[1:31:47] Bob Dobbs: Wasaga Beach or someone nearby,

[1:31:50] Bob Dobbs: a similar word begins with W.

[1:31:52] Bob Dobbs: So if you know Wasaga Beach,

[1:31:55] Bob Dobbs: it's in that area where she was.

[1:31:58] Cameron McEwen: Uh-huh.

[1:32:00] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:32:01] Bob Dobbs: Okay.

[1:32:01] Bob Dobbs: I've solved the problem.

[1:32:03] Bob Dobbs: There it is.

[1:32:04] Cameron McEwen: That's near Simcoe.

[1:32:08] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:32:09] Bob Dobbs: And,

[1:32:10] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:32:12] Bob Dobbs: Jim was a character,

[1:32:14] Bob Dobbs: her husband,

[1:32:15] Bob Dobbs: and he had a lot to say in his reserved way about these guys.

[1:32:26] Bob Dobbs: I just remember him saying,

[1:32:28] Bob Dobbs: he said,

[1:32:29] Bob Dobbs: Marshall should have been or was a

[1:32:32] Bob Dobbs: medieval monk.

[1:32:33] Bob Dobbs: That's what he was.

[1:32:34] Bob Dobbs: That was his interpretation of Marshall.

[1:32:36] Bob Dobbs: And he wasn't as talkative as Marg was,

[1:32:41] Bob Dobbs: but he occasionally would say something,

[1:32:44] Bob Dobbs: meaning he had a lot of experience with Marshall for years of dealing with his personality.

[1:32:55] Cameron McEwen: He probably felt that

[1:32:59] Cameron McEwen: Marshall um,

[1:33:01] Bob Dobbs: took advantage of uh mark he never admitted that he never said that i never complained um he uh a very nice you know tolerant

[1:33:16] Bob Dobbs: person uh-huh um ion says that Marge Stewart wrote all of marshall's books you know you know how he says that no

[1:33:32] Bob Dobbs: Marg had to correct everything.

[1:33:34] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[1:33:35] Cameron McEwen: definitely.

[1:33:35] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:33:36] Bob Dobbs: Marg wrote the final stuff,

[1:33:38] Bob Dobbs: so she really knew his words.

[1:33:44] Cameron McEwen: That's what Corinne said about his early stuff,

[1:33:47] Cameron McEwen: that she had to rewrite it.

[1:33:49] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:33:49] Bob Dobbs: she did it.

[1:33:50] Bob Dobbs: And so when we get into the position where we can do it,

[1:33:56] Bob Dobbs: we're going to make it the Marge Stewart set of her culture technology.

[1:34:02] Cameron McEwen: But the reason for that is that

[1:34:06] Cameron McEwen: McLuhan didn't care about corrections.

[1:34:08] Bob Dobbs: That's right.

[1:34:09] Cameron McEwen: He thought that was the mark of a small person,

[1:34:13] Cameron McEwen: was to worry about corrections.

[1:34:16] Cameron McEwen: So it was left to Corinne or to Mark to do it.

[1:34:20] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:34:20] Bob Dobbs: too much reading fitting its way.

[1:34:22] Bob Dobbs: He got too used to sloppy written stuff.

[1:34:26] Bob Dobbs: So here's the word.

[1:34:27] Bob Dobbs: I told you it was another,

[1:34:28] Bob Dobbs: it was a W.

[1:34:29] Bob Dobbs: So...

[1:34:30] Bob Dobbs: It's Wasaga Beach,

[1:34:31] Bob Dobbs: but she was in Washego.

[1:34:33] Bob Dobbs: That's where she was.

[1:34:35] Bob Dobbs: Washego.

[1:34:36] Bob Dobbs: W-A-S-H-A-G-O.

[1:34:38] Bob Dobbs: So there's the two Ws.

[1:34:39] Bob Dobbs: Wasaga

[1:34:40] Bob Dobbs: Beach and Washego.

[1:34:42] Bob Dobbs: They lived in Washego.

[1:34:43] Bob Dobbs: Their cottage was in Washego.

[1:34:45] Bob Dobbs: So if you,

[1:34:47] Bob Dobbs: you know.

[1:34:49] Bob Dobbs: What?

[1:34:49] Cameron McEwen: When you went down to New York.

[1:34:52] Cameron McEwen: Did you miss that aspect of Toronto that

[1:34:58] Cameron McEwen: Toronto is not just a city,

[1:35:04] Cameron McEwen: it's a whole area that encompasses all those lakes?

[1:35:08] Bob Dobbs: I didn't.

[1:35:09] Bob Dobbs: No,

[1:35:09] Bob Dobbs: I didn't because I was not a lake person.

[1:35:11] Bob Dobbs: I was a beach person.

[1:35:13] Bob Dobbs: So lakes were boring to me.

[1:35:14] Bob Dobbs: I preferred surf.

[1:35:15] Bob Dobbs: So I didn't go to the beach much in New York,

[1:35:18] Bob Dobbs: but when I did,

[1:35:19] Bob Dobbs: I'd go out to Jones Beach where there was surf and that.

[1:35:22] Bob Dobbs: I missed,

[1:35:23] Bob Dobbs: basically,

[1:35:25] Bob Dobbs: I had no beach experience for 30 years from,

[1:35:29] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:35:29] Bob Dobbs: 77,

[1:35:30] Bob Dobbs: 87,

[1:35:32] Bob Dobbs: 97,

[1:35:32] Bob Dobbs: 2007,

[1:35:33] Bob Dobbs: until I got to Hawaii.

[1:35:34] Bob Dobbs: And now I've had 15,

[1:35:36] Bob Dobbs: 14 years of intense beach experience.

[1:35:38] Bob Dobbs: I made up for the missing 30 years because I had lots of beach in Nova Scotia.

[1:35:45] Bob Dobbs: They can even surf there in Nova Scotia.

[1:35:47] Bob Dobbs: So when I got to New York,

[1:35:50] Bob Dobbs: When I got to Toronto in 77,

[1:35:52] Bob Dobbs: it was all indoors living and studying that.

[1:35:56] Bob Dobbs: And I played ball hockey.

[1:36:01] Bob Dobbs: I was in the league of ball hockey.

[1:36:03] Bob Dobbs: That's where I got some exercise.

[1:36:05] Bob Dobbs: But

[1:36:06] Bob Dobbs: I was a jock,

[1:36:07] Bob Dobbs: and it was a bit irritating not having swimming and all that,

[1:36:11] Bob Dobbs: but I got used to it and forgot about it and thought I'd never swim again.

[1:36:14] Bob Dobbs: And then out of the blue,

[1:36:15] Bob Dobbs: 30 years later,

[1:36:16] Bob Dobbs: I'm in Hawaii.

[1:36:16] Bob Dobbs: So that was a great break.

[1:36:19] Bob Dobbs: They get back to the sea.

[1:36:22] Bob Dobbs: The lakes bore me.

[1:36:26] Bob Dobbs: I want to crash around in waves,

[1:36:27] Bob Dobbs: you know.

[1:36:29] Bob Dobbs: So

[1:36:30] Bob Dobbs: I said,

[1:36:31] Bob Dobbs: see,

[1:36:31] Bob Dobbs: maybe I could find out what lake it is somehow.

[1:36:35] Bob Dobbs: I'll get Carol to look at the map with me,

[1:36:36] Bob Dobbs: and we'll sort of look closely in around the Washago area,

[1:36:39] Bob Dobbs: see if we come up with a name.

[1:36:40] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:36:40] Cameron McEwen: if you blow it up,

[1:36:41] Cameron McEwen: you'll find it for sure.

[1:36:42] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:36:44] Bob Dobbs: yep.

[1:36:45] Bob Dobbs: So we got to...

[1:36:49] Bob Dobbs: Let's do a quote or two here.

[1:36:50] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:36:52] Bob Dobbs: go ahead.

[1:36:52] Bob Dobbs: The text.

[1:36:54] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[1:36:54] Bob Dobbs: you asked me about the various lockdowns.

[1:36:57] Bob Dobbs: You like those shifts,

[1:37:03] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:37:03] Bob Dobbs: solar government lockdown,

[1:37:05] Bob Dobbs: universal government lockdown,

[1:37:06] Bob Dobbs: mythic government.

[1:37:07] Bob Dobbs: Mythic government is the virtual reality we live in,

[1:37:11] Bob Dobbs: the digital government.

[1:37:15] Bob Dobbs: You see what I'm saying?

[1:37:16] Bob Dobbs: And myth is any...

[1:37:18] Bob Dobbs: Collection of media is a myth,

[1:37:21] Bob Dobbs: a mythic stage.

[1:37:23] Bob Dobbs: I've explained that before.

[1:37:26] Bob Dobbs: So,

[1:37:26] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:37:28] Bob Dobbs: people start talking about,

[1:37:29] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:37:30] Bob Dobbs: the Alex Jones people worrying about world government.

[1:37:32] Bob Dobbs: Oh man,

[1:37:33] Bob Dobbs: it's already solar government.

[1:37:35] Bob Dobbs: And when the ETs show up,

[1:37:36] Bob Dobbs: it's going to be universal government issues.

[1:37:40] Bob Dobbs: So look what I say.

[1:37:42] Bob Dobbs: The solar government is hidden.

[1:37:44] Bob Dobbs: But then you go into the next phase and the solar government becomes visible.

[1:37:48] Bob Dobbs: And that's President Reagan's Star Wars,

[1:37:49] Bob Dobbs: March 23rd,

[1:37:49] Bob Dobbs: 1983,

[1:37:52] Bob Dobbs: conflicting solar bureaucracies.

[1:37:56] Cameron McEwen: Where are you?

[1:37:59] Bob Dobbs: 110.

[1:38:02] Bob Dobbs: And there's the printed dark part and then the blue part underneath where I speak.

[1:38:08] Bob Dobbs: So I say,

[1:38:10] Bob Dobbs: what you see is there's the visible and then there's the hidden.

[1:38:12] Bob Dobbs: The solar government is hidden.

[1:38:14] Bob Dobbs: But then you go into the next phase and the solar government becomes visible,

[1:38:17] Bob Dobbs: and that's President Reagan's Star Wars,

[1:38:19] Bob Dobbs: March 23,

[1:38:19] Bob Dobbs: 1983,

[1:38:21] Bob Dobbs: conflicting solar bureaucracies.

[1:38:25] Bob Dobbs: And then the new hidden phase is the universal government.

[1:38:27] Bob Dobbs: That's extraterrestrials in multiple worlds,

[1:38:30] Bob Dobbs: both inner and outer.

[1:38:31] Bob Dobbs: It's drug-taking,

[1:38:32] Bob Dobbs: too,

[1:38:33] Bob Dobbs: but it's a combination with the hidden operations of the computer,

[1:38:36] Bob Dobbs: like the service environment was the hidden television,

[1:38:38] Bob Dobbs: and it's accompanied by laser beams and genetic engineering.

[1:38:42] Bob Dobbs: Then all that becomes a visible hologram,

[1:38:44] Bob Dobbs: which is on the way to becoming holeopathic,

[1:38:47] Bob Dobbs: amidst the clashing visible bureaucracies complemented by the hidden landscape,

[1:38:52] Bob Dobbs: which is mythic government.

[1:38:53] Bob Dobbs: So the new hidden government is mythic.

[1:38:56] Bob Dobbs: And what's myth?

[1:38:57] Bob Dobbs: It's any mixture of media that a culture thinks it represents.

[1:39:01] Bob Dobbs: Now,

[1:39:03] Bob Dobbs: then I say,

[1:39:05] Bob Dobbs: you can have some tribe in Africa,

[1:39:06] Bob Dobbs: some primitive nation in the Congo.

[1:39:10] Bob Dobbs: Their myth is their little technologies they've cobbled together versus the myth of the United States,

[1:39:15] Bob Dobbs: which has a lot of advanced technologies.

[1:39:17] Bob Dobbs: The two groupings are different kinds of mixed corporate media.

[1:39:20] Bob Dobbs: One could say second world,

[1:39:22] Bob Dobbs: third world,

[1:39:22] Bob Dobbs: first world,

[1:39:23] Bob Dobbs: and fourth world.

[1:39:24] Bob Dobbs: And you've got a clashing of peoples celebrating their given anti-environment.

[1:39:29] Bob Dobbs: It's not a war of civilization,

[1:39:30] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:39:31] Bob Dobbs: Sam Huntington's clash of civilizations.

[1:39:34] Bob Dobbs: It's a clash of mythic stages of people with different collections of technologies.

[1:39:39] Bob Dobbs: So I then say,

[1:39:40] Bob Dobbs: what is architecture today?

[1:39:42] Bob Dobbs: As we seek shelter from the mythic storm of hallucinating media archetypes,

[1:39:48] Bob Dobbs: any form can offer the warmth of the hearth.

[1:39:51] Bob Dobbs: City and town planners fail to consider the new architecture of the highway and the kinetic security it offers to the auto enthusiast harassed incessantly by the tactile overkill of the electric maelstrom,

[1:40:03] Bob Dobbs: as one example.

[1:40:05] Bob Dobbs: The modern artist today has to at least feign a strategy of mixed corporate media programming.

[1:40:10] Bob Dobbs: The elite managers of our global theater consider this all in a day's work,

[1:40:14] Bob Dobbs: and the floating,

[1:40:15] Bob Dobbs: discarnate citizens of this theater must respond 24 hours a day to the massage

[1:40:20] Bob Dobbs: of this complex sensory programming.

[1:40:23] Bob Dobbs: Then,

[1:40:24] Bob Dobbs: in the blue part,

[1:40:24] Bob Dobbs: I say my new discovery is

[1:40:26] Bob Dobbs: I came up with the phrase holeopathic cliche probes.

[1:40:29] Bob Dobbs: It's important to find out what this means because I'm later going to say,

[1:40:33] Bob Dobbs: quote,

[1:40:33] Bob Dobbs: a holeopathic cliché probe is a meme.

[1:40:36] Bob Dobbs: As it gets thinner and thinner and more of a software pattern,

[1:40:40] Bob Dobbs: it's less a hardware product and becomes an image or a meme.

[1:40:46] Bob Dobbs: Someone was telling me recently,

[1:40:47] Bob Dobbs: quote,

[1:40:48] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[1:40:48] Bob Dobbs: memes are these old cliches that the kids talk,

[1:40:50] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:40:50] Bob Dobbs: regain,

[1:40:51] Bob Dobbs: regrab them,

[1:40:52] Bob Dobbs: some stupid image from the 60s TV or something,

[1:40:54] Bob Dobbs: and they hang it,

[1:40:55] Bob Dobbs: slash it around as a meme.

[1:40:57] Bob Dobbs: It's a cliche being reused as a probe,

[1:40:59] Bob Dobbs: and it's tiny.

[1:41:01] Bob Dobbs: Then I say,

[1:41:01] Bob Dobbs: I had the term right there in 1987,

[1:41:03] Bob Dobbs: holeopathic cliche probes.

[1:41:05] Bob Dobbs: They're the later phase of the mythic stages,

[1:41:08] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:41:08] Bob Dobbs: the mythic government.

[1:41:10] Bob Dobbs: Mythic stages were the first bigger memes in a slower time,

[1:41:13] Bob Dobbs: the 70s and 80s,

[1:41:15] Bob Dobbs: the beginning of digital memes.

[1:41:16] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan anticipate the memes,

[1:41:18] Bob Dobbs: which are digital memes and Android Meme.

[1:41:23] Cameron McEwen: Can you say this is people becoming sarcastic about their anti-environment?

[1:41:33] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:41:33] Bob Dobbs: the 80s was called the age of irony.

[1:41:36] Bob Dobbs: That's what was going on.

[1:41:37] Bob Dobbs: Everybody was ironically,

[1:41:39] Bob Dobbs: and you go back to the 1965 quote in The Structuralist,

[1:41:43] Bob Dobbs: where McLuhan says,

[1:41:44] Bob Dobbs: We have a new kind of awareness that nobody is embedded in the hypnosis of a particular culture or media environment because there's too many happening and he can't get locked into one.

[1:41:56] Bob Dobbs: So he's actually thrown outside,

[1:41:58] Bob Dobbs: floating around the planet and all the media anti-environment in a kind of paralysis which would be going into the Global Membrane.

[1:42:07] Bob Dobbs: So you follow that?

[1:42:09] Bob Dobbs: So many changes that nobody can really get it.

[1:42:13] Bob Dobbs: I like to say a belief is a thought that you've been thinking a long time.

[1:42:17] Bob Dobbs: People don't have time to form beliefs anymore.

[1:42:19] Bob Dobbs: So that leads to irony and cynicism and the whatever syndrome,

[1:42:23] Bob Dobbs: right?

[1:42:23] Bob Dobbs: Whatever,

[1:42:24] Bob Dobbs: right?

[1:42:25] Bob Dobbs: People haven't got time to form a thought or to form a concept.

[1:42:28] Bob Dobbs: So they're living constant perceptual turnover.

[1:42:31] Bob Dobbs: And that would be what Marshall called the highest decibels of human consciousness.

[1:42:36] Bob Dobbs: But of course,

[1:42:37] Bob Dobbs: we're doing it by default.

[1:42:39] Bob Dobbs: We're thrown into it.

[1:42:41] Bob Dobbs: and don't know how to get an anti-environment to it.

[1:42:47] Bob Dobbs: So,

[1:42:49] Bob Dobbs: what did you say?

[1:42:50] Cameron McEwen: That's one way of talking about the cul-de-sac in my terminology.

[1:42:55] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:42:56] Bob Dobbs: well,

[1:42:56] Bob Dobbs: it's the global,

[1:42:58] Bob Dobbs: I'm glad you brought that up,

[1:42:59] Bob Dobbs: the Global Membrane is an inner,

[1:43:04] Bob Dobbs: outer,

[1:43:05] Bob Dobbs: implosive,

[1:43:05] Bob Dobbs: black hole cul-de-sac,

[1:43:07] Bob Dobbs: night.

[1:43:08] Bob Dobbs: Not a lockup at City Hall or something.

[1:43:10] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[1:43:12] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:43:13] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[1:43:13] Bob Dobbs: and I'm always showing the visible bureaucracy.

[1:43:16] Bob Dobbs: The bureaucracies come in and do the fight after,

[1:43:18] Bob Dobbs: after the changes.

[1:43:20] Bob Dobbs: So you'll see this is based on another chart,

[1:43:24] Bob Dobbs: Dobbs'

[1:43:24] Bob Dobbs: formative chart,

[1:43:25] Bob Dobbs: which goes from 1750 to 2020.

[1:43:28] Bob Dobbs: And I have

[1:43:30] Bob Dobbs: ALP represents the hidden grounds of each new technological landscape.

[1:43:36] Bob Dobbs: And then...

[1:43:37] Bob Dobbs: HCE is the intelligence agencies,

[1:43:40] Bob Dobbs: the bureaucrats run around trying to organize and fit into previous hierarchies to keep the pecking order stable.

[1:43:47] Bob Dobbs: Right.

[1:43:47] Bob Dobbs: So I call it

[1:43:49] Bob Dobbs: I call it visible bureaucracies.

[1:43:53] Bob Dobbs: They say that visible.

[1:44:00] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:44:01] Bob Dobbs: there it is.

[1:44:01] Cameron McEwen: That's the bottom of 110.

[1:44:03] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[1:44:04] Bob Dobbs: And,

[1:44:04] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:44:04] Cameron McEwen: you have visible bureaucracy.

[1:44:07] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:44:07] Bob Dobbs: you have a visible hologram,

[1:44:09] Bob Dobbs: which is on the way to becoming holeopathic,

[1:44:11] Bob Dobbs: that more and more invisible,

[1:44:12] Bob Dobbs: amidst the clashing visible bureaucracies complemented by the hidden landscape,

[1:44:17] Bob Dobbs: which is mythic government.

[1:44:19] Bob Dobbs: The government,

[1:44:21] Bob Dobbs: after universal government,

[1:44:23] Bob Dobbs: is not people.

[1:44:24] Bob Dobbs: The government is whatever the algorithms come up with and say what the issues are.

[1:44:30] Bob Dobbs: And that probably is the tech body.

[1:44:33] Bob Dobbs: But I didn't have that term back then.

[1:44:36] Bob Dobbs: So...

[1:44:36] Bob Dobbs: Moving down here,

[1:44:39] Bob Dobbs: I say...

[1:44:43] Bob Dobbs: The kids,

[1:44:44] Bob Dobbs: it's a cliche,

[1:44:45] Bob Dobbs: being reused as a probe and as tiny.

[1:44:48] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan anticipates the memes.

[1:44:50] Bob Dobbs: Then they say,

[1:44:51] Bob Dobbs: you know where holopathy comes from?

[1:44:53] Bob Dobbs: That's the shrinking global theater,

[1:44:55] Bob Dobbs: which is actually the effect of a hologram.

[1:44:59] Bob Dobbs: The global theater is an effect of the satellites which are making a hologram.

[1:45:05] Bob Dobbs: So the hologram is an effect.

[1:45:09] Bob Dobbs: We don't have hologram technology yet,

[1:45:11] Bob Dobbs: which comes through.

[1:45:13] Bob Dobbs: The hologram comes through,

[1:45:14] Bob Dobbs: quote,

[1:45:15] Bob Dobbs: the word that makes the market in the American White House.

[1:45:18] Bob Dobbs: People knew there was one issue in 1968.

[1:45:21] Bob Dobbs: Vietnam,

[1:45:22] Bob Dobbs: we've got to do something about it.

[1:45:23] Bob Dobbs: That's a hologram,

[1:45:24] Bob Dobbs: our news event.

[1:45:25] Bob Dobbs: But then it keeps shrinking,

[1:45:26] Bob Dobbs: shrinking,

[1:45:27] Bob Dobbs: shrinking,

[1:45:27] Bob Dobbs: holeopathic over the next 40 years until you've got little kids bigger than the global hologram.

[1:45:34] Bob Dobbs: That's the result of the holeopathic cliche probes,

[1:45:37] Bob Dobbs: and I would add that's the co-anesthetic.

[1:45:40] Bob Dobbs: Anybody in the web...

[1:45:44] Bob Dobbs: One and two are in the director's seat more and more,

[1:45:48] Bob Dobbs: right?

[1:45:48] Cameron McEwen: So when you first describe these patterns,

[1:45:56] Cameron McEwen: and then later you come to talk about them like we are here,

[1:46:01] Cameron McEwen: or like you first did in the book,

[1:46:04] Cameron McEwen: so you had these histories in your charts,

[1:46:10] Cameron McEwen: and then you came to talk about them in your book.

[1:46:13] Cameron McEwen: And now we're coming to talk about them and talking about your book.

[1:46:19] Cameron McEwen: In all of these different sort of phases,

[1:46:24] Cameron McEwen: how were you thinking about yourself?

[1:46:26] Cameron McEwen: Were you thinking that you were kind of writing down ideas that came to you?

[1:46:35] Cameron McEwen: Were you writing down a history of the contemporary world?

[1:46:40] Cameron McEwen: How did you see yourself?

[1:46:42] Cameron McEwen: and these different processes.

[1:46:44] Bob Dobbs: I was always on the radio in some manner.

[1:46:47] Bob Dobbs: Many years I was just a guest.

[1:46:49] Bob Dobbs: So

[1:46:50] Bob Dobbs: I got enough satisfaction saying the stuff and having it recorded.

[1:46:54] Bob Dobbs: So when I came here in 2008,

[1:46:57] Bob Dobbs: I was part of a guy's internet radio show,

[1:47:00] Bob Dobbs: and right around that time we got kicked off that station because the guy was a minute man and he wanted James to give him money and he just was an idiot,

[1:47:09] Bob Dobbs: so he kicked us off.

[1:47:11] Bob Dobbs: So we went to where we are now,

[1:47:13] Bob Dobbs: Chief Radio,

[1:47:14] Bob Dobbs: in July 2008.

[1:47:16] Bob Dobbs: And up to that point,

[1:47:18] Bob Dobbs: I always had to deal with other voices.

[1:47:21] Bob Dobbs: The station manager would come in,

[1:47:23] Bob Dobbs: I'd be talking to James,

[1:47:24] Bob Dobbs: but I had to deal with other people.

[1:47:25] Bob Dobbs: So James said,

[1:47:27] Bob Dobbs: you've got a lot to say,

[1:47:27] Bob Dobbs: Bob.

[1:47:28] Bob Dobbs: So we're going to have you on once a week,

[1:47:31] Bob Dobbs: talking for 55 minutes.

[1:47:33] Bob Dobbs: And I'm not going to interrupt you.

[1:47:35] Bob Dobbs: You can say what you want.

[1:47:36] Bob Dobbs: So I talked every week for nine months.

[1:47:39] Bob Dobbs: and in March

[1:47:40] Bob Dobbs: 2009,

[1:47:42] Bob Dobbs: I'd pretty well done it all.

[1:47:44] Bob Dobbs: I had nothing more to say.

[1:47:45] Bob Dobbs: I knew

[1:47:46] Bob Dobbs: I got to say a lot of stuff without interruptions.

[1:47:48] Bob Dobbs: That was my book,

[1:47:50] Bob Dobbs: you know what I mean?

[1:47:51] Bob Dobbs: My audio book,

[1:47:52] Bob Dobbs: so to speak.

[1:47:53] Bob Dobbs: So all these things that I wrote later,

[1:47:55] Bob Dobbs: organized,

[1:47:57] Bob Dobbs: I was saying.

[1:47:58] Bob Dobbs: And right then,

[1:47:59] Bob Dobbs: when I knew I don't know what to talk about next,

[1:48:02] Bob Dobbs: I think I'm finished,

[1:48:04] Bob Dobbs: ION showed up.

[1:48:06] Bob Dobbs: That was the greatest release because ION never stops talking.

[1:48:11] Bob Dobbs: And then I had something to bounce off of on a new level.

[1:48:15] Bob Dobbs: So

[1:48:15] Bob Dobbs: I then stayed on the radio and kept going.

[1:48:18] Bob Dobbs: Now it's 14 years later.

[1:48:22] Cameron McEwen: Do you see yourself as being creative in your talk?

[1:48:29] Cameron McEwen: Or do you find yourself sort of recording stuff that is not creative in the sense of being creative?

[1:48:40] Cameron McEwen: originated by you,

[1:48:44] Cameron McEwen: it's sort of coming to you.

[1:48:45] Cameron McEwen: How do you see that issue?

[1:48:49] Bob Dobbs: It's always coming to me.

[1:48:50] Bob Dobbs: I'm kind of quote channeling,

[1:48:52] Bob Dobbs: but I consider it creative to look at whatever the news events were and come up with a unique way of talking about it that wasn't using terms like left,

[1:49:00] Bob Dobbs: right,

[1:49:00] Bob Dobbs: and all the normal cliches.

[1:49:02] Bob Dobbs: I had a unique way built on McLuhan,

[1:49:05] Bob Dobbs: but then I created some of my own jargon.

[1:49:07] Bob Dobbs: I got great satisfaction.

[1:49:09] Bob Dobbs: for myself to get a pattern that seemed to make sense to me.

[1:49:12] Bob Dobbs: So all I had to do was just get out there,

[1:49:15] Bob Dobbs: talk myself into a pattern,

[1:49:17] Bob Dobbs: and

[1:49:18] Bob Dobbs: I had a good day's work by doing that.

[1:49:20] Bob Dobbs: So someone called me,

[1:49:23] Bob Dobbs: I was a language artist.

[1:49:25] Bob Dobbs: That may be right,

[1:49:26] Bob Dobbs: vocal,

[1:49:27] Bob Dobbs: speaking on the radio.

[1:49:29] Bob Dobbs: And I was an artist of making patterns using language.

[1:49:32] Bob Dobbs: That's what I painted with.

[1:49:34] Cameron McEwen: But when you talk in the same way that McLuhan,

[1:49:39] Cameron McEwen: talked about the need for talk.

[1:49:42] Cameron McEwen: Don't you sort of surprise yourself?

[1:49:46] Bob Dobbs: Oh,

[1:49:46] Bob Dobbs: constantly.

[1:49:47] Bob Dobbs: It's an endless intellectual delight.

[1:49:49] Bob Dobbs: And he talks about it.

[1:49:50] Bob Dobbs: He talks about,

[1:49:51] Bob Dobbs: it's wonderful making these discoveries,

[1:49:53] Bob Dobbs: he said.

[1:49:53] Bob Dobbs: I know exactly what he's talking about.

[1:49:55] Bob Dobbs: I had the opportunity to live it for 40 years.

[1:49:59] Cameron McEwen: Yeah,

[1:49:59] Cameron McEwen: he had the wonderful phrase where he said,

[1:50:02] Cameron McEwen: I make so many discoveries,

[1:50:04] Cameron McEwen: I don't have the time to write them down.

[1:50:06] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:50:06] Bob Dobbs: that's what I was doing.

[1:50:08] Bob Dobbs: And it wasn't until I got kicked off.

[1:50:11] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[1:50:12] Bob Dobbs: Michael,

[1:50:12] Bob Dobbs: my co-host at CKLN,

[1:50:14] Bob Dobbs: he moved out of town.

[1:50:16] Bob Dobbs: I didn't have a,

[1:50:17] Bob Dobbs: I wasn't,

[1:50:18] Bob Dobbs: there wasn't a show that would have me as a guest.

[1:50:20] Bob Dobbs: So that,

[1:50:22] Bob Dobbs: so that was in,

[1:50:23] Bob Dobbs: in the fall of 91,

[1:50:25] Bob Dobbs: I went around,

[1:50:27] Bob Dobbs: I went to my Roosh archive,

[1:50:28] Bob Dobbs: my McLuhan archive,

[1:50:29] Bob Dobbs: William Irwin Thompson,

[1:50:30] Bob Dobbs: Kroker,

[1:50:31] Bob Dobbs: and my own stuff,

[1:50:32] Bob Dobbs: and put together the best quotes that I thought were useful for people that they would never know of.

[1:50:38] Bob Dobbs: And that's how I produced Phatic communion.

[1:50:40] Bob Dobbs: That was the,

[1:50:41] Bob Dobbs: I was in that.

[1:50:43] Bob Dobbs: gap for a year before we went to New York of having no radio to distract me from writing things.

[1:50:50] Bob Dobbs: If

[1:50:51] Bob Dobbs: I got off doing the pattern verbally,

[1:50:54] Bob Dobbs: I was happy with that.

[1:50:55] Bob Dobbs: I didn't need to write something.

[1:51:00] Bob Dobbs: So I wrote very little.

[1:51:02] Bob Dobbs: And there is the two memos of Prince Charles.

[1:51:05] Bob Dobbs: There's a couple essays,

[1:51:06] Bob Dobbs: the very long one,

[1:51:08] Bob Dobbs: which is pretty incredible.

[1:51:09] Bob Dobbs: I go through all the history of all the media schools.

[1:51:13] Bob Dobbs: Once Marshall died in the last day of 1980,

[1:51:17] Bob Dobbs: have you ever seen that?

[1:51:18] Bob Dobbs: My history of the American classroom without walls,

[1:51:22] Bob Dobbs: literate,

[1:51:23] Bob Dobbs: aesthetic clichés?

[1:51:24] Bob Dobbs: I go through the Toronto...

[1:51:30] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[1:51:31] Bob Dobbs: start off with the Toronto school after Marshall died.

[1:51:33] Bob Dobbs: And that's

[1:51:35] Bob Dobbs: Barry Nevitt and me and Nelson and

[1:51:39] Bob Dobbs: Eric McLuhan doing our books and records and stuff.

[1:51:42] Bob Dobbs: Then I shift to

[1:51:44] Bob Dobbs: New York,

[1:51:45] Bob Dobbs: not Lance Strate and those guys,

[1:51:47] Bob Dobbs: but Sylvère Lotringer,

[1:51:49] Bob Dobbs: who created Semiotext(e) and started publishing Baudrillard and all the French guys,

[1:51:52] Bob Dobbs: and he created a big impact with that.

[1:51:54] Bob Dobbs: So he's the second school of Media Ecology.

[1:51:57] Bob Dobbs: The third school is Montreal and Concordia and Kroker Scene.

[1:52:02] Bob Dobbs: And so he was feeding off the second school,

[1:52:05] Bob Dobbs: Sylvère Lotringer,

[1:52:07] Bob Dobbs: and making patterns going further than Baudrillard and them were doing themselves.

[1:52:11] Bob Dobbs: He mixed it up,

[1:52:13] Bob Dobbs: and he created the third school of Media Ecology.

[1:52:16] Bob Dobbs: Then the fourth one I called the diasporic school.

[1:52:19] Bob Dobbs: That was people who were

[1:52:21] Bob Dobbs: Dobbs, print-oriented bastards,

[1:52:24] Bob Dobbs: who were trying to keep the book culture going.

[1:52:27] Bob Dobbs: They knew

[1:52:27] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan enough to know that book culture was weak and anemic,

[1:52:31] Bob Dobbs: but they insisted on writing books.

[1:52:33] Bob Dobbs: And that's Neil Postman,

[1:52:35] Bob Dobbs: Bruce Powe,

[1:52:36] Bob Dobbs: Derrick de Kerckhove,

[1:52:37] Bob Dobbs: Robert Logan.

[1:52:40] Bob Dobbs: There's a couple other guys that are listed there.

[1:52:42] Bob Dobbs: They're the book guys,

[1:52:44] Bob Dobbs: you know what I mean?

[1:52:45] Bob Dobbs: They write boring books,

[1:52:47] Bob Dobbs: and they quote McLuhan,

[1:52:50] Bob Dobbs: and they pretend that they're dealing with it,

[1:52:51] Bob Dobbs: but they're just basically trying to keep their academic jobs going.

[1:52:56] Bob Dobbs: So that was the fourth school,

[1:52:57] Bob Dobbs: the diasporic.

[1:52:59] Bob Dobbs: They all scattered.

[1:52:59] Bob Dobbs: They never talked to each other.

[1:53:02] Bob Dobbs: Bruce Powe never talked to Lance Strate or to Neil Postman or to whoever else I mentioned.

[1:53:10] Bob Dobbs: So then comes the fifth school,

[1:53:14] Bob Dobbs: which is the Android Meme.

[1:53:16] Bob Dobbs: So I've arrived at 1990.

[1:53:19] Bob Dobbs: So what I did,

[1:53:19] Bob Dobbs: I'd go through every one of those authors and all the schools and find quotes,

[1:53:23] Bob Dobbs: key quotes in their work,

[1:53:25] Bob Dobbs: and then find a McLuhan quote where he said it before they did.

[1:53:28] Bob Dobbs: And because it would be just too much copyright work,

[1:53:32] Bob Dobbs: I would just find the quote and then give where it exactly is,

[1:53:36] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:53:36] Bob Dobbs: cliché to archetype,

[1:53:37] Bob Dobbs: page 36,

[1:53:38] Bob Dobbs: line 5.

[1:53:40] Bob Dobbs: you'll find a statement or a paragraph that anticipates Foucault.

[1:53:44] Bob Dobbs: You know what I mean?

[1:53:45] Bob Dobbs: Foucault just...

[1:53:45] Bob Dobbs: So I have all those guys replaying McLuhan.

[1:53:48] Bob Dobbs: So then in 1990,

[1:53:51] Bob Dobbs: when the walls went down and we moved into a new world,

[1:53:55] Bob Dobbs: and then the computer came along,

[1:53:56] Bob Dobbs: which,

[1:53:57] Bob Dobbs: I mean,

[1:53:57] Bob Dobbs: the internet,

[1:53:57] Bob Dobbs: which was the afterimage of the Android Meme,

[1:54:01] Bob Dobbs: I go through all the schools again showing their production,

[1:54:06] Bob Dobbs: all the books that a lot of them,

[1:54:08] Bob Dobbs: they got attention.

[1:54:09] Bob Dobbs: and they got to get published more and more.

[1:54:11] Bob Dobbs: So I run through all of that and consider every one of their books in the

[1:54:16] Bob Dobbs: 90s, of all those guys in all those schools,

[1:54:20] Bob Dobbs: as extensions,

[1:54:23] Bob Dobbs: knee-jerk extensions of the Endor meme,

[1:54:25] Bob Dobbs: which they were missing.

[1:54:28] Bob Dobbs: All right?

[1:54:29] Bob Dobbs: So then,

[1:54:31] Bob Dobbs: after laying that out,

[1:54:32] Bob Dobbs: what happened in the 90s,

[1:54:32] Bob Dobbs: I go to the sixth school.

[1:54:34] Bob Dobbs: It says the sixth school of Media Ecology,

[1:54:36] Bob Dobbs: and it has one line.

[1:54:37] Bob Dobbs: You're looking at it.

[1:54:40] Bob Dobbs: Which is me talking on the radio and explaining what they're doing.

[1:54:45] Bob Dobbs: So that big long article,

[1:54:50] Bob Dobbs: that's a major thing.

[1:54:51] Bob Dobbs: And I did a couple other articles around the chart,

[1:54:55] Bob Dobbs: Up the Orphaganty and Part 2,

[1:54:56] Bob Dobbs: Silencing the Virtually Solar Theater.

[1:54:58] Bob Dobbs: That's in 1995.

[1:55:00] Bob Dobbs: That's working with the idea that the Internet is the afterimage of the Android Meme.

[1:55:03] Bob Dobbs: And then I had a column in a zine called Flipside,

[1:55:09] Bob Dobbs: a very popular rock and roll magazine.

[1:55:12] Bob Dobbs: And

[1:55:13] Bob Dobbs: I put all my diaries and my charts in that.

[1:55:15] Bob Dobbs: That Quentin Fiore years.

[1:55:18] Bob Dobbs: But less radio.

[1:55:21] Bob Dobbs: Being in New York,

[1:55:21] Bob Dobbs: I didn't have any access to radio in the

[1:55:25] Bob Dobbs: 90s. Occasionally,

[1:55:25] Bob Dobbs: Nelson would get me on a station or two in Toronto.

[1:55:29] Bob Dobbs: But on

[1:55:30] Bob Dobbs: April 14,

[1:55:31] Bob Dobbs: 2000,

[1:55:34] Bob Dobbs: I had met this guy.

[1:55:35] Bob Dobbs: And then he turned me on to someone else who had a show on Manhattan Neighborhood Network,

[1:55:39] Bob Dobbs: the public access channel in New York City.

[1:55:42] Bob Dobbs: And when Time Warner came in in the early

[1:55:45] Bob Dobbs: 70s,

[1:55:45] Bob Dobbs: To create cable TV,

[1:55:47] Bob Dobbs: the city said,

[1:55:47] Bob Dobbs: well,

[1:55:48] Bob Dobbs: okay,

[1:55:48] Bob Dobbs: yeah,

[1:55:48] Bob Dobbs: you can come in and do this cable TV thing,

[1:55:50] Bob Dobbs: but you've got to donate one station,

[1:55:52] Bob Dobbs: one or two,

[1:55:53] Bob Dobbs: to the people so that they can have access.

[1:55:55] Bob Dobbs: So that was the cover for beginning the cable era.

[1:55:59] Bob Dobbs: So

[1:56:00] Bob Dobbs: I got

[1:56:02] Bob Dobbs: Alan Steinfeld.

[1:56:04] Bob Dobbs: I was introduced to him by another guy I met in a bookstore,

[1:56:07] Bob Dobbs: and we had interest.

[1:56:07] Bob Dobbs: So he interviewed me.

[1:56:11] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[1:56:11] Bob Dobbs: it's all like,

[1:56:12] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[1:56:12] Bob Dobbs: what do you call that,

[1:56:13] Bob Dobbs: ad hoc?

[1:56:15] Bob Dobbs: temporary fucking accidental meetings so alan he didn't know me we met we talked he kind of liked me he said okay i'm going to interview you so on april 14 2000 i got interviewed by him in the studio so it was my first time on tv pretty

[1:56:31] Bob Dobbs: well anywhere but in new york city and on that day that day became known as the day the dot com uh crashed the dot com became dot

[1:56:41] Bob Dobbs: Look it up.

[1:56:41] Bob Dobbs: It was the

[1:56:43] Bob Dobbs: April 4th of 2000.

[1:56:44] Bob Dobbs: So I considered when I get on the TV,

[1:56:47] Bob Dobbs: leaving radio,

[1:56:48] Bob Dobbs: I cause an earthquake.

[1:56:50] Bob Dobbs: So that's what I claim.

[1:56:52] Bob Dobbs: And then

[1:56:53] Bob Dobbs: Harold Channer,

[1:56:55] Bob Dobbs: an older guy,

[1:56:55] Bob Dobbs: had been doing video interviews since 1969,

[1:57:00] Bob Dobbs: 70.

[1:57:00] Bob Dobbs: He got the second camera off the boat after Nam June Paik did in New York City.

[1:57:06] Bob Dobbs: He's a whole interesting story.

[1:57:08] Bob Dobbs: He would visit McLuhan once a year.

[1:57:11] Bob Dobbs: with Paul Tiessen,

[1:57:13] Bob Dobbs: a guy who was Ted Carpenter assistant at the

[1:57:16] Bob Dobbs: Fordham thing in 68.

[1:57:18] Bob Dobbs: He was a priest at that time,

[1:57:21] Bob Dobbs: but I think he quit it.

[1:57:23] Bob Dobbs: And then Harold hung out with Bucky Fuller.

[1:57:25] Bob Dobbs: So he was juggling McLuhan and Fuller.

[1:57:28] Bob Dobbs: He said McLuhan never liked him,

[1:57:30] Bob Dobbs: but he kept going up and seeing what he could get.

[1:57:34] Bob Dobbs: But he favored Bucky Fuller.

[1:57:35] Bob Dobbs: So he saw me on Allen Steinfeld.

[1:57:38] Bob Dobbs: So in June.

[1:57:40] Bob Dobbs: 2000,

[1:57:41] Bob Dobbs: he asked me on his show,

[1:57:42] Bob Dobbs: and he had conversations with Harold Channer,

[1:57:44] Bob Dobbs: a whole hour,

[1:57:45] Bob Dobbs: and he was a real chatterbox and a good mind.

[1:57:48] Bob Dobbs: So we started a debate between McLuhan and Fuller,

[1:57:52] Bob Dobbs: he being Fuller,

[1:57:52] Bob Dobbs: me being McLuhan.

[1:57:54] Bob Dobbs: And we did

[1:57:55] Bob Dobbs: 12 shows over the next

[1:57:59] Bob Dobbs: 11 years,

[1:58:00] Bob Dobbs: like,

[1:58:00] Bob Dobbs: what is that,

[1:58:01] Bob Dobbs: 2000 to 2015.

[1:58:06] Bob Dobbs: So 15 years or something.

[1:58:08] Bob Dobbs: And they're great shows.

[1:58:08] Bob Dobbs: I recommend you look at them.

[1:58:10] Bob Dobbs: They're on my timeline.

[1:58:12] Bob Dobbs: Very interesting,

[1:58:13] Bob Dobbs: hilarious arguments because he's a bit nuts,

[1:58:18] Bob Dobbs: but he knew his stuff.

[1:58:20] Bob Dobbs: And his show was a setup.

[1:58:24] Bob Dobbs: He interviewed everybody.

[1:58:25] Bob Dobbs: Kissinger,

[1:58:26] Bob Dobbs: like 1,100 interviews.

[1:58:28] Bob Dobbs: Incredible.

[1:58:29] Bob Dobbs: Over 30 years.

[1:58:31] Bob Dobbs: And he'd bring people in and he'd ask them to give their background.

[1:58:34] Bob Dobbs: They'd lay out their life.

[1:58:36] Bob Dobbs: And had an hour to get into it.

[1:58:37] Bob Dobbs: And then they'd start,

[1:58:38] Bob Dobbs: and then he'd hear their program,

[1:58:40] Bob Dobbs: what their issues were.

[1:58:42] Bob Dobbs: And then he would say,

[1:58:43] Bob Dobbs: every show,

[1:58:44] Bob Dobbs: well,

[1:58:44] Bob Dobbs: don't you think we've reached the end of scarcity?

[1:58:47] Bob Dobbs: And he'd start talking Bucky Fuller.

[1:58:50] Bob Dobbs: He'd say,

[1:58:50] Bob Dobbs: yeah,

[1:58:50] Bob Dobbs: but we're on the edge of a nuclear destruction of ourselves.

[1:58:54] Bob Dobbs: And he would say the same thing at every show to these people.

[1:58:58] Bob Dobbs: And they didn't see it coming,

[1:58:59] Bob Dobbs: and some would respond,

[1:59:01] Bob Dobbs: others would get stupid.

[1:59:02] Bob Dobbs: But he set them up.

[1:59:03] Bob Dobbs: He was a phatic.

[1:59:04] Bob Dobbs: who always was going to nail him with the Bucky Fuller scenario.

[1:59:08] Bob Dobbs: And then when he met me,

[1:59:10] Bob Dobbs: he tried to throw in a little bit of McLuhan,

[1:59:12] Bob Dobbs: but basically

[1:59:13] Bob Dobbs: I did McLuhan to him what he did to Bucky Fuller,

[1:59:18] Bob Dobbs: using Bucky Fuller against his guest.

[1:59:20] Bob Dobbs: So it's the final titanic battle of wits.

[1:59:25] Bob Dobbs: I'm the McLuhan nut.

[1:59:27] Bob Dobbs: He's the Fuller nut.

[1:59:28] Bob Dobbs: We both set people up in our respective media.

[1:59:31] Bob Dobbs: and then nail them with the McLuhan stuff they don't know or the Fuller stuff.

[1:59:36] Bob Dobbs: Now we were Self-Condemned against each other or complimenting each other.

[1:59:41] Bob Dobbs: So

[1:59:41] Bob Dobbs: I'd be very curious of what you think of our dialogues because they are pretty interesting.

[1:59:45] Bob Dobbs: Do you know what I'm saying?

[1:59:48] Cameron McEwen: I did see one of the shows,

[1:59:49] Cameron McEwen: I forget when,

[1:59:50] Cameron McEwen: it was many years ago,

[1:59:53] Cameron McEwen: but the impression was that he wasn't really following you.

[1:59:58] Bob Dobbs: That's right.

[1:59:59] Bob Dobbs: He never listened.

[2:00:01] Bob Dobbs: He would let people talk,

[2:00:02] Bob Dobbs: and then he'd do his monomaniac response.

[2:00:06] Bob Dobbs: And it was absurd,

[2:00:08] Bob Dobbs: but I could handle absurdity.

[2:00:10] Bob Dobbs: And so

[2:00:11] Bob Dobbs: I made him focus,

[2:00:13] Bob Dobbs: because

[2:00:13] Bob Dobbs: I could keep up with him and one-up him,

[2:00:16] Bob Dobbs: he was forced to listen to me,

[2:00:18] Bob Dobbs: and you'll find that he couldn't listen.

[2:00:20] Bob Dobbs: You know,

[2:00:20] Bob Dobbs: he didn't get me.

[2:00:21] Bob Dobbs: But he knew what,

[2:00:23] Bob Dobbs: occasionally he would say a quote,

[2:00:25] Bob Dobbs: like I do.

[2:00:25] Bob Dobbs: You say something,

[2:00:26] Bob Dobbs: and I'll say,

[2:00:26] Bob Dobbs: oh,

[2:00:27] Bob Dobbs: that's that quote from McLuhan.

[2:00:28] Bob Dobbs: He knew a few basic...

[2:00:30] Bob Dobbs: He always was,

[2:00:31] Bob Dobbs: every show,

[2:00:32] Bob Dobbs: he said,

[2:00:33] Bob Dobbs: I like what James Joyce said,

[2:00:35] Bob Dobbs: you know,

[2:00:37] Bob Dobbs: I'm,

[2:00:37] Bob Dobbs: what is it,

[2:00:38] Bob Dobbs: I'm in the nightmare of history.

[2:00:40] Bob Dobbs: I hope to wake up from whatever that famous quote is.

[2:00:42] Bob Dobbs: He would always say that one.

[2:00:44] Bob Dobbs: It is so ridiculous.

[2:00:46] Bob Dobbs: Every show,

[2:00:47] Bob Dobbs: and I watched a lot of shows that he did this to everybody.

[2:00:49] Bob Dobbs: And nobody commented on it.

[2:00:52] Bob Dobbs: Nobody seemed to notice it.

[2:00:55] Bob Dobbs: They didn't watch him enough or something.

[2:00:58] Bob Dobbs: Anyways.

[2:00:59] Bob Dobbs: I got a lot to say about Harold Channer,

[2:01:01] Bob Dobbs: so

[2:01:02] Bob Dobbs: I think I'll send you a few links.

[2:01:04] Bob Dobbs: Now that you know a bit more of the format.

[2:01:07] Bob Dobbs: I did TV for many years.

[2:01:12] Cameron McEwen: Only with him or with other people?

[2:01:17] Bob Dobbs: Mainly with him.

[2:01:18] Bob Dobbs: A few other crackpots had me on,

[2:01:20] Bob Dobbs: and they're just hilarious and silly.

[2:01:23] Bob Dobbs: Like these two druggies had me on Saturday night.

[2:01:26] Bob Dobbs: This guy had the gossip show for all the clubs.

[2:01:29] Bob Dobbs: And we talked about Zappa,

[2:01:31] Bob Dobbs: and then they tried to make fun of me,

[2:01:33] Bob Dobbs: and I countered with that.

[2:01:34] Bob Dobbs: I'll try to find that for you.

[2:01:35] Bob Dobbs: It is quite hilarious.

[2:01:36] Bob Dobbs: So occasionally people who just thought I was an interesting guy,

[2:01:40] Bob Dobbs: but they had no clue about me and didn't know what they were getting into.

[2:01:43] Bob Dobbs: So it became a funny show.

[2:01:46] Bob Dobbs: But the Harold stuff was serious.

[2:01:50] Bob Dobbs: That was good.

[2:01:55] Bob Dobbs: All right.

[2:01:56] Cameron McEwen: I'll have a look for sure.

[2:01:58] Bob Dobbs: All right.

[2:01:58] Bob Dobbs: So let's,

[2:01:59] Bob Dobbs: did I,

[2:02:00] Bob Dobbs: I got to go soon,

[2:02:01] Bob Dobbs: but let me see.

[2:02:05] Bob Dobbs: I'm saying that

[2:02:07] Bob Dobbs: Vietnam, over the next 40 years,

[2:02:10] Bob Dobbs: until you've got little kids bigger than the global hologram,

[2:02:13] Bob Dobbs: that's the result of the holeopathic cliche probes.

[2:02:16] Bob Dobbs: And then I go,

[2:02:17] Bob Dobbs: since there's nothing but replays,

[2:02:19] Bob Dobbs: remember,

[2:02:20] Bob Dobbs: the obsolescence phase is the cliche.

[2:02:23] Bob Dobbs: And then the retrieval is the third phase.

[2:02:25] Bob Dobbs: To make a cliché work,

[2:02:26] Bob Dobbs: you've got to dress it up differently.

[2:02:28] Bob Dobbs: How you dress up the retrieval is an action of probing,

[2:02:31] Bob Dobbs: which McLuhan described as,

[2:02:32] Bob Dobbs: quote,

[2:02:33] Bob Dobbs: feeling around,

[2:02:34] Bob Dobbs: looking for some new situation,

[2:02:37] Bob Dobbs: unquote.

[2:02:37] Bob Dobbs: When jazz was Kostelanetz,

[2:02:39] Bob Dobbs: they brought in the cliché of tribal drum music,

[2:02:41] Bob Dobbs: dressed it up with Elvis,

[2:02:42] Bob Dobbs: a white guy singing it.

[2:02:44] Bob Dobbs: Elvis Presley called it rock and roll.

[2:02:46] Bob Dobbs: Elvis was a cliché probe.

[2:02:48] Bob Dobbs: Another aspect,

[2:02:49] Bob Dobbs: when you read the book from Cliché to archetype,

[2:02:51] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan tends to say,

[2:02:53] Bob Dobbs: Quote,

[2:02:53] Bob Dobbs: archetypes are contained,

[2:02:55] Bob Dobbs: stable things.

[2:02:57] Bob Dobbs: They're like books.

[2:02:58] Bob Dobbs: Archetypes,

[2:02:59] Bob Dobbs: and then I say,

[2:03:00] Bob Dobbs: archetypes are what literate people come up with.

[2:03:02] Bob Dobbs: Tribal people are constantly changing and moving around.

[2:03:04] Bob Dobbs: They're a cliché,

[2:03:05] Bob Dobbs: and the cliché is not stable and concrete like an archetype.

[2:03:09] Bob Dobbs: It's always being improvised,

[2:03:10] Bob Dobbs: slang to generally how your black comedians act when they're probing.

[2:03:15] Bob Dobbs: A cliché is more a probe,

[2:03:16] Bob Dobbs: more an exploratory expression than an archetype.

[2:03:19] Bob Dobbs: And then,

[2:03:19] Bob Dobbs: the more you become aware of pop culture,

[2:03:21] Bob Dobbs: depending on how old you are,

[2:03:23] Bob Dobbs: Definitely the probe of rock and roll in the

[2:03:25] Bob Dobbs: 1560s sounded to adults like it's all the same noise,

[2:03:28] Bob Dobbs: in quotes,

[2:03:29] Bob Dobbs: noise,

[2:03:29] Bob Dobbs: whereas to the kids it was 50 kinds of snow,

[2:03:32] Bob Dobbs: and they'd argue over different bands,

[2:03:34] Bob Dobbs: but the dull ears of the literate parents couldn't hear the differences.

[2:03:38] Bob Dobbs: You have to include the dull meaning of cliché,

[2:03:40] Bob Dobbs: that's what rock is for parents,

[2:03:42] Bob Dobbs: but it also has to have a sense of newness,

[2:03:44] Bob Dobbs: that's the probing part.

[2:03:45] Bob Dobbs: McLuhan would make outrageous statements to get you thinking,

[2:03:48] Bob Dobbs: he called that probing.

[2:03:49] Bob Dobbs: Well,

[2:03:49] Bob Dobbs: he was probing with clichés.

[2:03:52] Cameron McEwen: We should,

[2:03:54] Cameron McEwen: just as a footnote here,

[2:03:55] Cameron McEwen: should make clear that when McLuhan talking about archetypes as stable patterns,

[2:04:03] Cameron McEwen: he's talking about archetypes as used by some people.

[2:04:08] Cameron McEwen: He didn't use archetypes like that.

[2:04:10] Cameron McEwen: No.

[2:04:11] Cameron McEwen: When he himself was talking about archetypes,

[2:04:14] Cameron McEwen: then they were dynamic.

[2:04:17] Cameron McEwen: And archetypes were becoming cliches and cliches were becoming...

[2:04:21] Cameron McEwen: becoming archetypes.

[2:04:23] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[2:04:23] Bob Dobbs: he talked about they were interchangeable.

[2:04:25] Bob Dobbs: It didn't matter which word you used.

[2:04:27] Cameron McEwen: Correct.

[2:04:28] Bob Dobbs: So there's more,

[2:04:29] Bob Dobbs: but I'll just end with that.

[2:04:32] Bob Dobbs: And we'll go back into that.

[2:04:33] Bob Dobbs: Maybe we'll have some more questions about it.

[2:04:35] Bob Dobbs: Yeah.

[2:04:37] Bob Dobbs: So very good.

[2:04:39] Bob Dobbs: I think we've done it.

[2:04:40] Bob Dobbs: And

[2:04:42] Bob Dobbs: I'll send you a couple of

[2:04:44] Bob Dobbs: Harold Channer dialogues.

[2:04:47] Cameron McEwen: Okay.

[2:04:48] Bob Dobbs: I'd be interested in your reaction.

[2:04:49] Cameron McEwen: That's good.

[2:04:50] Cameron McEwen: and

[2:04:50] Cameron McEwen: Maybe a link to the druggies making fun of you.

[2:04:54] Bob Dobbs: Yes,

[2:04:55] Bob Dobbs: I'll get that one.

[2:04:56] Bob Dobbs: Okay.

[2:04:56] Bob Dobbs: Thanks,

[2:04:58] Bob Dobbs: Bob.

[2:04:58] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[2:04:59] Bob Dobbs: great talking to you.

[2:05:01] Cameron McEwen: Same here.

[2:05:02] Bob Dobbs: Who am I talking to again?

[2:05:03] Bob Dobbs: I guess so into my head.

[2:05:05] Cameron McEwen: I forget.

[2:05:06] Bob Dobbs: Yeah,

[2:05:06] Bob Dobbs: Ewen Cameron is talking about.

[2:05:07] Bob Dobbs: All right,

[2:05:08] Bob Dobbs: okay,

[2:05:09] Bob Dobbs: good night,

[2:05:09] Bob Dobbs: Ewen Cameron.

[2:05:09] Cameron McEwen: Good night.

[2:05:10] Cameron McEwen: Ciao,

[2:05:10] Bob Dobbs: ciao.

[2:05:12] Bob Dobbs: Okay,

[2:05:12] Bob Dobbs: bye.