No doubt about it, Marshall McLuhan was a cryptic thinker and a bit of an odd duck. Earlier this week, Colin Marshall brought you an Introduction to Marshall McLuhan, presented by Tom Wolfe (best known for The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Bonfire of the Vanities). In putting together that post, we stumbled upon another gem of a video, a testament to McLuhan’s quirkiness — and we mean that in the best possible way. Above McLuhan, kicking back on a couch, reveals his “peculiar reading habit,” admitting: “If it’s a frivolous, relaxing book, I read every word. But serious books I read on the right-hand side only because I’ve discovered enormous redundancy in any well-written book, and I find that by reading only the right-hand page this keeps me very wide awake, filling in the other page out of my own noodle.” There’s a bit of hubris in that approach, but also a certain amount of creativity too. Perhaps you’ll want to give it a try.
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The Visionary Thought of Marshall McLuhan, Introduced and Demystified by Tom Wolfe
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Well, that was interesting, never thought Marshall McLuhan has such a weird habit. But keep up the good work.