On: Marshall McLuhan Speaks

"The Medium is the Massage (sic)"

Freudian slip? :)

Heh, actually, no.

Says McLuhan Biographer, W. Terrence Gordon: "by the time it appeared in 1967, McLuhan no doubt recognized that his original saying had become a cliché and welcomed the opportunity to throw it back on the compost heap of language to recycle and revitalize it. But the new title is more than McLuhan indulging his insatiable taste for puns, more than a clever fusion of self-mockery and self-rescue — the subtitle is 'An Inventory of Effects,' underscoring the lesson compressed into the original saying."

Wow, thanks for posting that quote. This and the parent post assuming the title was a typo is really making my day.

To add to the discussion, the first pages of the book are a photograph of a hand over an ear, overlaid with the words "...the massage?"

Nope, that's the actual title of a later book he wrote to provide a visual condensed introduction to his ideas.

http://www.amazon.com/Medium-Massage-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/158...