Status Updates From Essential McLuhan

going on break

I want to read this guy McLuhan is criticizing (or differentiating himself from).

I had to plough the meandering article, "Joyce, Mallarmé, and the Press," with low comprehension a couple of times in order to get to a point where I could somewhat read it. Thankfully, I could jump to the previous section of technopoems in between sessions.

"American Advertising"

Having read more background on later mid-20th-century Canadian poets, I wonder if my previous assessment of this introduction is not critical enough of how much it isn't. The editor scorns McLuhan's detractors in a leet sort of way, but like many Canadian critics, seems less political than the author's, or audience's, original context.

Currently able to sign out a copy on inter-library loan, so reading content now.

Intro complete. It was not easy to follow and I probably would have been better off going straight into the book (except for the last segment of the intro, which explains how the book is sectioned).

I'm going to have to read this whole intro twice, aren't I? I accidentally reread the second half of my previous progress, realized how new it sounded, and so reread it all. Then to not lose my original goal, I kept going for one more segment and ended up here. This is a bit simpler, containing some academia drama. I learned a new word: Dunciad! How spirited and opined! Maybe the metaphysics part also wasn't too hard

It's going to be slow going through the intro, since Marshall's son is not as fun to read as himself. What's more is my library's copy has Local Heritage status, so patrons have reduced privileges for taking it out, if any. Funny... I keep finding out that important Canadians I want to read are either from here or spent enough of their lives here to be thought of that way.