Here’s a gem from the archives that is more than worthy of your attention: the televisual translation of the Fiore/McLuhan/Agel experimental paperback The Medium is the Massage, courtesy of McGraw-Hill “text films,” several Pennsylvania libraries, and Internet Archive. It’s a prescient piece of cybernetic pop, starring McLuhan qua new media oracle, circa 1970. Aside from the psychedelic lighting and special effects, it’s the excitement with which the words electric and electronic are pronounced that holds my attention. (But don’t miss the cameos by Alan Kaprow and John Cage.)

As readers of The Electric Information Age Book and listeners of The Electric Information Age Album by The Masses will be well aware, the Fiore/McLuhan/Agel book was first expanded into a Columbia Records LP, only later to undergo this televisual adaptation.

- April 13, 2017