Q:  I’m wondering if you could start by describing 
what influence McLuhan has had on your life?

A:  None, directly that I know of. In other words, 
when Marshall McLuhan first published 
Understanding Media  in 1964, I didn’t understand 
it—and at the time I saw him as he was presented 
by the American media, as a pop guru and a wise 
man in the manner of Buckminster Fuller, a figure 
of the age, a great sage of the North and so forth. 
I didn’t really read Understanding Media  until this 
spring when I was asked to write an introduction 
to the MIT Press re-issue of that book, and I was 
astonished at how prescient McLuhan was. Much