Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/06347_Field_TCUP T2.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 1KB | 16 lines

“jobs” are “square.” The “square” person and situation are
not “cool” because they manifest little of the habit of depth
involvement of our faculties. The young now say, “Humor is
not cool.” Their favorite jokes bear this out. They ask, “What is
purple and hums?” Answer, “An electric grape.” “Why does it
hum?” Answer, “Because it doesn’t know the words.” Humor is
presumably not “cool” because it inclines us to laugh at
something, instead of getting us emphatically involved in
something. The story line is dropped from “cool” jokes and
“cool” movies alike. The Bergman and Fellini movies demand far
more involvement than do narrative shows. A story line
encompasses a set of events much like a melodic line in music.
Melody, the melos modos , “the road round,” is a continuous,
connected, and repetitive structure that is not used in the
“cool” art of the Orient. The art and poetry of Zen create
involvement by means of the interval, not by the connection