Distant Early Warnings: A Return to Marshall McLuhan's 'Book of Probes'

Dec 10, 2025

1h 26m

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Episode Description

Back in episode 112, Phil and JF devised a gimmick for a show: randomly select one of the many aphorisms in The Book of Probes, a compendium of Marshall McLuhan’s prophetic quips designed by David Carson, and see what happens. It proved lively enough that they’re trying it again nearly a hundred episodes later. The resulting conversation touches the weird across a range of themes: tourism, the two kinds of truth, advertising, Kubrick’s marketing savvy, technology, orality versus literacy, and much more. A fitting feast for the mind as the year draws to a close.

From all of us at Weird Studies, happy holidays.

• Sign up for JF Martel and Erik Davis's upcoming course on Moby-Dick.

• Join Phil, JF, and composer Pierre-Yves Martel for Weirdosphere's Solstice Story Hour on December 21.

• For dates, venues, and the full slate of Weird Academia events in Bloomington this January, visit the Centre for Possible Minds website.

• To participate in the Weird Academia Colloquium, email organizers Emma Stamm and Michael Garfield at elfthoughts@gmail.com

Header Image: NASA.

REFERENCES

Marshall McLuhan, Distant Early Warning Deck

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

Plato, The Seventh Letter

Marshall McLuhan, The Book of Probes

Toronto School of Communication Theory