Norman Mailer debates Marshall McLuhan (on ancient historical black & white TV set).
It seems like there should be cigarette smoke rising somewhere on this dark set.
Late night TV in the 60′s used to feature intellectuals battling it out in the world of ideas with a super-serious host, smoking away as he moderated the Battle of Titans. I thought this stuff was really cool when I was a kid, though I’d usually have no idea what the intellectuals were talking about. These shows had names like “The David Susskind Show” and “Night Beat,” (Mike Wallace smoking up a storm) (savoring the deliciously nicotene-stained World of Ideas) (when smoking was a sign of sophistication) but they could have been called “The Grown-Up’s Table” because there was this idea that late at night, grown-ups talked about the heavy stuff that they didn’t allow the kiddies to be exposed to during daylight hours.
I still like these shows, even though nobody thinks intellectuals have any influence on the real world anymore.
Anyway, here’s an extreme example of two intellectuals who took themselves EXTREMELY seriously and were only too happy to appear on a television set with microphones-on-laniards hanging around their necks, to battle out their views on the existential problems of mankind.
Norman Mailer died yesterday. Marshall McLuhan died a few years ago.
Somehow the cinemascope black & white set seems like the perfect stage for two ghosts to argue their pet theories.
But there really should be cigarette smoke.
No related posts.