Re: GG: Glenn Gould and Marshall McLuhan

[junichi miyazawa <jmjmj@attglobal.net>]

Hello to all,

Sorry for a silence both off/on list since I posted a question on
GG & Petula Clark in early summer.  I made a presentation on
the topic at a conference of Canadian literature in Tokyo,
and I am going to make it printed in a journal.

In the meantime, I recently wrote a paper on GG and McLuhan:
"Glenn Gould and the Media: The Influence of Marshall McLuhan"
for _The Annual Review of Canadian Studies_
(The Japanese Association for Canadian Studies)
vol.20 (September 2000).
It will be published at the annual assembly of the Association
in Nagoya late September, so when it is available, I will post
an English synopsis of the paper (unfortunately, the body of the
paper is written in Japanese) to the list.

My paper insists that GG was definitely influenced by the idea of
McLuhan in early 1960's to collect his own idea of electric media,
but he dismissed and criticized the Guru later on, in 1970's.

In terms of GG's neighborhood with McLuhan,
McLuhan lived at 29 Well Hill Avenue, Toronto in late 1960s,
which is not far from St Clair Avenue West.
When I made interviews with Eric McLuhan, the first son of
Marshall, he told me that GG used to visit their house during the
period to talk with Marshall.  GG was usually introduced to
McLuhan's study room right away, so Eric and the other family
members had few opportunities to talk with GG.  Eric also
remembers that his father and GG enjoyed talking on the phone,
and that GG's visit stopped McLuhan's
when they moved away to Wychwood Park in 1970,
after McLuhan returned from his one-year lecturing
at Fordham University in New York City.

In fact, I wrote another paper on GG, McLuhan (and Soseki)
last year to depict their friendship and common concerns
refering to GG's favorite novel by a Japanese writer Soseki:
"Gould, McLuhan, Soseki: on the idea of acoustic space and
the poetics of _The Three-Cornered World,"
_Misuzu_  vol.42, no.9 (September 2000).
It is based on a presentation I delivered at University of Toronto
in March 2000, entitled "A Study of Glenn Gould: His 'tactile"
attachment to Marshall McLuhan and Natsume Soseki."
In preparation, I accessed all of the correspondance
between GG and MM survived in both National Library
and Narional Archive.
The lecture was made in English, but the paper in Japanese.
I am thinking about making an revised English version in English
as soon as possible.

Best regards,

Junichi, Tokyo

P.S. I found Christopher Bodnar's post really interesting and helpful.
Chris, what is the topic of your dissertation?

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Junichi Miyazawa, Tokyo
jmjmj@attglobal.net (main)
http://www.walkingtune.com
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