A friend laughed at me a few years ago when I told her that I had “discovered” Marshall McLuhan.  I didn’t quite see what was funny; reading McLuhan set me on a path to better understanding media and culture (even if it’s on my own plebian level). I blame Douglas Coupland, whose short biography of the thinker got me to check out McLuhan’s Understanding Media over Christmas vacation.  True, a lot of what he said is beyond me, but the things he “saw in advance” were quite amazing . . . and sobering.  This clip, short and unfortunately incomplete, is a nice snippet of his thinking.