Showing posts with label 1960s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1960s. Show all posts

Saturday, April 08, 2017

(posts) "What Am I Doing Hangin' Round" by The Monkees



"What Am I Doing Hanging 'Round?"

Just a loud mouth Yankee I went down to Mexico.
I didn't have much time to spend, about a week or so.
There I lightly took advantage of a girl who loved me so.
But I found myself a-thinkin' when the time had come to go...

What am I doin' hangin' round?
I should be on that train and gone.
I should be ridin' on that train to San Antone,
What am I doin' hangin' round?
She took me to the garden just for a little walk.
I didn't know much Spanish and there was no time for talk.
Then she told me that she loved me not with words but with a kiss.
And like a fool I kept on thinkin' of a train I could not miss...

What am I doin' hangin' round?
I should be on that train and gone.
I should be ridin' on that train to San Antone,
What am I doin' hangin' round?
Well it's been a year or so, and I want to go back again.
And if I get the money, well I'll ride the same old train.
But I guess your chances come but once and boy I sure missed mine.
And still I can't stop thinkin' when I hear some whistle cryin'....

What am I doin' hangin' round?
I should be on that train and gone.
I should be ridin' on that train to San Antone,
What am I doin' hangin' round?

Note:
At 0:24, Nesmith appears to sneer at someone (or something) off camera.


Friday, April 27, 2012

About "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man" by Marshall McLuhan


As much as an intellectual can, Marshall McLuhan caused a stir when he proposed that "the medium is the message" in Understanding Media (1964), the thorough analysis of media--not its content but media itself and its effects on how we think and act and make culture. It's a big, heavy subject, and McLuhan chips away at it on a great many fronts. Too many. For me, Understanding Media reads like a brilliant, nearly consumed man's mind dump rather than an organized argument. Gets tiresome.

Not to mention that often terrible writing style so prominent in the 1960's when authors of all stripes employed a scientific-ish vocabulary, needlessly obscuring their ideas in the bid for legitimacy. (Lots still do this!) For example: "Clothing, as an extension of the skin, can be seen both as a heat-control mechanism and as a means of defining the self socially" (chapter 12). But sometimes one of McLuhan's many crackerjack wisdoms splash water on your face, like this gem: "Language extends and amplifies man but it also divides his faculties. His collective consciousness or intuitive awareness is diminished by this technical extension of consciousness that is speech" (chapter 8).