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Measure For Measure: The Medium Is The Menace

20.05.12

Friends and Foes of Creativity -– The Medium is the Menace

Back in the ’60s, decoding the cryptic sayings of social critic Marshall McLuhan was a popular parlor game, almost as popular as decoding the lyrics of Bob Dylan. As a guitar-playing teenager with an ear attuned to the Top 40, I was fairly adept at the Dylan game. Naturally I wanted to extend my skills to McLuhan, so I hopped on my bike and headed down to Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park on the San Francisco Peninsula.

Kepler’s was no Barnes & Noble. To call it “independent” would be a gross understatement. Founded by peace activist Roy Kepler, it was a countercultural landmark, where, from time to time, you might find Joan Baez and The Grateful Dead giving concerts in the parking lot (see John Markoff’s What the Dormouse Said for more). If Kepler’s had charged rent for reading in the aisles, I would have owed them the equivalent of a year at Stanford by the time I was fifteen, which was how old I was when I parked my bike outside that day.

Source: American Songwriter