The Original Cartoon Calvin
For illustrative purposes, McLuhan shares a published anecdote about a President who might be termed the anti-Trump. Whereas Donald Trump liked to keep a constantly running Twitter commentary on everything he was thinking at any given moment, Calvin Coolidge’s nickname was “silent Cal” because he liked to keep everything so close to the vest that getting even the most mundane information from his like pulling teeth.
“Douglas Cater in The Fourth Branch of Government tells how the men of the Washington press bureaus delighted to complete or fill in the blank of Calvin Coolidge's personality. Because he was so like a mere cartoon, they felt the urge to complete his image for him and his public.”
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte is also called upon as the personification of the power of metaphor. Two quotes are attributed to this aspect, one that describes him and one said to have come directly from his lips:
“Cardinal Newman said of Napoleon, " understood the grammar of gunpowder.’ Napoleon had paid some attention to other media as well, especially the semaphore telegraph that gave him a great advantage over his enemies. He is on record for saying that `Three hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.’"
The Birth of Cinema
It is to the legendary Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein that McLuhan gives the honor of defining the birth of cinema. Interestingly—though perhaps not unexpectedly—the movie legend traces that birth back to a Russian short story:
“If the modern novel came out of Gogol's The Overcoat, the modern movie, says Eisenstein, boiled up out of that kettle.”
Tradition
In examining the way in which Hitler was able to rise to power via the radio in a Germany which was being left behind by the rest of the Europe in part due to a claustrophobic desire to hang onto the supposed traditions of their supremacy, McLuhan arrives at perfect metaphor to describe the essential qualities of that desire. Tradition, he suggests, is a concept less related to the past and more intensely tied to the present than is often considered:
“Tradition, in a word, is the sense of the total past as now.”
Jazz
The way that most people feel when they look at a newspaper from fifty years ago is, according to at least one uncredited jazz musician, how those musicians feel toward recordings of their very own music. While all live performances of popular music carry a kinetic energy that is usually—hopefully—a different experience from listening to studio record, jazz is a bit different. The fundamental nature of the form is improvisation which makes the following metaphor much easier to understand:
“Jazz musicians express their distaste for recorded jazz by saying, `It is as stale as yesterday's newspaper.’"
