Hall of Fame

Edward T. Hall passed away on July 20th, and this is most certainly an occasion to note his importance as a scholar. The first notice appeared online courtesy of the Santa Fe New Mexican on July 24th, and then there was the New York Times obituary that appeared on August 4th.






Hall was an anthropologist whose work is foundational for media ecology, and of great importance in the field of communication. In his classic work, The Silent Language, he famously stated that "culture is communication," and also that "communication is culture." He viewed cultures as languages in their own right, and like languages made up of three parts, sets (meaningful units, like words), isolates (the elements that make up the sets, like sounds), and patterns (the ways in which the sets are organized, like grammar and syntax). He also identified three distinct modes of culture/communication, the formal, the informal, and the technical.

While his fellow anthropologist Edmund Carpenter stretched the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, that the language we speak affects or determines how we view the world, to apply to media as "the new languages," Hall extended the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis to all human cultures as communication systems, each one characterized by its own distinct worldview.

Hall was a pioneer in the study of nonverbal communication, the phrase "the silent language" applying equally well to culture and nonverbal behavior. He is best known for introducing the concept of proxemics, the human use of space, which posits that human beings, like animals, have four different distances, lines that, when crossed, change the way we behave and interact. These distances give us intimate space (reserved for close friends and family and special activities such as loving or fighting); personal space (the space we use for informal conversation); social space (for more formal interactions like an interview or classroom); public space (for public speaking and similar types of performance. His observation that the distances for these different spaces vary from one culture to another served as a representative anecdote for both intercultural and nonverbal communication.

It became a cliché some time ago to say, hey man you're invading my space, but of course it was Hall that was the source of that popular notion. Hall also distinguished between different types of space associated with different sense modalities, i.e., visual space, auditory space, olfactory space, tactile and kinetic space. And he further applied proxemics to interior design, architecture, and city planning. Proxemics was discussed at length in his book The Hidden Dimension.

Hall also introduced what came to be known as chronemics, the human use of time, in his book, The Dance of Life. In particular, he distinguished between cultures that are monochronic (one thing at a time, a uniform sense of time, as established by clocks and calendars), and polychronic (multitasking, different senses of time, as in Mircea Eliade's concepts of sacred and profane time).

Hall was also a pioneer in the study of intercultural communication, and his categories of high-context and low-context cultures, emphasized in Beyond Culture, are extraordinarily useful. In high context cultures, relatively little information is communicated, the expectation being that you already know what you need to know. Asking questions is considered shameful, explaining things is patronizing. In low context cultures, the norm is to spell things out, not expect people to already know everything, in fact to take almost nothing for granted. Germans are very low context, the French are high context, no wonder they fought so many wars against each other! Hall pointed out that Native Americans, being high context, had tremendous problems when forced into the schoolrooms based on low context U.S. culture. We Americans encounter similar problems in dealing with the high context culture of Japan.

High and low context relate quite nicely to McLuhan's concepts of hot and cool media, high context being cool, low context being hot. Moreover, Hall had a great influence on McLuhan, McLuhan attributed the idea of media as extensions to Hall (although Hall was by no means the first to use it). It is also worth noting that Hall's books were required reading in Neil Postman's media ecology curriculum, which was when I first read him, although I had encountered his ideas in my freshman Introduction to Communication Theory class.

Edward T. Hall was associated with another anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell, who introduced the concept of kinesics (aka body language), and more broadly with Gregory Bateson, Erving Goffman, and Paul Watzlawick, as part of what some have referred to as the Palo Alto Group.

Hall's work was in the North American intellectual tradition of pragmatics, and had many practical applications. In fact, he worked for the U.S. State Department for a time, directing a program for the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, DC. Hall's influence waned along with the whole North American intellectual tradition over the 70s, and his concern with practice as well as theory was replaced for many scholars by the more highly theoretical, cultural studies-compatible work of Clifford Geertz, among others. The influence of Noam Chomsky in linguistics had much to do with a shift in emphasis away from the pragmatics of studying other cultures, which is why our government has been such a dismal failure in our diplomacy and foreign affairs, e.g., the Iranian revolution in the late 70s and its aftermath, and our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Me, I'll take Hall's down-to-earth clarity and insights any day. We have lost a major figure in the media ecology intellectual tradition, and he will be missed.

Blue's Clueless, and So's Steve Burns

So, anyone who's had anything to do with children and children's television over the past decade has undoubtedly heard of the Nickelodeon network's Nick Jr. program, Blue's Clues. The original host, Steve Burns, pretty much defined the show, at least for those of us in on it from the beginning, and we lost touch with the show right around the time Steve was replaced by Joe (last name forgotten), and now the website says something about someone else named Kevin, whoever he might be.

What I can say about Blue's Clues is that it was pretty innovative, and pretty much put Nick Jr. on the map as an alternative to PBS as a source of television programs (aka electronic babysitter) for preschoolers. If you're familiar with Blue's Clues then you know what I'm talking about, and if you're not, you could just skip ahead to the video, which is amusing in and of itself and require no prior knowledge of the Nick Jr. show, and in fact is entirely unrelated to Blue's Clues apart from the fact that Steve Burns stars in it.

I must say, though, that in my opinion the Blue's Clues program is essentially a watered-down, less manic, more educational, more stable version of Pee Wee's Playhouse. Pee Wee's Playhouse was a very creative children's program, with strong appeal to adult viewers who could enjoy the sheer weirdness of the program, starring the comic Paul Rubens as Pee Wee Herman. The show ran from 1986-1991, ending about half a decade before Blue's Clues premiered. This show was pure postmodernism in action, and exemplified all of the characteristics of television that Neil Postman argued were leading us to amuse ourselves to death. But it was very amusing indeed, great fun, but also really, really strange. And strangest of all was the character Pee Wee Herman, who seemed entirely ambiguous, not just sexually but in terms of age--was he a childlike adult, or an adultlike child or what? In this, Pee Wee also illustrates what Postman identified as the disappearance of childhood.

There were other points of ambiguity in the series, which I won't go into now, because that's not the point of this post. And of course, how can I resist mentioning that Rubens career was severely damaged not long after the show came to an end, when he was arrested for obscenity, after he was caught abusing himself (as the saying goes) in an adult XXX movie theater. Interestingly, while Ruben's troubles with the law have kept his show out of syndication for children's television, it's now shown on cable as part of Cartoon Network's late night Adult Swim programming (when kids graduate from Nick Jr., they migrate to Cartoon Network's regular programming, I should add).

Now, Steve Burns is nowhere near as strange as Paul Rubens was (or still is), and beyond that, the Pee Wee Herman persona and Pee Wee's Playhouse was the brainchild of Rubens, while Steve Burns, as I understand it, merely answered a casting call and was chosen for the starring role in Blue's Clues by the program's producers. But the Nick Jr. show has traces of the hallucinogenic quality of Pee Wee's Playhouse in that both made everyday objects such as furniture, food, flowers, etc., into characters with personalities, both featured segments where the main characters would dive into the world inside a picture hanging on the wall, and both revolved around some kind of game--more so Blue's Clues with it's mystery/puzzle/guessing game, but Pee Wee's Playhouse had it's Word of the Day, which only Pee Wee and the other anthropomorphic residents of his playhouse, and the viewers at home, were aware of, and when anyone said it, everyone would yell and scream! Like I said, it was manic. But along with that, while Steve Burns is nowhere near as ambiguous a persona as Pee Wee Herman/Paul Rubens, he still has that childlike adult/adultlike child quality, but again, in much milder form--but still noticeable!

Steve Burns has not been arrested, to my knowledge, but I recall him launching into a tirade against the producers of Blue's Clues after he left the program, having appeared on it from its debut in 1996 to 2002. But there also were a number of rumors started about him, that he had become a hippie-type, that he had joined the Hells Angels (improbably!), that he had become addicted to heroin and died of an overdose! According to the Wikipedia article on Steve Burns:

The legend may have started from Burns' appearance as an autistic teenager in an April 1995 episode of Law & Order, in which his character died before the opening credits. Burns' "overdose" may also have been simply another iteration of a sub-genre of urban legend in which celebrity figures whose public personas are associated with innocence are supposedly revealed to have a hidden, seedier side. There was a rumor that Steve left Blues Clues because of his mental issues. According to a 15 minute documentary on Nickelodeon, titled "The 10 years of Blue", Burns left Blue's Clues to start a self titled band. Burns was quoted on said program saying "[He] didn't want to lose [his] hair in children's television.

The article goes on to indicate that this wasn't a bad move for him:

After Burns left Blue's Clues in 2002, he recorded a rock album, Songs for Dustmites, which was released in 2003. The album was produced with the assistance of producer Dave Fridmann of Tarbox Road Studios, and with the assistance of and contributions by Steven Drozd, drummer for The Flaming Lips. (During the recording, Burns portrayed an engineer aboard a spacecraft in The Flaming Lips' film, Christmas on Mars.) The album was well-received by critics, many of whom expressed surprise at the album's quality (given their previous associations of Burns as "merely" a children's show host). Burns followed up the album's release with an international tour in 2003 and 2004. Burns also made an appearance on Figure It Out: Wild Style as one of the panelists.

In 2003, Steve Burns supported The Flaming Lips on their UK tour.

Burns recently contributed a cover of They Might Be Giants' "Dead" to the TMBG tribute album, Hello Radio.

For more on his career as a musician, you can take a look at his website, Steve Burns Rocks!!!

But before he left Blue's Clues to play the rhythm and blues, he starred in a short film directed by Jonathan Judge, entitled Hot Pants: Enchilada Surprise. This was 2001, so if you've seen this one already, my apologies, I'll try to do better next time. If not, but you are familiar with the Nick Jr. series, his character here is not that far off from the one he portrayed in Blue's Clues, same nice young man, now out on a date with a nice young girl, both from New Jersey!

And if you haven't a clue, blue or otherwise, about what I've been writing about so far, no matter, as I said, this stands on its own merit as a very funny film. Be warned, however, that it involves just a little bit of crude humor.

Anyway, this is courtesy of YouTube, where the description of this film reads:

"A perfect date goes from bad to worse in this re-telling of the urban myth of the Enchilada Surprise. Ben and Suzy are having the perfect first date until Ben orders Enchiladas Surprise at a Mexican restaurant. Now Ben's in a battle to avoid the ultimate humiliation."

Absolutely hilarious! So funny you will crap your pants!

Starring: Steve Burns
Director: Jonathan Judge
2001

And now, this:

The Oder of Youth

Groucho Marx put it very nicely: "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." In both cases, the hidden ground or invisible environment is an olfactory one--our sense of smell receives messages and information about what to approach and what to avoid, influencing what and whom we are attracted to and repulsed by.

In Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man Marshall McLuhan wrote the following in his chapter entitled "Clocks: The Scent of Time":

The most integral and involving time sense imaginable is that expressed in the Chinese and Japanese cultures. Until the coming of the missionaries in the seventeenth century, and the introduction of mechanical clocks, the Chinese and Japanese had for thousands of years measured time by graduations of incense. Not only the hours and days, but the seasons and zodiacal signs were simultaneously indicated by a succession of carefully ordered scents. The sense of smell, long considered the root of memory and the unifying basis of individuality, has come to the fore again in the experiments of Wilder Penfield. During brain surgery, electric probing of brain tissue revived many memories of the patients. These evocations were dominated and unified by unique scents and odors that structured these past experiences. The sense of smell is not only the most subtle and delicate of the human senses; it is, also, the most iconic in that it involves the entire human sensorium more fully than any other sense. It is not surprising, therefore, that highly literate societies take steps to reduce or eliminate odors from the environment. B.O., the unique signature and declaration of human individuality, is a bad word in literate societies. It is far too involving for our habits of detachment and specialist attention. Societies that measured time scents would tend to be so cohesive and so profoundly unified as to resist every kind of change. (p. 200 of the critical edition)

McLuhan referred to media as "extensions of man," and perfume originally was an extension of body odor, especially necessary for those poor unfortunates who had none. No odor means no common scents. It also means no identity--I stink therefore I am--and McLuhan in his later work noted that violence is a response to loss of identity. In the present olfactory context, this point is imaginatively illustrated by the Patrick Suskind novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (the movie adaptation having been released this past January).

In traditional cultures, certain scents were associated with the sacred, and were only used in sacred spaces and on sacred occasions. Likewise, certain scents were reserved for priests or kings, just as the color purple was reserved for royalty at one time. In ancient Israel, when the people clamored for a king, Samuel bestowed this royal status on Saul by anointing him with a special oil, and later he did the same for David--the chosen one becomes the anointed one. The Hebrew word for anointed one is meshiach, from which we get messiah, which was translated into Greek as christos, which also means anointed, from which we get via Latin the word christ, the title Jesus Christ meaning Jesus the Christ meaning Jesus the Anointed, not to mention the act of christening, where water is substituted for oil.

In other words, in Judeo-Christian tradition, we are saved by the smell! It's no laughing matter, as our efforts to produce an odorless society through ventilation/air conditioning systems and deodorant/antiperspirants turns out to be just another facet of secular humanism and the technological society. Post-colognialism? Such non-scents!

The Anointed One is supposed to deliver eternal life, either up in heaven (Christ) or here or Earth through the resurrection of the dead (Meshiach). While technology cannot accomplish this, we apparently have taken a step in that direction with a product called Timeless View™. Developed by a physician (a member of what amount to the contemporary priesthood that we turn to in times of trouble) named Alan R. Hirsch, an expert in "The Science of Smell," and the founder and director of The Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, Timeless View™ is referred to as a "Youth Perception Spray" for women only.

So, it's not quite the fountain of youth, just a spritz. According to the copy on the webpage, "During a preliminary clinical study, this patent-pending body spray made women seem an average of six (6) years younger than their actual age." I suppose that the unusual number of years, 6, makes the claim seem more legitimate than it would otherwise be (but say it three times fast and see what slouches your way). Anyway, the ad goes on to list the reasons why women want and need to look younger than they actually are, and all the things they do to achieve this goal:

Why You Need It

Have you ever tried to look younger than you actually are?

Of course you have. Every woman has tried to alter her appearance to affect the perception of her age.

And why not? Looking younger gives you advantages in life. Men find younger women more attractive. Younger women tend to be taken more seriously at work. You can probably think of a dozen ways in which appearing younger would help you to get what you want out of life.

Society places a high value on youth, which is why you may have tried:

• Young, “hip” clothes
• Hair coloring
• Dieting to lose weight
• Botox injections
• Other “youthening” techniques • Teeth whitening
• Anti-wrinkle creams
• Anti-aging vitamins
• Cosmetic surgery
However, did you notice something similar between all of those options? They are all supposed to affect how young you look.

But there’s more to age than just what you see.

Actually, this is an excellent insight, and McLuhan would certainly approve of this effort to break free from western culture's profound visualism. In this vein, the ad goes on to say:

Can You Smell Younger?

For years, Dr. Hirsch has studied the effects that the other four senses have on human perception and behavior. Specifically, he has found that specific smells can alter learning speed, memory recall, perception of body weight, gambling behavior and even sexual arousal.

Recently, he discovered a unique combination of scents that also can affect the perception of age.

During a clinical study, Dr. Hirsch found that men perceived women who wore certain scents to be an average of six (6) years younger than their actual age.

Curiously, these specific scents did not alter age perceptions in women viewing men or women viewing other women. Currently, Dr. Hirsch is conducting follow-up research to fully explore this age-perception spray for all conditions.

Even better, this unique blend of scents has been concentrated into an easy-to-use body spray called Timeless View.

So there you have it, not quite heaven, but maybe nirvana--I wonder if it smells like teen spirit? Anything to recapture that youthful odor, to be adored, no matter how arduous.

So, Tony Soprano is the "chosen one" of the Cosa Nose-tra. And using the scent of time to predict the future was the province on the prophet Nosey-stradamus. Victory through nasal power! Are you becoming incensed with me?

All right then, I'll end by mentioning that my first scholarly publication, which I produced a long, long, time ago although it smells like just yesterday, was "Media and the Sense of Smell," a book chapter that was included in the anthology Inter/Media: Interpersonal Communication in a Media World (2nd ed.), edited by Gary Gumpert and Robert Cathcart (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982, pp. 400-411). And when it was reprinted in the third edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 428-438), I had my second scholarly publication.

And I know of at least one media ecologist, Steve Reagles, who has investigated this topic in great depth in his doctoral dissertation.

As for the future, who nose? Smell ya later!