MCARSHALL MCLUHAN WHAT ARE YOU DOIN'?
Willard Bain’s book was originally printed by the Comminications Company in San Francisco the summer of 1967 and given away free in the streets. INFORMED SOURCES is the first post-Burroughsian novel I’d say, post-McLuhan also, and in its intentions and design strictly contemporary.
MCARSHALL MCLUHAN WHAT ARE YOU DOIN'?
JOHN SINCLAIR
INFORMED SOURCES a novel by
Willard Bain: Doubleday:
“Power is the ability to define phenomena and make them act in a desired manner” ^
Huey P. Newton,
Minister of Defense,
Black Panther Party
Willard Bain’s book was originally printed by the Comminications Company in San Francisco the summer of 1967 and given away free in the streets. INFORMED SOURCES is the first post-Burroughsian novel I’d say, post-McLuhan also, and in its intentions and design strictly contemporary. Bain (who has the same initials as BurroughsWS B-straingely enough) has gotten down to the simple major questions of control and power and what language has to do with it.
Huey P. Newton’s definition of power is not widely understood. What is meant here is that the man or men who have the ability or means to define a situation can control those people who are caught up in that situation. People can only act on the information available to them, and if you control the information flow you control their possible action too. In our culture people ask you “what is 2 and 2?” You would say “four” without