How sneezing up a piece of living tissue inspired Douglas Coupland to write a bio of Marshall McLuhan

Kevin Kelly enjoyed Douglas Coupland's Marshall McLuhan biography, You Know Nothing of My Work!. I have not yet read it, but I'm planning to. Here's an excerpt from the book, in which Coupland explains an incident that led him to write it:

201109091532I quit smoking on Halloween 1988. In December 1988 I was walking to work in a snowstorm when I had the biggest sneeze of my life and afterwards found in my hand a clump of living tissue the size, shape, and colour of a Thompson seedless green grape. It had veins. Of course this freaked me out, and I went right to a doctor, who said that I should actually be thankful, because "At least it's not inside you any more." He made sense. But from that morning on, my hearing became hyperacute and hasn't wavered since. It's not just noises (of any sort) that shut me down (and by "shut me down," I mean they stop my body in mid-motion). Leaf blowers and hammers are the worst. But after the morning of the nasal incident, I also lost my ability to focus sounds. Restaurants are the worst. Or people in Europe who use cellphones on trains — people who use their outdoor voices indoors. I carry cards in my wallet to this effect. They read, I AM UNABLE TO "FOCUS" SOUND AND AM UNABLE TO HEAR YOU PROPERLY. PLEASE HAVE PATIENCE. I hand them out mostly to airline employees and hotel front desk staff. At first, they tend to think I'm running a charity scam, and then they realize I'm for real. I no longer attend large events that take place in big rooms. Also, in the 7,000 or so nights since then, I've not once been able to sleep without earplugs, and at its very worst, in 1993, I couldn't stay in hotels or do any work of any sort until late at night and into the early morning, when most people are asleep. So when I found out that Marshall's hearing went cuckoo after they took a lump out of his head, I said, "Yes, this is someone I want to write a biography about."


How coughing up a piece of his lung inspired Douglas Coupland to write a bio of Marshall McLuhan (Photo of Coupland by Kevin Kelly)