读麦讲演人与媒介（1979）018

　　Edgar Allan Poe’s story ＂A Descent into the Maelstrom＂ had tremendous influence on the nineteenth-century poets and symbolists like Baudelaire, Flaubert, and others. In this story, Poe imagines the situation in which a sailor, who has gone out on a fishing expedition, finds himself caught in a huge maelstrom or whirlpool. He sees that his boat will be sucked down into this thing. He begins to study the action of the strom, and observes that some things disappear and some things reappear. By studying those things that reappear and attaching himself to one of them, he saves himself. Pattern recognition in the midst of a huge, overwhelming, destructive force is the way out of the maelstrom. The huge vortices of energy created by our media present us with similar possibilities of evasion of consequences of destruction. By studying the patterns of the effects of this huge vortex of energy in which we are involved, it may be possible to program a strategy of evasion and survival.
　　埃德加·爱伦·坡的小说《大漩涡底余生记》对19世纪的诗人和象征主义者如波德莱尔、福楼拜等产生了极大的影响。在这个故事中，坡虚构了这一场面：一个出海捕鱼的水手发现自己陷入了一个巨大的漩涡或旋涡，他明白他的船会被吸进这东西里面，他开始细察那场风暴的作用，观察到有些东西消失同时又有些东西重新出现了，通过细察那些再出现的东西并且使自己附着在其中的一种的上面，他拯救了他自己。在巨大的、压倒性的、毁灭性的支配力当中的模式识别是摆脱这场大漩涡的出路。我们的媒介所产生的能量大漩涡为我们提供了类似的规避毁灭性后果的可能性。通过研究我们所参与的这一能量大漩涡的作用模式，也许可以规划一套规避和继续生存的策略。
　　按： 模式识别是人在巨大的、压倒性的支配力中应激图存的有效出路。
　　电子媒介产生能量大漩涡，人无论顺应与否统统都被卷入。
　　挪威西海岸的莫斯肯大漩涡，另有凡尔纳的《海底两万里》和麦尔维尔的《白鲸》写到过。《大漩涡底余生记》，A Descent into the Maelstrom，另译《莫斯肯漩涡沉浮记》、《卷进大漩涡》；漩涡， maelstrom 或 whirlpool，另有近义词：vortex(复数vortices)，eddy，spire，swirl,，volution。