a blind flaneur

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• About the Flaneur

  
  I walk through my blindness the way I saunter down streets in Paris: unfettered and alive, enchanted and engaged by the raw material of the senses. I am a blind flaneur. Come along with me. Just don’t try to take my arm, unless I ask. What’s a flaneur? Read the first post, Return of the Flaneur to Galerie Vivienne. After that, try Foot Rage and the Blind Flaneur. If you don’t find me on the street, take a look in the Fair Use Lab. You can browse the archives or contact me.

• Brendan the Navigator

  "Brendan, this is what the world looks like all the time to me. Just a little fog. It’s a fine day for boating on the Great Lakes.” Without missing a stroke he turned to dart a skeptical glance at me. Brendan the Navigator. When we named him I didn’t tell his mother everything the legendary Irish name implied. But I imagined him taking on the role of navigator for me. Growing up with Coastal Survey charts and tales of Great Lakes shipwrecks, he came to know Superior as another home. He never doubted the wisdom of canoeing there with a father who was half blind. Read more.

• ADA 20th Anniversary

  On its 20th anniversary, pundits will debate what the Americans with Disabilities Act has accomplished. I still believe what I said in a TV interview after the ADA signing ceremony in 1990. “The ADA will not end disability discrimination overnight. But in a nation governed by the rule of law, getting it in writing is the place to start.” So what is the ADA's legacy? A Generation of Problem-Solvers.

• Re-Imagining Accessibility

  Re-imagining accessibility through the transformations of culture -- particularly the transformative promise of accessible technology for people with disabilities -- is the work of the Fair Use Lab. What does Shepard Fairey’s Hope poster have to do with accessibility? Read more: Shape-Shifters in the Fair Use Lab [MiT6 2009]

• Fair Use Lab

  • Multi-Sensory Approaches to Teaching Chemistry to Blind Students
  • Researcher Seeks Input on Adapting Mobile Devices for Blind and Low-Vision Users
  • Listen to the Voices of Disability Discrimination
  • White House Celebrates 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act
  • ‘I don’t see problems… I see problem-solvers’

• Blind Photographers

  
  In the moment when Paul Strand photographed her surreptitiously on the street in New York, the social engineers who created a system for licensing beggars never imagined that a blind woman had culture or could make culture. She herself may not have imagined it. Paul Strand probably didn’t give her much credit for making culture, either. Read more: Curiosity & The Blind Photographer [MiT5 2007] See more on blind photographers.

• Photo Flânerie

  • Bill Cunningham
  • Blind Photographers Pool
  • blindphotographers.org
  • lodro
  • métrogirl
  • Oberazzi
  • Paris Photo Pool
  • Photografr.com
  • rebekka
  • StreetArt – PariS
  • Thomas Hawk

• Not This Pig

  If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in Not This Pig (2003).

• Café Mouffe

• Imaging Paris: Dada Muse

  The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s Le violin de Ingres (1924). See more from Imaging Paris.

• Archives

  Select Month September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007

• Yellow Springs 2.0

  

  What is a village? A small place, yes, as wide as the world, layered with histories and stories, where you can walk wherever you want to go. My vision of that place is Yellow Springs 2.0.

• Linking Out

  • AFB Blog
  • Amy’s Anomalies
  • augmented illusions
  • Buzz Machine
  • Cold Holler
  • David Morley
  • Gabriela Anaya Valdepeña
  • Henry Jenkins
  • Jafabrit's Art
  • Kaitlin Foley
  • Planet of the Blind
  • Reading in the Dark
  • Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir
  • Richard Florida
  • Tim O'Brien
  • Yellow Springs Arts