curating an archaeology of attention
A Blind Flaneur: I walk through my blindness the way I saunter down streets in Paris: unfettered and alive, ever delighted by the raw material of the senses. 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. Or browse the archives.
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in Not This Pig (2003).![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]](../wp-content/uploads/2008/04/isle_royale_fog.jpg "Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]")
"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.
Curiosity & The Blind Photographer, M.I.T. 2007.
![Charlotte Casiraghi in a red dress. [Source: Stylophile]](../wp-content/uploads/2008/02/charlotte_casiraghi_red_dress.jpg "Charlotte Casiraghi in a red dress. [Source: Stylophile]")
When I figured out who Charlotte Casiraghi was, I realized that I once sent a poem to her mother. Read more. What was it Delacroix said? “To be a poet and twenty is to be twenty. To be a poet and forty is to be a poet.” Delacroix didn’t take the trope beyond fifty, so he’s no guide in guessing my next state of being. For now, a red dress takes me back to the poetry of my misspent youth.
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s Le violin de Ingres (1924). See more from Imaging Paris.
France 24 Headlines![Eugène Delacroix. Liberty Leading the People. 1830. Louvre, Paris. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]]](../wp-content/uploads/2008/05/delacroix_liberty_1830_2.jpg "Eugène Delacroix. Liberty Leading the People. 1830. Louvre, Paris. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]]")
Fair Use Lab
Bottomfeeder
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October 31, 2023 at 7:51pm
by Mark Willis Ms. Modigliani sent me this mashup, the latest animation platform from JibJab. I’ve done my share of talking head gigs, but I’ve never been typecast before as Frankenstein. Ms. M is the Mad Scientist. Happy Halloween!
Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!
Imaging America Add Your Comment
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October 30, 2023 at 7:19pm
by Mark Willis If you’re striving for that nerdy, campy “adult” costume for Halloween, look no further than Isabella Rossellini’s simple garb in Green Porno, her series of anatomically correct nature films on the Sundance Channel. You could be a sexy spider or praying mantis. Rossellini discussed the project last month on WBUR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook.
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October 26, 2023 at 12:20pm
by Mark Willis I wrote about the complex relationship between my genetic disease and its possible “cure” in Not This Pig. At my age and stage of blindness, I don’t know whether I’d choose the experimental gene therapy published Oct. 24 in The Lancet (reported below by Jocelyn Kaiser in ScienceNOW), but I can understand its prospect for young children with retina diseases.
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October 20, 2023 at 9:19am
by Mark Willis Calvin Reid reports in Publishers Weekly from the Frankfurt Book Fair that Ray Kurzweil is bringing free software with Universal Text-To-Speech (UTS) technology to the ebook market:
Baker & Taylor announced a partnership with acclaimed scientist, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, CEO of Kurzweil Technologies, to supply digital content for K-NFB Reading Technology, a newly developed [...]