![Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie). 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]](http://blindflaneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day_1877_wiki.jpg "gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day")
![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]](http://blindflaneur.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. ![President George H.W. Bush signs into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990 as Justin Dart looks on. [Source: ucp.org]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ada_signing_072690_ucp_2.jpg "ada_signing_072690_ucp_2")
![Shepard Fairey’s “Barack Obama/Hope” image went viral during the 2008 election. Then controversy about the image’s source transformed it into the poster child for fair use in the public debate over copyright and free culture. Now FULAB takes “Hope” as its icon [Image source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/shepard_fairey_hope_2008.jpg "shepard_fairey_hope_2008")
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in 
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s 
1
March 20, 2010 at 11:19am
by Mark Willis Memoirs of a Scanner (Martinibomb Version) from Damon Stea on Vimeo.
My library table is covered with blade tools, blebs of glue, and shards of a book. I have a guillotine paper trimmer, a drywall knife with retractable razor blade, and a thick-shanked butcher knife. I use each in succession, trying to find an efficient workflow for cutting the book apart. And I’m remembering wistfully a five-ton paper shear that I once had the opportunity to buy from a book bindery. I had ready cash then and wherewithal to move the machine, amazingly, but no good place to keep it. It’d come in handy right about now.
The book is Revolution of the Mind, Mark Polizzotti’s monumental biography of Surrealist poet André Breton. I’ve been reading an audio recording of it for several weeks. I want to scan the printed book into a digital text so I can quote it and make notes. Scanning a hardcover copy of a 754-page book, binding intact, presents a host of physical and ergonomic challenges. So I bought a second copy of the book to cut apart. It isn’t as easy as I thought. The hardest step is overcoming a lifetime of literacy acculturation that groomed me to respect books, not destroy them.
Finding an efficient workflow for accessibility – this is the story of my life as a reader and writer. I was reminded of this today when VirtualDavis posted the video, Memories of a Scanner, pointing to its possibilities as a new genre of digital story-telling. I immediately thought of the title of Vladimir Nabokov’s memoir, Speak, Memory. Blind readers use scanners every day to process the flotsam and jetsam of visual culture. How could we adapt this genre of scanner narratives to document our experiences and workflows – and, of course, make them fully accessible through the process?
1 Comments
#1. virtualDavis 03.22.2010
Another typically thoughtful and thought-provoking post. Thank you. Long a fan of Nabokov, I’ve not read his memoir, Speak, Memory. I’ve ordered it and look forward to the adventure. Cheers!
Leave a Comment