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, ![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. 
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in 
![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. 
Poet and street artist Miss Tic isn't exactly a kid in a hoodie with a can of spray paint. Maybe she can still run like hell when the police show up, but can she sprint in high heels? Well-known in international avant-garde circles, her work is exhibited now at the Venice Biennale as well as the alleys of Paris. ![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: Re-Imagining Accessibility in Free Culture
Fair Use Lab
Bottomfeeder: Foraging For Truth in the Net’s Murkier Depths
Aretha Franklin was so cool at the Inauguration that everyone immediately forgot about the Rev. Rick Warner. How could a cheesy TV evangelist hold a anyone’s attention after the Queen of Soul walked on stage in that hat? Then she sang “My Country, Tis Of Thee” and blasted it into the stratosphere. She may not [...]
Entries Tagged as 'political theater'
Aretha, Baby, Where Did You Get That Hat?
1
January 24, 2023 at 5:58pm
by Mark Willis
#inaug09 · fashionista · political theater Add Your Comment
Toronto Celebrates Barack Obama’s Inauguration
0
January 22, 2023 at 7:43pm
by Mark Willis
This was the scene at the Bloor Cinema /The Annex in downtown Toronto when Democrats Abroad celebrated Barack Obama’s Inauguration. Ms. Modigliani tells me there also was an outdoor Jumbotron set up at Dundass Square. Here’s what it looked like there on Election night at Dundass Square:
See other #inaug09 content on this blog. See #inaug09 [...]
#inaug09 · Toronto · political theater Add Your Comment
Pete Seeger: This Land Is Your Land
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January 19, 2023 at 1:40pm
by Mark Willis
Enough with the rockets’ red glare. Woody’s song should be the National Anthem. Hearing Pete Seeger sing it with Bruce Springsteen and hundreds of thousands of jubilant Americans gathered at the Lincoln Memorial made me weep with joy.
With the bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln presiding as a backdrop, Pete prompted the crowd to sing the [...]
#inaug09 · Playing by Ear · political theater Add Your Comment
Garth Brooks Sings at the Lincoln Memorial
0
January 19, 2023 at 12:02pm
by Mark Willis
Give me a cowboy hat and a gospel choir! Can I get a witness? Garth Brooks: American Pie & Shout. Thanks to Dookas27018 for a Shout! perspective from the crowd.
See other #inaug09 content on this blog. See #inaug09 on Twitter.
#inaug09 · Playing by Ear · political theater Add Your Comment
Shakira and Stevie Wonder at the Lincoln Memorial
0
January 19, 2023 at 9:40am
by Mark Willis
Stevie Wonder, Shakira & Usher sing Higher Ground at the Lincoln Memorial. Check out phatpat1523’s perspective shot from the crowd.
Shakira and Stevie Wonder. [Photo: Todd Heisler/NYT]
From The Scene at the Lincoln Memorial - The Caucus Blog - NYT 011809:
Higher Ground | 4:01 p.m. Stationed behind a keyboard high up the Lincoln Memorial steps, Stevie [...]
#inaug09 · Playing by Ear · political theater Add Your Comment
Barack Obama at the Lincoln Memorial
0
January 18, 2023 at 7:02pm
by Mark Willis
President-elect Barack Obama at the Lincoln Memorial. [Photo: Doug Mills/NYT]
The Scene at the Lincoln Memorial - The Caucus Blog - NYT 011809:
Obama Speaks | 4:20 p.m. President-elect Obama thanks the performers and the crowd and says, “Yours are the voices I will take with me every day I walk into that Oval Office.” As Mr. [...]
#inaug09 · political theater Add Your Comment
When Warren G. Harding Met Brigitte Bardot & Her Bikini
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January 18, 2023 at 6:00pm
by Mark Willis
The “We Are One” concert at the Lincoln Memorial reminded me of When Warren G. Harding Met Brigitte Bardot & Her Bikini, a short story I wrote about personal spectacles at public monuments. I’m not prepared to say where memoir ends and fiction begins, but my vocation as poet and public speaker began something [...]
#inaug09 · memoir · political theater Add Your Comment
Prose So Bad “A Sort of Grandeur Creeps Into It”
2
January 17, 2023 at 11:39am
by Mark Willis
Like the Missouri River in flood, the vast outpouring of media coverage leading up to the inauguration of Barack Obama on Tuesday has room for almost everything, including the inaugural address of Warren G. Harding, widely regarded as the worst example of this singularly American speech genre. Harding’s oratorical style inspired one of H.L. Mencken’s [...]
#inaug09 · political theater Add Your Comment
Didn’t Freud Say A Shoe Is Just A Shoe?
0
December 15, 2023 at 8:26pm
by Mark Willis
Shoes the Full Version.
Thanks to Kara Swisher at Boom Town for putting the President’s Iraq misadventure into context.
fashionista · political theater Add Your Comment
George Bush & the Attack of the Killer Shoes
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December 14, 2023 at 6:36pm
by Mark Willis
YouTube - President Bush Attacked By Shoes