About the Flaneur
![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]](../../wp-content/uploads/2009/02/gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day_1877_wiki.jpg "gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day")
I walk through my blindness the way I wander down streets in Paris: unfettered and alive, alert to the raw material of the senses. I am a 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. Then stay tuned.Letting Go of Sight
![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]](../../wp-content/uploads/2008/04/isle_royale_fog.jpg "Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]")
I’ve canoed on Lake Superior for almost as many years as I’ve been losing eyesight. I return year after year like a migrating loon to learn the other side of a slow, uncertain process that we could call “going blind.” After 35 years with the lake as my teacher, I know what lies on the other side. I call it letting go of sight. Read Big Water. See more about the Great Lakes.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).Media in Transition @ MiT
Disabled Americans today have to negotiate for the kinds of accommodations made for FDR, and the caveat “reasonable accommodation” is built into the law. President Franklin Roosevelt did not have to negotiate. He could summon vast resources of the federal government – money as well as brains – to accomplish the work of disability. And it was accomplished with such thoroughness and efficiency that its scale could be called the Accessibility-Industrial Complex had it been directed toward public accommodations and not solely the needs of a single man. Read FDR and the Hidden Work of Disability [MiT8 2013]
Shepard Fairey claimed that his posterization of a copyrighted AP news photo of Barack Obama was a transformative work protected by the fair use doctrine. In other words, it was a shape-shifter. I claim fair use, too, when I reproduce and transform copyrighted works into media formats that are accessible to me as a blind reader. Read Shape-Shifters in the Fair Use Lab [MiT6 2009]
The social engineers who created a system for licensing beggars in New York never imagined that a blind woman had culture or could make culture. She herself may not have imagined it, either. In the moment when Paul Strand photographed her surreptitiously on the street in 1916, he could not have expected that one day blind photographers would reverse the camera’s gaze. Read Curiosity & The Blind Photographer. [MiT5 2007]
Category Archives: global citizen
Navigating the Thin Line of Liberty at the Border
If you don’t have anything to hide, what’s the harm of government monitoring of your private affairs? That’s a common refrain from people who dismiss civil liberty concerns about privacy. When the question is framed as a choice between privacy and security, Americans say they want security more. But what if the choice is security vs. personal dignity? Continue reading
No Rest for the Righteous: Even Osama Had Porn
I used to joke that the way to defeat the Mullahs was subverting them with American trash culture. Give them a taste of Brittany Spears, MTV, and spandex and you know who would win the Clash of Civilizations! The revelation last week that a secret stash of pornography was found in Osama bin Laden’s compound seems to substantiate the joke, although its spot-on irony makes you wonder if the CIA has hired some hip new script writers.
In the Wake of Japan’s Earthquake & Tsunami
A ship is washed aground in Kamaishi City, Iwate, by the tsunami which followed the Japanese earthquake Source: Reuters/AJE] AJE Live blog: Japan earthquake | #earthquake
When Dad’s a Dictator, Ask for a Private Party with Beyonce in St. Barts. You Deserve It.
According to NPR: “The stage is tiny. That’s the first thing you notice. In the video, you can see the singer dancing in a black leotard, strutting back and forth while she performs chart-topping songs. The audio is loud and distorted, taped through a camera phone or hand-held video recorder. This could be a particularly tight wedding band, or a shockingly good performance at a karaoke bar, but it’s not. The singer is actually Beyonce. The venue is an exclusive supper club in St. Barts, and the crowd is tiny, and just feet away from the singer. The man footing the bill for the whole affair? Hannibal Gadhafi, the son of the Libyan president.”
Zenga Zenga: Remixing the Dictator’s Speech
via noyalooshemusic: “Libyan(Ex?) leader Muammar Kadafi with his Auto Tuned version to “Hey Baby” by Pitbull & T pain. Remix by Noy Alooshe.”
