I make maps to understand what it means to be blind, and a flaneur . Those ideas are elusive destinations. Think of them as streets you can wander along with me. Start with 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. Maybe it’s the linseed oil. Maybe I’ve Tom Sawyered myself into whitewash rapture while trying to entice my son into painting the house. I’m having fun — more fun than an old geezer is supposed to have. Now that I’m working off a scaffold, I feel like the Donald Trump of house painters. Give […]
Entries from August 2008
Café Mouffe: Katmandu
1
August 22, 2023 at 3:00pm
by Mark Willis
1970s · Playing by Ear · Café Mouffe Add Your Comment
In Memoriam: Jerry Wexler
0
August 16, 2023 at 9:38pm
by Mark Willis
Jerry Wexler, the garrulous record producer with the golden ear, died yesterday at age 91. Wexler had so much to do with the sound track of my misspent youth. He gave us Ray Charles, Wilson Picket , Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers — and best of all, Aretha. The man even invented the term “rhythm […]
1970s · 1960s · 1950s · pop culture · NPR · Playing by Ear Add Your Comment
Imaging Paris: Bouquinistes
0
August 15, 2023 at 3:28pm
by Mark Willis
[Photos by lodrorigdzin; all rights reserved]
Alex was in Paris last week, and he kindly asked if he could photograph anything in particular for me. He knew I’d love these images of the book stalls on the Seine. The offer was enough to set me loose in the time-space continuum. Perched on a ladder half a […]
Seine · blind photographers · Imaging Paris · VIe · Ve · Bouquiniste Add Your Comment
Orwell, Marx, and the Snake
0
August 9, 2023 at 5:24pm
by Mark Willis
George Orwell wrote in his diary on August 9, 1938:
Caught a large snake in the herbaceous border beside the drive. About 2’ 6” long, grey colour, black markings on belly but none on back except, on the neck, a mark resembling an arrow head (ñ) all down the back. Did not care to handle it […]
snakes · 1930s · Orwell Add Your Comment
MiT6: Stone & Papyrus, Storage & Transmission
3
August 8, 2023 at 12:10am
by Mark Willis
The Media in Transition 6 conference (MiT6) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is scheduled for April 24-26, 2009. The conference theme is “Stone and Papyrus, Storage and Transmission.” The deadline for submitting proposals is January 9, 2009.
Ms. Modigliani and I went to MiT5 in 2007, and we found it to be one of […]
media · conferences · accessibility · fair use · Ms. Modigliani Add Your Comment
Yves Klein’s Leap Into The Void
1
August 7, 2023 at 12:15am
by Mark Willis
Le Saut dans le Vide (”Leap into the Void”) is a photograph of an art performance by Yves Klein at Rue Gentil-Bernard, Fontenay-aux-Roses, in October 1960. [Photo by by Harry Shunk/Wikipedia]
I made the comment yesterday that “Philippe Petit isn’t a daredevil like Evel Knievel, but a performance artist like Yves Klein.” I thought immediately of […]
dada · 1960s · Imaging Paris · Art Add Your Comment
Is it IKB or Memorex? Only Yves Knows
0
August 7, 2023 at 12:10am
by Mark Willis
Actually, a digital representation can only approximate the deep, other-worldly hue of the color known as IKB or International Klein Blue. Invented by French artist Yves Klein, IKB now has its own Wikipedia page:
International Klein Blue (or IKB as it is known in art circles) was developed by French artist Yves Klein as part of […]
sense · dada · 1960s · 1950s · Imaging Paris · Art Add Your Comment
‘A Bird on a Leash Is Not a Bird’
3
August 6, 2023 at 6:00am
by Mark Willis
Philippe Petit balances on a wire stretched between the towers of the World Trade Center on August 7, 1974. [Source: NYT/Jean-Louis Blondeau/Polaris]
A caller to On Point with Tom Ashbrook asked Philippe Petit if he wore some kind of belaying line when he danced across that wire stretched between the Twin Towers. “I was […]
1970s · New York · film Add Your Comment
Last Day in the Life of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
0
August 4, 2023 at 10:27am
by Mark Willis
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (left) shivers in a Gulag mugshot taken in Siberia in 1953 [Source: Russia Blpg]. Solzhenitsyn died in Moscow yesterday at age 89 . According to his NYT obit:
Mr. Solzhenitsyn outlived by nearly 17 years the Soviet state and system he had battled through years of imprisonment, ostracism and exile.
Mr. Solzhenitsyn had […]
Parting Words: George Carlin
0
August 3, 2023 at 8:47pm
by Mark Willis
George Carlin died six weeks ago. It’s Bad For Ya, his final comedy album, was released last Tuesday. It includes a bit about mourning friends for six weeks, then removing them ceremoniously from his address book like crossing them off a scorecard. “You know what I’ve been doing? Going through my address book and […]