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]](http://blindflaneur.com/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.Kiki: Man Ray’s Dada Muse
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s Le violin de Ingres (1924). See more from Imaging Paris.Lee Miller: Surrealist Muse
Lee Miller traced a meteoric trajectory from flapper fashionista to surrealist muse. She played the Statue in Jean Cocteau's first movie. Picasso painted her portrait. She apprenticed with Man Ray and later became a noted war photographer for British Vogue. Read more.Miss Tic: Paris Street Art
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. Read more. See Ethics of Love for a video montage of Miss Tic's provacative poetry. More Paris Street Art.
The Lake and the River
![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]")
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.
What is a village? A small place, yes, as wide as the world, layered with histories and stories, where you can walk wherever you want to go. My vision of that place is Yellow Springs 2.0.
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).Re-Imagining Accessibility
![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")
Re-imagining accessibility through the transformations of culture -- particularly the transformative promise of accessible technology for people with disabilities -- is the work of the Fair Use Lab. What does Shepard Fairey’s Hope poster have to do with accessibility? Read more: Shape-Shifters in the Fair Use Lab [MiT6 2009]Blind Photographers
In the moment when Paul Strand photographed her surreptitiously on the street in New York, the social engineers who created a system for licensing beggars never imagined that a blind woman had culture or could make culture. She herself may not have imagined it. Paul Strand probably didn’t give her much credit for making culture, either. Read more: Curiosity & The Blind Photographer [MiT5 2007] See more on blind photographers.BottomFeeder U.S.A.
![Grant Wood. Parson Weem’s’ Fable. 1939. Amon Carter Museum, Forth Worth.. Steven Biel describes the painting: “Parson Weems, imitating Charles Willson Peale’s pose in The Artist in His Museum (1822), opens a red velvet curtain on the legendary scene: Augustine Washington, elegant in crimson coat, white ruffle, tan breeches, silver-buckled pumps, and green tricornered hat, grasps in his right hand the slim trunk of the bent cherry tree. A row of cherries dangles from the perfectly rounded treetop, mirroring the very cherry-like fringe of the Parson’s curtain. Augustine’s outstretched left palm and furrowed brow signal a serious inquiry. His son George, boyish in stature and dress—coatless, with sky-blue breeches and petite buckled pumps—is manly in his expression. In fact, his white-wigged head is that of Gilbert Stuart’s portrait and the dollar bill. He points with his right hand to the hatchet in his left. Wood chips lie in the circle of soil at the base of the tree, its lower trunk smoothly incised and poised to split off. In the background, a well-dressed slave couple harvests the fruit of a second tree.” [Alt Text Source: Common-Place/ http://www.common-place.org/vol-06/no-04/biel/ ]](http://www.bottomfeederusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/grant_wood_parson_weems_fable_200px.jpg "grant_wood_parson_weems_fable_200px")
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Tag Archives: accessibility
Roger Ebert’s Computer Voice Will Break Down Barriers
I was very pleased too hear Roger Ebert speak via voice synthesizer yesterday on NPR. I listen to the same kind of machine voice day in, day out. That’s how I read, how I write and edit the words you’re reading now. It isn’t weird or the stuff of science fiction, like 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s no big deal. Like disability itself, it’s an everyday fact of life. Ebert’s comfort level with his surrogate voice will help a lot of people to get used to that kind of accommodation, too. Continue reading
Deconstructing André Breton To Feed The Scanner
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? Continue reading
The Most Over-Hyped Tablet Since Moses Came Down From The Mountain
As one who has lost the ability to read printed books, I’m always searching for that richer context when the text itself is inaccessible to me. I thrive in the proliferation of book excerpts and videos, reviews and interviews available now on the Internet. I have more ways to learn about books than ever before. In the end, though, what I want is the book itself in an accessible format. Given Apple’s penchant for imperialistic control of devices and DRMs, I doubt that the latest tablet handed down from the mountain will reach me as a reader. Continue reading
“Free” Sets New Gold Standard for Accessible Books
Bless you, Chris Anderson! In 35 years of reading by listening to talking books, this version of Free is the fastest access I’ve ever had to a newly published book. You have set the gold standard for audio book accessibility. … Continue reading
Remix This Book: An Accessible Literary Anthology
Bravo to remix my lit and Sydney University Press for publishing this literary anthology in a free ebook in an accessible PDF format (1.45 MB) under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia licence that encourages remixing!. Learn more about … Continue reading
It’s Helen Keller Day in Second Life
Virtual guide dog Max makes new friends in Second Life. [Image source: Robin Roar/Flickr] Learn more about Helen Keller Day on the Second Life Wiki, and see the Flickr pool.
Working in the Fair Use Lab
It may be a while before you find the flaneur out on the street – unless it’s in Cambridge next weekend during the Media in Transition 6 conference at M.I.T. Until then, look for me in the Fair Use Lab, … Continue reading
Laura, Knock Down That Accessibility Barrier!
O.K., I’m sorry. Let me try again. “Laura, knock down that accessibility barrier, please.” Nick Negroponte said someone like you would come along someday to help me get stuff done. I’ve been waiting for your cool efficiency and ass-kick assertiveness … Continue reading
Preserving the Future’s Creative Raw Material in the Public Domain
James Boyle believes in the public domain enough to give away his new book there. You can acquire The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind in the conventional way, buying it from a book store. And you can … Continue reading
Dignity and Justice for All of Us
Today the United Nations celebrates the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, as well as the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Dignity and justice for all persons are established universal principles. Since its inception, the United … Continue reading
