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]
Tag Archives: accessibility
“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
