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: attention
Christmas Blessings Beyond the Airport
I am grateful today to the angel at the Detroit International Airport who pulled strings to get me on the last flight to Toronto — otherwise, I’d be humming disconsolately with Nick Lowe. Made it despite the ice storm. Merry Christmas, y’all! Continue reading
A Flaneur in the Cloud - December 23, 2023
BBC Weather - Shipping Forecast The Shipping Forecast: From Britain’s Seas Into Its Soul : NPR 121613 Phillip Reeves: “It is a bizarre nightly ritual that is deeply embedded in the British way of life. | You switch off the … Continue reading
A Flaneur in the Cloud - December 16, 2023
Royal Gardener Planted The Seed Of Urban Planning At Versailles : NPR 120913 France’s Chateau of Versailles has pulled out all the stops for one of its favorite sons, gardener Andre Le Notre, who designed the palace’s famous gardens. This … Continue reading
A Flaneur in the Cloud - December 9, 2023
Scientists quit their day jobs, head over to YouTube | Marketplace.org 120313 In the last year, YouTube has become the place to watch really smart people with advanced degrees hold forth on science. The top science channels got hundreds of … Continue reading
A Flaneur in the Cloud - December 2, 2023
Ray Wylie Hubbard: The Grifter’s Hymnal - No Depression Americana and Roots Music Mando Lines: “After a couple of days listening to Hymnal, my favorite track is Mother Blues, an autobiographical tune about a young Hubbard selling his dad’s car … Continue reading
