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About the Flaneur
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
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: Barack Obama
I’ll Have a Burning River, Please
President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the police officer who arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley, at the White House on Thursday. [Photo by Stephen Crowley/NYT] Teachable moment: Had I been … Continue reading →
First Fans Honor Stevie Wonder at White House
CNN - President & First Lady Honor Stevie Wonder at White House 02/25/09: Anderson Cooper reports on the President & First Lady Honoring Stevie Wonder at White House
Flaneur’s Gallery: Shepard Fairey
Street artist Shepard Fairey‘s “Barack Obama/Hope” poster became an iconic image during the 2008 election. This week it was added to the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. He talked about it on Inauguration Day on … Continue reading →
Aretha, Baby, Where Did You Get That Hat?
Aretha Franklin was so cool at the Inauguration that everyone immediately forgot about the Rev. Rick Warner. How could a cheesy TV evangelist hold a anyone’s attention after the Queen of Soul walked on stage in that hat? Then she … Continue reading →
Toronto Celebrates Barack Obama’s Inauguration
This was the scene at the Bloor Cinema /The Annex in downtown Toronto when Democrats Abroad celebrated Barack Obama’s Inauguration. Ms. Modigliani tells me there also was an outdoor Jumbotron set up at Dundass Square. Here’s what it looked like … Continue reading →