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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: French culture
Oscar Nominees: “Timbuktu”
Every day brings more talk about movies I want to see. Add “Timbuktu” to the list. The French-Mauritanian film dramatizes the brutalities and absurdities of fanatical jihadists who seize control in the West African nation of Mali. It premiered at Cannes last May, and now it’s nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film. Continue reading
If “Carla+Sarko=Over’ Blame It on Twitter
After a week-long media feeding frenzy reiterating rumors that CARLA Bruni and Nicholas Sarkozy are splitting up, Times Online parses every jot of evidence pointing blame at Twitter – and a deeply held French cultural tradition respecting the peccadilloes of power.
Something To Savor With A Sip Of Calvados
“Farming offers many fashionable careers,” says a breathy French actress who sounds like Catherine Deneuve selling the proverbial bath oil. She’s the voice of a new government advertising campaign meant to entice more French youth to toil, fashionably, on the … Continue reading
In Paris, Even Day Care Has Edible Drama
In my very distant and provincial past, nutrition at the nursery school amounted to Graham crackers and red jello. On feast days it was peanut butter and jelly. Not so in Paris, where preschoolers learn to savor their repast with … Continue reading
“Financial Virtues of the Frugal French”
Marketplace: Financial virtues of the frugal French 101708: John Laurenson: Tonight, what with the financial crisis, it’s pig’s foot for dinner, not the seafood platter. But in France, people are used to living on a budget. Partly because it’s much … Continue reading