My friend Peter Altschul will be retiring his guide dog Jules in just a few days; he will return to our mutual alma mater, Guiding Eyes for the Blindto train with his fifth guide dog on Aug. 1. Read his fine tribute to Jules and learn about his recent book! And follow him while he’s at GEB as he posts about his training with a new, as yet, unknown guide dog.
The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film
July 26, 2012 by · 1 Comment
Kudos to all involved in making this happen. It is so long overdue:
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will dedicate the month of October to exploring the ways people with disabilities have been portrayed in film. On behalf of Inclusion in the Arts, Lawrence Carter-Long will join TCM host Robert Osborne for The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film. The special month-long exploration will air Tuesdays in October, beginning Oct. 2 at 8 p.m. (ET).
TCM makes today’s announcement to coincide with the 22nd anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) on July 26. And in a first for TCM, all films will be presented with both closed captioning and audio description (via secondary audio) for audience members with auditory and visual disabilities.
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Professor Stephen Kuusisto is the author of “Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening” and the acclaimed memoir “Planet of the Blind”, a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”. His second collection of poems from Copper Canyon Press, “Letters to Borges“, is scheduled for release in October 2012. As director of the Renee Crown University Honors Program and a University Professor at Syracuse University, Steve speaks widely on diversity, disability, education, and public policy. www.stephenkuusisto.com, www.planet-of-the-blind.com
Insights from the Planet of the Blind: An Interview. Part 1.
July 13, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
After reading Planet of the Blind, Kathleen Avery, Senior Director of Marketing at Cleinman Performance Partners, had occasion to talk with the author (Stephen Kuusisto) about his story and all that he’s come to understand. Thank you, Kathleen, for allowing us to share this with our readers.
Kathleen: Your book is so rich with visual metaphor, just the most vivid descriptions. I’m curious how you are able to reference such diverse imagery. Comparing a man in a rain coat to the sails of Tristan’s ship or an elephant’s ear, for instance…
Stephen: Well, the first answer to that question is about language. All nouns are images. If you say strawberry…or horse…or wheat field…or lighthouse in Maine – you automatically see these things in your mind. This is why ancient people believed that poets were magical. They could make you see things.. They once had a radio advertisement on NPR: “Listen to the Theater of your Mind.” That’s how poetry works. It throws off powerful nouns and the reader sees them; they’re called power nouns.
Kathleen: But how do you know what a lighthouse in Maine looks like?
Stephen: I either do or do not (laughs). And that’s the second answer. There is a way in which imagination approximates things. You can actually create things with language that don’t exist. The poet Charles Simic says, “Go inside a stone, that would be my way…” He takes you inside the stone and it is the universe all over again. The truth is you can’t see that at all, but you can trick the mind into seeing what can’t be seen. This is also why ancient people thought poets were magical.
And, of course, people describe things to me.
You know, people think that blindness is like living in a vacuum. The general public tends to think that blind people are trapped inside the stone. They will ask me how I could possibly go to an art museum. Well, you pick your friends. You go with friends who will describe what they see. Is it an immediate experience? No. But I like it, because there is poetry in it. It is mediated.
Kathleen: Oh, how interesting would it be to listen to different people describe the same Picasso?
Stephen: That would be a fabulous NPR piece!
You can read Kathleen Avery’s interview in its’ entirety by visiting www.cleinman.com/insights-from-the-planet-of-the-blind
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Professor Stephen Kuusisto is the author of “Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening” and the acclaimed memoir “Planet of the Blind”, a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”. His second collection of poems from Copper Canyon Press, “Letters to Borges“, is scheduled for release in October 2012. As director of the Renee Crown University Honors Program and a University Professor at Syracuse University, Steve speaks widely on diversity, disability, education, and public policy. www.stephenkuusisto.com, www.planet-of-the-blind.com
What a Dog Can Do: An excerpt
July 12, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
No one knows when the forerunner of today’s guide dogs first appeared. Drawings of blind people accompanied by dogs date back to the 17th century. Those early pairings were most likely memorization teams, one pictures the dog leading its partner through the village square. It’s clear no substantial training was involved. But we can imagine the tremendous bond with dogs that developed between the uncharted and lonely blind people of prior ages. It is a safe bet that dogs solved the puzzle of solitude for blind travelers who lived in a time when sightlessness was a great calamity. (The idea that blind men and women could be taught to read was a late development in cultural history, as Diderot’s essay Lettre sur les aveugles published in 1749 offered the first speculation that raised letters might be possible.) The world of the blind has been a dismal place throughout much of history. It’s possible to say, along with the poet Pablo Neruda that pure faith cannot withstand the assaults of winter, but your survival is more likely with a dog. Sometimes when I think about the ancient blind with their lives of begging and fiddle playing, their relentless wandering, homelessness, sickness, I weep to imagine the righteous loyalty of those early dogs.
From: What a Dog Can Do: A Memoir of Life with Guide Dogs, by Stephen Kuusisto, forthcoming from Simon and Schuster
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Professor Stephen Kuusisto is the author of “Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening” and the acclaimed memoir “Planet of the Blind”, a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”. His second collection of poems from Copper Canyon Press, “Letters to Borges“, is scheduled for release in October 2012. As director of the Renee Crown University Honors Program and a University Professor at Syracuse University, Steve speaks widely on diversity, disability, education, and public policy. www.stephenkuusisto.com, www.planet-of-the-blind.com
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