Righty Tighty

Don't ask what forces led me to the pages of nursinghomeapparel.com (occasionally I run aground in my search for sculpture materials). But, I do have a thing for hospital swag. Hell, considering the price of in- patient care, an ambulance should come to your house and heap first aid supplies at your door all tied up with a pretty red bow!
Fleetingly obsessed with the absurd possibilities posed by buying 100 sets of disposable slippers, I noticed this photo of a pair of paper slippers reminiscent of pointed toed wooden clogs. But, do you have to have two right feet to be able to wear them?

Visual description: Two brown paper slippers against a white backdrop, both made to be worn on the right foot.

Summer Reading- Top Ten Disability Lit Titles

1. Sulah by Toni Morrison
Though not the title character, the one- legged matriarch of this novel reveals the enigma behind motherly love.

2. Cuckoo by Madison Clell
A powerful graphic novel exploring one woman's experience of dissociative personality disorder

3. Lessons in Taxidermy, a surgical memoir by Bee Lavendar

4. Lilly Daw and the Ladies by Eudora Welty
I love this story for its black humor and impeccable character studies of pathologically righteous church ladies, hell- bent on preserving the "innocence" of a developmentally disabled woman. Fortunately, Lilly has made her own plans, and the ladies are the ones who are forced to adapt.

5. A Worn Path by Eudora Welty
I read this one in high school- it's been a while so I can't really say much about it except that the grandma in the story is a blind African American woman.

6. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Griley
My favorite chapter from this memoir of childhood cancer unfolds in the under- staffed wing of a children's ward and ends in an animal testing lab.

7. A Christmas Memory Truman Capote was famous for publicly undermining colleagues on the New York literati circuit, deftly eviscerating his foes with an acerbic wit. It's hard to believe that the same mind produced this astonishingly sweet memoir, the unlikely love story of a lonely boy and his favorite aunt.

8. Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor

Note to Ph.D's- avoid hay lofts, door to door Bible salesmen. Why is it that southern writers have such an uncanny knack for disability lit?

9. The Incomplete Quad by David Sedaris

In this short story, David Sedaris revisits his experiences working as a PA to help pay for college. His employer is a disenchanted quadriplegic coed. The two combat ennui by hitchhiking, shoplifting, getting wasted and unapologetically exploiting ablists at every turn - a wickedly irreverent tale of friendship.

10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
wife + attic + seductive governess = glorious English melodrama!

I'm Blogging at [With-tv]

Check it out- a cable channel tuned in to the disabled community! Read their mission statement here and add your support by signing the guestbook. Here's what I wrote:

As a person with a disability, I have aways been accutely aware of the
exclusion of people with disabilities from mainstream media outlets- their
stories, their images, their say in the production of culture. This opportunity
is long over due and eagerly anticipated!

Many leaders in the disability rights community have already pledged their support. The project is in its early stages, so audience support, participation and influence is crucial to future successes. Influence the scope and flavor of programming!

Let's add our images, our voices, our politics, our creativity and ideas to the cultural lexicon and amplify our presence! If you care about the arts and wish to shape the course of disability entertainment/ culture do so today by showing your support and spreading the word!

Unsicht Unseen

Today I received an email from a friend whose working in Germany. He wanted to know if I'd like to dine at Unsicht- Bar in Berlin during my vacation, scheduled for late fall. For some reason, I'd thought this restaurant was located in the UK- perhaps their is one like it there. I believe there's one located on the west coast too- owned and operated by a blind chef if my memory serves.

By "like it" I mean a restaurant with a truly unique twist. Patrons dine in total darkness, experiencing elegant three- and- four course meals served by blind/ visually impaired waiters.

Unsicht- Bar (meaning invisible or unseeable) has locations in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne and should not be confused with Blindekuh (the Blind Cow), a restaurant with locations in Zurich and Basel. According to Wikipedia, Blindekuh was established by the Swiss- German Blind- Leicht Foundation to create employment opportunities for blind people in the food service industry. The name comes from the German equivalent of Blind Man's Bluff. I've yet to translate the German language press releases about Unsicht- Bar to determine if it too is a Blind- Leicht project. Obviously this is a story which begs more research and a first- hand account (I love it when research involves food)!

The Unsicht- Bar website explains that table settings are arranged to coordinate to the numbers on a clock face. Fair enough, I can see how this might help the uninitiated sighted person to navigate their first meal in the dark. The site also notes that the food is prepared in bite- sized portions so that visitors don't have to worry about cutting their food!

As someone with a vision impairment, I find this consideration amusing as well as a wee bit troubling. It reminded me of a meal at a friend's house when I was nine. My friend's mom made us lunch. Setting the plate in front of me, she picked a knife and began cutting the food for me! We tried to laugh it off- my friend had certainly eaten with me enough to know I could cut my own food. But her mom made an assumption based on damaging misconceptions of what blind/ visually impaired people are thought to be able to do.

I remember her mom getting really embarrassed and hurriedly saying something like, "Oh I'm so used to cutting other people's food, I don't know when to stop!" My friend offered that she still tried to cut up her food too sometimes, but it was a weak cover up.

I'm quite sure I could cut a steak or debone a fish without looking. But then, I've relied on my sense of touch much longer than Unsicht- Bar's sited patrons. For me, touch has always been an integral component and allie to seeing. For years I thought that everyone linked sight to touch like I did, that if you love art and aesthetics then you're a sensualist to boot. I now know that isn't necessarily the case. Perhaps Unsicht's boneless/ knifeless policy is nothing more than a bit of hand- holding intended for ambivalent guests, the clock face analogy extended to touch- phobic foodies who want to know exactly what they're putting in their mouths.

It just so happens that Eastern Europe is flecked with diamonds- in- the- rough tourist attractions of particular interest to PWDs and "With-" minded folk. Other sites on my Hit List: the Kasper Hauser Museum in Ansbach, Germany for a peak into a decidedly intriguing passage in the history of early specialized education. Too bad I won't be there in time for the festival held in Hauser's honor each September.

I'm beginning to think that Ansbach just may be my spiritual home, as their other major attraction is none other than the extravagant Rococo Festival held in July. I'll take any excuse to dress up in skirts and big hair! I am a southern girl at heart.

[Visual description: A double portrait of Kasper Hauser in bronze or possibly iron, stands in a cobble stone square. The figure in the foreground has a disheveled appearance and stands with head cast downward. He holds a battered satchel in one hand and a letter in the other. The companion figure in the background is poised and finely dressed. His hat lies on the ground at his feet, as if knocked off or lost in some unseen disturbance.]

Cross- posted at [With-tv]

The Post Review Is Slavishly PoMo

Lately, I've been caught up in a flurry of activity hailing from the fabulous ranks of disabled bloggers who are hell- bent on transforming people's attitudes about what it means to be a PWD. These are revolutionary times, but those of us furiously typing away at our computers have surely earned at least a virtual vacation? Perhaps a trip to the Carnival where Andrea Is Buzzing About- what else? Being on holiday!

If you haven't heard of the highly- addicting blog carnival phenomenon, there's no need to feel left out. The Web is teeming with fascinating disability- positive posts. It seems I wasn't the only BlogHer partipant with mixed feelings about poorly- considered conference accessibility and swag overload. Are you the woman I saw getting on the elevator with the red and blue flashing wheelchair spokes? Girl- those are bitchin!

Penny linked to a number of resoruces recounting the delightfully eccentric history of prosthetics. Also be sure to check out her latest posts.

Kaye claims to be taking a vacation from blogging this month, but I can't resist imagining her sipping mint juleps at CNN headquarters in Atlanta, following her excellent commentary on the institutionalization of children with developmental disabilities during the 40s, 50s and 60s.

Calls for Artists

The Austin, Texas Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind is partnering with the Umlauf Sculpture Garden to promote blindness awareness in the community. This fall they will be presenting a temporary exhibition of the work of blind sculptors and are currently accepting submissions.

The hope is to have pieces to put up by September 23, or at the latest, October 7, 2007.

If you would be interested in having your work shown, or if you know a blind sculptor that might be interested, please contact me at thisislivingzine@gmail.com for more details.

Blog Hlumblug

I attended the BlogHer Conference at Navy Pier last Saturday where I was subjected to unbridled tourism (It's a mall! And an amusement park! On a pier!)

I'm tempted to call Navy Pier Chicago's French Quarter, but that would be an insult to the French Quarter. Forgot how long the Pier is, and of course the conference rooms are in the very back, so this blogger was truly living up to her avatar by the time I picked up my mail bag full of green- tea scented promotional items and crept in towards the back of the Business of You session. The food was great, and the atmosphere decidedly uncritical. One of the panelists was hesitant to call herself a writer, prefering blogger, as it denotes what? Someone who is willing to be exploited and underpaid because they're "uncomfortable" with the term writer! Or maybe the term blogger now refers to one who schills products on the Internet under the guise of sisterly chitchat.

Perhaps the scariest moment occured when a woman in the audience identified herself as an HR Director at a biotechnical firm. I KID YOU NOT, she wanted to know how she could contract bloggers to do ad copy work on the cheap without having to pay them benefits!!!!! That was her question, in a room full of bloggers who sat there in silence, perhaps stunned, perhaps drugged on Curves New! trail mix waifers.

Has bloging devolved in to nothing better than a Tupperware Party? Many of the BlogHer attendees identified themselves as full-time moms. For these women, and others, blogging affords an extra source of income with all the benefits of a built- in community.

Perhaps I should just mist my pillow with corporate- sponsored green tea opiates and dream of android sheep.

P.S. Elizabeth Edwards was there campaigning. She made this lady cry.

And lest I sound too gloomy, something that gave me hope.