[stylist] stylist Digest, Vol 118, Issue 27

[Renee Pavlus]

Hello Jim:
Thank you so very much for the suggestions. I used to use Outlook, I
am not sure if I can have it hooked up to my computer anymore.
How do I do Word? I can attach a separate letter or document, but when
writing can I attach a email response directly to the main body of the
email without attaching a separate specific attachment?
I have been sending emails asking if agencies and clinics as well as
private practices have openings for me to assume a internship of one
thousand hours before graduateing with my Masters. One woman actually
wrote back and recommended that I check my spelling, that this may
make a difference in gaining a supervisor. Of course she was correct.
The over-all appearance is surely poor and reflects upon me as a
womanwho happens to be blind. In grad school I have a tooter help APA
and spell check my large papers, but, for weekly assignments I spell
check with Word, and go over my threads, as they are called, several
times. .
Thanks so much.
Renee

On 2/18/14, stylist-request at nfbnet.org <stylist-request at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Send stylist mailing list submissions to
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>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: stylist Digest, Vol 118, Issue 25 (Homme, James)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 20:50:17 +0000
> From: "Homme, James" <james.homme at highmark.com>
> To: Writer's Division Mailing List <stylist at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [stylist] stylist Digest, Vol 118, Issue 25
> Message-ID:
> 	<BF85B26B8ED7B647ACAD9C68E89DA55461B4D8EE at HMBREXMP03.highmark.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
>
> Hi Renee,
> Regarding the spell checking of e-mails, if you are fortunate enough to use
> Outlook, you can make it spell check and grammar check your e-mails
> automatically when you send them. If you have Word, you can write in Word,
> spell check, and paste to whatever e-mail client you use. If you need
> another solution, I'll try to help you find one.
>
> Jim
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Renee Pavlus
> Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 2:58 PM
> To: stylist at nfbnet.org
> Subject: Re: [stylist] stylist Digest, Vol 118, Issue 25
>
> I am on your list-serve, but haven't opened up all the emails, sent to
> me. My field is in the clinical areas, and must say that literature
> and what it brings forth, in the past has damned the blind in so many
> ways. I wrote a thesis years ago while in graduate school, in the
> 1990s and spoke about images of the blind in the media and literature,
> and the psychological ramifications. We are making strides, but these
> confusing and inaccurate images in literature and on the screen still
> make our jobs, as clinicians, difficult. I am presently completing a
> second Masters Degree, and plan to license as a CMHC working with the
> disabled community as a therapist. It troubles me, that, no matter how
> hard we work for equality and fairness there is often a cloud of
> misunderstanding or ignorance over our heads. So to conclude, I can
> see the damage which is still pilfered through the words of
> individuals who neither understand or some times do not want to open
> their minds. I am speaking about professionals who are very educated
> and knowledgable of so much, but are so stupid when it comes to
> broadening their minds and hearts...
> Please excuse the spelling. I am one of those persons who struggle
> with spelling, and it often makes writing emails difficult. Any one
> know about a braille speller, and where I can obtain one to use when
> writing emails and documents which can't be spell checked. Even spell
> checking can't repair all of the mistakes, especially when it comes to
> like-minded words which spell differently depending upon the useage.
> It is a curse, indeed, and makes me look so illiterate. It isn't
> blindness, it comes down to memory, and a cognitive kind of thing.
> which I struggle with. .
> I have thought of getting a program like Dragon, but I hear that it
> interferes with the JAWS voice program. Any suggestions?
> Thanks
> Renee Pavlus
>
> On 2/18/14, stylist-request at nfbnet.org <stylist-request at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> Send stylist mailing list submissions to
>> 	stylist at nfbnet.org
>>
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>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>> 	stylist-request at nfbnet.org
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>>
>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>> than "Re: Contents of stylist digest..."
>>
>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>    1. Re: Blind or Visually Impaired Authors, new books and more &:
>>       Is Literature Against us? NFB Speech (Jacobson, Shawn D)
>>    2. Re: Low expectations of the blind; RE:  New Book, blindness
>>       on TV (Jacobson, Shawn D)
>>    3. Re: Blind or Visually Impaired Authors,	new books and more &:
>>       Is Literature Against us? NFB Speech (Lynda Lambert)
>>    4. Re: New Book, blindness on TV (Lynda Lambert)
>>    5. FW:  Blind or Visually Impaired Authors
>>       (Cheryl Orgas & William Meeker)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 08:20:13 -0500
>> From: "Jacobson, Shawn D" <Shawn.D.Jacobson at hud.gov>
>> To: "'newmanrl at cox.net'" <newmanrl at cox.net>, 'Writer's Division
>> 	Mailing List'	<stylist at nfbnet.org>
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors, new books
>> 	and more &:  Is Literature Against us? NFB Speech
>> Message-ID:
>> 	<8838F3FB8A7BB044AA6DE247E617C6F20101DAA1D2 at ELANNEPV117.exh.prod.hud.gov>
>> 	
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>>
>> This brings back memories.  I remember reading "Blindness is Literature
>> Against us" in braille at the Iowa Braille School.  This was back in the
>> early '70's when being a Federationist could get you in trouble, so you
>> had
>> to hide Federation literature under the bed.
>>
>> Anyway, thanks for reminding us.
>>
>> Shawn
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Robert
>> Leslie
>> Newman
>> Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 10:07 AM
>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors, new books and
>> more &: Is Literature Against us? NFB Speech
>>
>> Hey you all, here is more on the topic of blind authors, the blind as
>> portrayed on TV, in books, etc. This is a Kenneth Jernigan banquet speech
>> and it hits at more of this present theme of ours:
>> Blindness: Is Literature Against Us?
>> An Address Delivered by Kenneth Jernigan
>> President, National Federation of the Blind
>> At the Banquet of the Annual Convention
>> Chicago, July 3, 1974
>> History, we are told, is the record of what human beings have done;
>> literature, the record of what they have thought. Last year I examined
>> with
>> you the place of the blind in history-not just what we have done but what
>> the historians have remembered and said we have done. The two, as we
>> found,
>> are vastly different.
>> This year I would like to talk with you about the place of the blind in
>> literature. How have we been perceived? What has been our role? How have
>> the
>> poets and novelists, the essayists and dramatists seen us? Have they
>> "told
>> it like it is," or merely liked it as they've told it?
>> With history there is at least a supposed foundation of fact. Whatever
>> the
>> twisting or omission or misinterpretation or downright falsehood, that
>> foundation presumably remains-a tether and a touchstone, always subject
>> to
>> reexamination and new proof. Not so with literature. The author is free
>> to
>> cut through facts to the essence, to dream and soar and surmise. Going
>> deeper than history, the myths and feelings of a people are enshrined in
>> its
>> literature. Literary culture in all its forms constitutes possibly the
>> main
>> transmission belt of our society's beliefs and values-more important even
>> than the schools, the churches, the news media, or the family. How, then,
>> have we fared in literature?
>> The literary record reveals no single theme or unitary view of the life
>> of
>> the blind. Instead, it displays a bewildering variety of images-often
>> conflicting and contradictory, not only as between different ages or
>> cultures, or among the works of various writers, but even within the
>> pages
>> of a single book.
>> Yet, upon closer examination the principal themes and motifs of
>> literature
>> and popular culture are nine in number and may be summarized as follows:
>> blindness as compensatory or miraculous power, blindness as total
>> tragedy;
>> blindness as foolishness and helplessness; blindness as unrelieved
>> wickedness and evil; blindness as perfect virtue; blindness as punishment
>> for sin; blindness as abnormality or dehumanization; blindness as
>> purification; and blindness as symbol or parable.
>> Let us begin with blindness and compensatory powers. Suppose one of you
>> should ask me whether I think there is any advantage in being blind; and
>> suppose I should answer like this: "Not an advantage perhaps: still it
>> has
>> compensations that one might not think of. A new world to explore, new
>> experiences, new powers awakening; strange new perceptions; life in the
>> fourth dimension." How would you react to that? You would, I suspect,
>> laugh
>> me out of the room. I doubt that a single person here would buy such
>> stereotyped stupidity. You and I know from firsthand experience that
>> there
>> is no "fourth dimension" to blindness-no miraculous new powers awakening,
>> no
>> strange new perceptions, no brave new worlds to explore. Yet, the words I
>> have quoted are those of a blind character in a popular novel of some
>> time
>> back. (I don't know whether the term has significance, but a blind
>> "private
>> eye," no less.)
>> The association of blindness with compensatory powers, illustrated by the
>> blind detective I have just mentioned, represents a venerable tradition,
>> reaching back to classical mythology. A favorite method of punishment
>> among
>> the gods of ancient Greece was blinding-regarded apparently as a fate
>> worse
>> than death-following which, more often than not, the gods so pitied the
>> blinded victim that they relented and conferred upon him extraordinary
>> gifts, usually the power of prophecy or some other exceptional skill.
>> Thus,
>> Homer was widely regarded as having been compensated by the gift of
>> poetry.
>> In the same way Tiresias, who wandered through the plays of Sophocles,
>> received for his blindness the gift of prophecy.
>> The theme of divine compensation following divine retribution survived
>> the
>> passage of the ages and the decline of the pagan religions. Sir Arthur
>> Conan
>> Doyle (one of the most eminent novelists of the last century, and the
>> creator of Sherlock Holmes) conjured up a blind character with something
>> of
>> Holmes's sleuthing talents, in a book entitled Sir Nigel. This figure is
>> introduced as one who has the mysterious ability to detect by hearing a
>> hidden tunnel, which runs beneath the besieged castle. His compensatory
>> powers are described in a conversation between two other people in the
>> novel:
>> "This man was once rich and of good repute [says one], but he was
>> beggared
>> by this robber lord who afterwards put out his eyes, so that he has lived
>> for many years in darkness at the charity of others."
>> "How can he help in our enterprise if he be indeed blind?" [asks his
>> companion.]
>> "It is for that very reason, fair Lord, that he can be of greater service
>> than any other man. For it often happens that when a man has lost a
>> sense,
>> the good God will strengthen those that remain. Hence it is that Andreas
>> has
>> such ears that he can hear the sap in the trees or the cheep of the mouse
>> in
>> its burrow . . ."2
>> The great nineteenth-century novelist Victor Hugo, in The Man Who Laughs,
>> reflected the view of a host of modern writers that blindness carries
>> with
>> it a certain purity and ecstasy, which somehow makes up for the loss of
>> sight. His blind heroine, Dea, is portrayed as "absorbed by that kind of
>> ecstasy peculiar to the blind, which seems at times to give them a song
>> to
>> listen to in their souls and to make up to them for the light which they
>> lack by some strain of ideal music. Blindness," says Hugo, "is a cavern
>> to
>> which reaches the deep harmony of the Eternal."3
>> Probably it is this mystical notion of a "sixth sense" accompanying
>> blindness that accounts for the rash of blind detectives and
>> investigators
>> in popular fiction. Max Carrados, the man who talked of living in the
>> "fourth dimension," first appeared in 1914 and went on to survive a
>> number
>> of superhuman escapades through the nineteen twenties. In 1915 came
>> another
>> sightless sleuth-the remarkable Damon Gaunt, who "never lost a case."4 So
>> it
>> is with "Thornley Colton, Blind Detective," the brainchild of Clinton H.
>> Stagg; and so it is with the most illustrious of all the private eyes
>> without eyes, Captain Duncan Maclain, whose special qualities are set
>> forth
>> in the deathless prose of a dust jacket:
>> "Shooting to kill by sound, playing chess with fantastic precision, and,
>> of
>> course, quickening the hearts of the opposite sex, Captain Maclain has
>> won
>> the unreserved admiration of reviewers."5
>> Even the author is carried away with the genius of his hero: "There were
>> moments," he writes, "when powers slightly greater than those possessed
>> by
>> ordinary mortals seemed bestowed on Duncan Maclain. Such moments worried
>> him."6
>> They might worry us, as well; for all of this mumbo jumbo about abnormal
>> or
>> supernatural powers doesn't lessen the stereotype of the blind person as
>> alien and different, unnatural and peculiar. It makes it worse.
>> Not only is it untrue, but it is also a profound disservice to the blind;
>> for it suggests that whatever a blind person may accomplish is not due to
>> his own ability but to some magic inherent in blindness itself. This
>> assumption of compensatory powers removes the blind person at a stroke of
>> the pen from the realm of the normal-the ordinary, everyday world of
>> plain
>> people-and places him in a limbo of abnormality. Whether supernormal or
>> subnormal does not matter-he is without responsibility, without rights,
>> and
>> without society. We have been conned into this view of second-class
>> status
>> long enough. The play is over. We want no more of magic powers and
>> compensations. We want our rights as citizens and human beings-and we
>> intend
>> to have them!
>> It is significant that, for all his supposed charm and talent, Maclain
>> never
>> gets the girl-or any girl. The author plainly regards him as ineligible
>> for
>> such normal human relationships as love, sex, and marriage. Max Carrados
>> put
>> it this way in replying to an acquaintance who expressed great comfort in
>> his presence: "Blindness invites confidence," he says. "We are out of the
>> running-for us human rivalry ceases to exist."7
>> This notion of compensatory powers-the doctrine that blindness is its own
>> reward-is no compliment but an insult. It robs us of all credit for our
>> achievements and all responsibility for our failings. It neatly relieves
>> society of any obligation to equalize conditions or provide opportunities
>> or
>> help us help ourselves. It leaves us in the end without the capacity to
>> lead
>> a regular, competitive, and participating life in the community around
>> us.
>> The blind, in short, may (according to this view) be extraordinary, but
>> we
>> can never be ordinary. Don't you believe it! We are normal people-neither
>> especially blessed nor especially cursed-and the fiction to the contrary
>> must come to an end! It is not mumbo jumbo we want, or magical powers-but
>> our rights as free people, our responsibilities as citizens, and our
>> dignity
>> as human beings.
>> Negative as it is, this image of compensatory powers is less vicious and
>> destructive than some others which run through the literature of fiction
>> and
>> fantasy. The most damaging of all is also the oldest and most persistent:
>> namely, the theme of blindness as total tragedy, the image summed up in
>> the
>> ancient Hebrew saying, "The blind man is as one dead." The Oedipus cycle
>> of
>> Greek tragic plays pressed the death-in-life stereotype to its farthest
>> extreme. Thus, in "Oedipus Rex", in which the king puts out his own eyes,
>> the statement occurs: "Thou art better off dead than living blind." It
>> remained, however, for an Englishman, blind himself, to write the last
>> word
>> (what today would be called "the bottom line") on blindness as total
>> disaster. John Milton says in Samson Agonistes:
>> Blind among enemies, worse than chains, Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit
>> age!... Inferior to the vilest now become of man or worm; the vilest here
>> excel me, They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed To daily fraud,
>> contempt, abuse, and wrong, Within doors, or without, still as a fool, In
>> power of others, never in my own; Scarce half I seem to live, Dead more
>> than
>> half.... a moving grave.8
>> What is most striking about this epic poem is not the presence of the
>> disaster concept (that might have been expected) but the fact that Milton
>> of
>> all people was the author. His greatest writing (including "Paradise
>> Lost")
>> was done after his blindness. Then why did he do it? The answer is
>> simple:
>> We the blind tend to see ourselves as others see us. Even when we know to
>> the contrary, we tend to accept the public view of our limitations. Thus,
>> we
>> help make those limitations a reality. Betrayed by the forces of
>> literature
>> and tradition, Milton (in his turn) betrayed himself and all others who
>> are
>> blind. In fact, he actually strengthened and reinforced the
>> stereotype-and
>> he did it in spite of his own personal experience to the contrary. The
>> force
>> of literature is strong, indeed!
>> The disaster concept of blindness did not stop with Milton. "William
>> Tell",
>> the eighteenth-century play by Schiller, shows us an old man, blinded and
>> forced to become a beggar. His son says:
>> Oh, the eye's light, of all the gifts of Heaven the dearest, best! ...
>> And
>> he must drag on through all his days in endless darkness! . . To die is
>> nothing. But to have life, and not have sight-Oh, that is misery indeed!9
>> A century later the disaster concept was as popular as ever. In Kipling's
>> book, The Light That Failed, no opportunity is lost to tell us that
>> blindness is worse than death. The hero, Dick Heldar, upon learning that
>> he
>> is to become blind, remarks: "It's the living death .... We're to be shut
>> up
>> in the dark ... and we shan't see anybody, and we shall never have
>> anything
>> we want, not though we live to be a hundred." 10 Later in the book, he
>> rages
>> against the whole world "because it was alive and could see, while he,
>> Dick,
>> was dead in the death of the blind, who, at the best, are only burdens
>> upon
>> their associates." 11 And when this self-pitying character finally
>> manages
>> to get himself killed (to the relief of all concerned), the best Kipling
>> can
>> say of him is that "his luck had held till the last, even to the crowning
>> mercy of a kindly bullet through his head." 12
>> Joseph Conrad, in "The End of the Tether", kills off Captain Whalley by
>> drowning, as a fate much preferable to remaining alive without sight. In
>> D.H. Lawrence's "The Blind Man", there is a war-blinded casualty named
>> Maurice, whose total despair and misery are unrelieved by any hint of
>> future
>> hope; and Rosamond Lehmann, in her novel "Invitation to the Waltz", goes
>> Lawrence one better- or, rather, one worse. Her war-blinded hero,
>> although
>> he appears to be living a respectable life, is portrayed as if for all
>> practical purposes he were a walking corpse. He leads, we are told, "a
>> counterfeit of life bred from his murdered youth." And when he brings
>> himself somehow to dance with a former sweetheart, it is a sorry
>> spectacle:
>> "She danced with him," says the author, "in love and sorrow. He held her
>> close to him, and he was far away from her, far from the music, buried
>> and
>> indifferent. She danced with his youth and his death." 13
>> For writers such as these, the supposed tragedy of blindness is so
>> unbearable that only two solutions can be imagined: either the victim
>> must
>> be cured or he must be killed. A typical illustration is Susan Glaspell's
>> "The Glory of the Conquered", of which an unkind critic has written: "It
>> is
>> a rather easy solution of the problem to make her hero die at the end of
>> the
>> book, but probably the author did not know what else to do with him." 14
>> Let us now leave tragedy and move to foolishness and helplessness. The
>> blind
>> man as a figure of fun and the butt of ridicule is no doubt as old as
>> farce
>> and slapstick. In the Middle Ages the role was regularly acted out on
>> festive holidays when blind beggars were rounded up and outfitted in
>> donkey's ears, than made to gibber and gesticulate to the delight of
>> country
>> bumpkins. Reflecting this general hilarity, Chaucer (in "The Merchant's
>> Tale") presents a young wife, married to an old blind man, who deceives
>> him
>> by meeting her lover in a tree while taking the husband for a walk. The
>> Chaucerian twist is that the old man suddenly regains his sight as the
>> couple are making love in the branches-whereupon the quick-witted girl
>> explains that her amorous behavior was solely for the purpose of
>> restoring
>> his sight. Shakespeare is just as bad. He makes the blinded Gloucester in
>> "King Lear" so thoroughly confused and helpless that he can be persuaded
>> of
>> anything and deceived by any trick. Isaac, in the Old Testament, is duped
>> by
>> his son Jacob, who masquerades as Esau, disguising himself in goatskins,
>> and
>> substituting kid meat for the venison his father craves-all without a
>> glimmer of recognition on the part of the old man, who must have taken
>> leave
>> of the rest of his senses as well as his sense of sight.
>> An unusually harsh example of the duping of blind people is found in the
>> sixteenth-century play "Der Euienspiegel mit den Blinden". The hero meets
>> three blind beggars and promises them a valuable coin to pay for their
>> food
>> and lodging at a nearby inn; but when they all reach out for the money,
>> he
>> gives it to none of them, and each supposes that the others have received
>> it. You can imagine the so-called "funny ending." After they go to the
>> inn
>> and dine lavishly, the innkeeper demands his payment; and each of the
>> blind
>> beggars thereupon accuses the others of lying, thievery, and assorted
>> crimes. The innkeeper-shouting "You people defraud everyone!"--drives the
>> three into his pigsty and locks the gate, lamenting to his wife: "What
>> shall
>> we do with them, let them go without punishment after they have eaten and
>> drunk so much, for nothing? But if we keep them, they will spread lice
>> and
>> fleas and we will have to feed them. I wish they were on the gallows." 15
>> The play has a "happy ending," but what an image persists of the
>> character
>> of those who are blind: criminal and corrupt, contagious and
>> contaminated,
>> confounded and confused, wandering homeless and helpless in an alien
>> landscape. Their book of life might well be called "Gullible's Travels."
>> The helpless blind man is a universal stereotype. In Maeterlinck's play,
>> "The Blind", all of the characters are portrayed as sightless in order to
>> make a philosophical point; but what emerges on the stage is a ridiculous
>> tableau of groping, groaning, and grasping at the air.
>> One of the very worst offenders against the truth about blindness is the
>> eminent French author of our own day, Andre Gide, in "La Symphonie
>> Pastorale". A blind reviewer of the novel has described it well: "The
>> girl
>> Gertrude at fifteen, before the pastor begins to educate her, has all the
>> signs of an outright idiot. This is explained simply as the result of her
>> blindness .... [Gide] asserts that without physical sight one cannot
>> really
>> know the truth. Gertrude lives happily in the good, pure world the pastor
>> creates for her .... Gertrude knows next to nothing about the evil and
>> pain
>> in the actual world. As a sightless person she cannot consciously know
>> sin,
>> is blissfully ignorant, like Adam and Eve before eating of the forbidden
>> fruit. Only when her sight is restored does she really know evil for what
>> it
>> is and recognize sin. Then, on account of the sinning she has done with
>> the
>> pastor without knowing it was sinning, she is miserable and commits
>> suicide."16
>> In literature not only is blindness depicted as stupidity but also as
>> wickedness, the very incarnation of pure evil. The best-known model is
>> the
>> old pirate "Blind Pew," in Stevenson's "Treasure Island". When the young
>> hero, Jim Hawkins, first encounters Pew, he feels that he "never saw a
>> more
>> dreadful figure" than this "horrible, soft-spoken, eyeless creature"; and
>> when Pew gets the boy in his clutches, Jim observes that he "never heard
>> a
>> voice so cruel, and cold, and ugly as that blind man's." 17
>> A much earlier version of the wicked blind man theme is seen in the
>> picaresque romance of the sixteenth century, "Lazatillo de Tormes".
>> Lazarillo is apprenticed as a guide to an old blind man, who is the very
>> personification of evil.
>> "When the blind man told the boy to put his ear to a statue and listen
>> for
>> a
>> peculiar noise, Lazarillo obeyed. Then the old man knocked the boy's head
>> sharply against the stone, so his ears rang for three days......"18
>> Throughout the ages the connection between blindness and meanness has
>> been
>> very nearly irresistible to authors, and it has struck a responsive note
>> with audiences--audiences already conditioned through folklore and fable
>> to
>> believe that blindness brings out the worst in people. Given the casual
>> cruelty with which the blind have generally been treated, such villainous
>> caricatures have also provided a convenient excuse and justification.
>> After
>> all, if the blind are rascals and rapscallions, they should be handled
>> accordingly- and no pity wasted.
>> Alternating with the theme of blindness as perfect evil is its exact
>> reverse: the theme of blindness as perfect virtue. On the surface these
>> two
>> popular stereotypes appear to be contradictory; but it takes no great
>> psychological insight to recognize them as opposite sides of the same
>> counterfeit coin. What they have in common is the notion that blindness
>> is
>> a
>> transforming event, entirely removing the victim front the ordinary
>> dimensions of life and humanity.
>> Blindness must either be the product of sin and the devil or of angels
>> and
>> halos. Of the latter type is Melody, in Laura Richards' novel of the same
>> name: "The blind child," we are told, "touched life with her hand, and
>> knew
>> it. She knew every tree of the forest by its bark; knew when it
>> blossomed,
>> and how .... Not a cat or dog in the village but would leave his own
>> master
>> or mistress at a single call from Melody." 19 She is not merely virtuous;
>> she is magical. She rescues a baby from a burning building, cures the
>> sick
>> by her singing, and redeems alcoholics from the curse of drink.
>> It is passing strange, and what is strangest of all is that this absurd
>> creature is the invention of Laura Richards, the daughter of Samuel
>> Gridley
>> Howe, a pioneer educator of the blind. Like Milton, Mrs. Richards knew
>> better. She was betrayed by the forces of tradition and custom, of
>> folklore
>> and literature. In turn she betrayed herself and the blind, and gave
>> reinforcement to the stereotype. Worst of all, she doubtless never knew
>> what
>> she had done, and thought of herself as a benefactor of the blind and a
>> champion of their cause. Ignorance is truly the greatest of all
>> tragedies.
>> The sickest of all the romantic illusions is the pious opinion that
>> blindness is only a blessing in disguise. In "The Blind Girl of
>> Wittenberg",
>> by John G. Morris, a young man says to the heroine: "God has deprived you
>> of
>> sight but only that your heart might be illuminated with more brilliant
>> light." Every blind girl I know would have slapped his face for such
>> insulting drivel; but the reply of this fictional female is worse than
>> the
>> original remark: "Do you not think, sir," she says, "that we blind people
>> have a world within us which is perhaps more beautiful than yours, and
>> that
>> we have a light within us which shines more brilliantly than your sun?"
>> 20
>> So it goes with the saccharine sweet that has robbed us of humanity and
>> made
>> the legend and hurt our cause. There is Caleb, the "little blind seer" of
>> James Ludlow's awful novel, "Deborah". There is Bertha, Dickens'
>> ineffably
>> sweet and noble blind heroine of "The Cricket on the Hearth", who comes
>> off
>> almost as an imbecile. There is the self-sacrificing Nydia, in "The Last
>> Days of Pompeii"; and there is Naomi, in Hall Caine's novel, "Scapegoat".
>> But enough! It is sweetness without light, and literature without
>> enlightment.
>> One of the oldest and cruelest themes in the archives of fiction is the
>> notion of blindness as a punishment for sin. Thus, Oedipus was blinded as
>> a
>> punishment for incest, and Shakespeare's Gloucester for adultery. The
>> theme
>> often goes hand in hand with the stereotype of blindness as a kind of
>> purification rite--an act which wipes the slate clean and transforms
>> human
>> character into purity and goodness. So Amyas Leigh, in Kingsley's
>> "Westward
>> Ho", having been blinded by a stroke of lightning, is instantly converted
>> from a crook to a saint.
>> Running like an ugly stain through many of these master plots- and,
>> perhaps,
>> in a subtle way underlying all of them-is the image of blindness as
>> dehumanization, a kind of banishment from the world of normal life and
>> relationships. Neither Dickens' blind Bertha, nor Bulwer-Lytton's Nydia,
>> when they find themselves in love, have the slightest idea that anybody
>> could ever love them back- nor does the reader; nor, for that matter, do
>> the
>> other characters in the novels. Kipling, in a story entitled "They,"
>> tells
>> of a charming and apparently competent blind woman, Miss Florence, who
>> loves
>> children but "of course" cannot have any of her own. Kipling doesn't say
>> why
>> she can't, but it's plain that she is unable to imagine a blind person
>> either married or raising children. Miss Florence, however, is magically
>> compensated. She is surrounded on her estate by the ghosts of little
>> children who have died in the neighborhood and have thereupon rushed to
>> her
>> in spirit. We are not meant to infer that she is as crazy as a hoot
>> owl--only that she is blind, and therefore entitled to her spooky
>> fantasies.
>> The last of the popular literary themes is that which deals with
>> blindness
>> not literally but symbolically, for purposes of satire or parable. From
>> folklore to film the image recurs of blindness as a form of death or
>> damnation, or as a symbol of other kinds of unseeing (as in the maxim,
>> "where there is no vision, the people perish)." In this category would
>> come
>> H.G. Well's classic "The Country of the Blind"; also, "The Planet of the
>> Blind", by Paul Corey; and Maeterlinck's "The Blind". In the short story
>> by
>> Conrad Aiken, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," blindness becomes a metaphor
>> for
>> schizophrenia.
>> In virtually all of these symbolic treatments, there is an implied
>> acceptance of blindness as a state of ignorance and confusion, of the
>> inversion of normal perceptions and values, and of a condition equal to
>> if
>> not worse than death. The havoc wrought upon the lives of blind people in
>> ages past by these literary traditions is done, and it cannot be undone;
>> but
>> the future is yet to be determined. And that future, shaped by the
>> instrument of truth, will be determined by us. Self-aware and
>> self-reliant-neither unreasonably belligerent nor unduly self-effacing-we
>> must, in a matter-of-fact way, take up the challenge of determining our
>> own
>> destiny. We know who we are; we know what we can do; and we know how to
>> act
>> in concert.
>> And what can we learn from this study of literature? What does it all
>> mean?
>> For one thing, it places in totally new perspective the pronouncements
>> and
>> writings of many of the so-called "experts" who today hold forth in the
>> field of work with the blind. They tell us (these would-be
>> "professionals,"
>> these hirelings of the American Foundation for the Blind and HEW, these
>> pseudoscientists with their government grants and lofty titles and
>> impressive papers) that blindness is not just the loss of sight, but a
>> total
>> transformation of the person.
>> They tell us that blindness is not merely a loss to the eyes, but to the
>> personality as well-that it is a "death," a blow to the very being of the
>> individual. They tell us that the eye is a sex symbol, and that the blind
>> person cannot be a "whole man"-or, for that matter, presumably a whole
>> woman
>> either. They tell us that we have multiple "lacks and losses." 21
>> The American Foundation for the Blind devises a 239 page guidebook22 for
>> our
>> personal management," with sixteen steps to help us take a bath, and
>> specific techniques for clapping our hands and shaking our heads. We are
>> given detailed instructions for buttering our bread, tying our shoes, and
>> even understanding the meaning of the words "up" and "down." And all of
>> this
>> is done with federal grants, and much insistence that it is new discovery
>> and modern thought.
>> But our study of literature gives it the lie. These are not new concepts.
>> They are as unenlightened as the Middle Ages. They are as old as Oedipus
>> Rex. As for science, they have about as much of it as man's ancient fear
>> of
>> the dark. They are not fact, but fiction; not new truths, but medieval
>> witchcraft, decked out in modern garb-computerized mythology. What we
>> have
>> bought with our federal tax dollars and our technology and our numerous
>> government grants is only a restatement of the tired old fables of
>> primitive
>> astrology and dread of the night.
>> And let us not forget NAC (The National Accreditation Council for
>> Agencies
>> Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped). When the members of NAC and
>> its
>> accredited minions try to act as our custodians and wardens, they are
>> only
>> behaving in the time honored way of the Elizabethan "keepers of the
>> poor."
>> When they seek to deck us out in donkey's ears and try to make us gibber
>> and
>> gesticulate, they are only attempting what the country bumpkins of 600
>> years
>> ago did with better grace and more efficiency.
>> We have repudiated these false myths of our inferiority and helplessness.
>> We
>> have rejected the notion of magical powers and special innocence and
>> naivete. Those who would try to compel us to live in the past would do
>> well
>> to look to their going. Once people have tasted freedom, they cannot go
>> back. We will never again return to the ward status and second-class
>> citizenship of the old custodialism. There are many of us (sighted and
>> blind
>> alike) who will take to the streets and fight with our bare hands if we
>> must
>> before we will let it happen.
>> And we must never forget the power of literature. Revolutions do not
>> begin
>> in the streets, but in the libraries and the classrooms. It has been so
>> throughout history. In the terrible battles of the American Civil War,
>> for
>> example, the writers and poets fought, too. When the Southern armies came
>> to
>> Bull Run, they brought with them Sir Walter Scott and the image of life
>> he
>> had taught them to believe. Ivanhoe and brave King Richard stood in the
>> lines with Stonewall Jackson to hurl the Yankees back. The War would have
>> ended sooner except for the dreams of the poets. And when the Northern
>> troops went down to Richmond, through the bloody miles that barred the
>> way,
>> they carried with them the Battle Hymn of the Republic and Harriet
>> Beecher
>> Stowe. It was Uncle Tom and little Eliza who fired the shots and led the
>> charges that broke the Southern lines. Never mind that neither Scott nor
>> Stowe told it exactly as it was. What they said was believed, and
>> believing
>> made it come true.
>> To the question IS LITERATURE AGAINST Us, there can be no unqualified
>> response. If we consider only the past, the answer is certainly yes. We
>> have
>> Conventional fiction, like conventional history, has told it like it
>> isn't.
>> Although there have been notable exceptions, 23 the story has been
>> monotonously and negatively the same.
>> If we consider the present, the answer is mixed. There are signs of
>> change,
>> but the old stereotypes and the false images still predominate-and they
>> are
>> reinforced and given weight by the writings and beliefs of many of the
>> "experts" in our own field of work with the blind.
>> If we turn to the future, the answer is that the future-in literature as
>> in
>> life-is not predetermined but self-determined. As we shape our lives,
>> singly
>> and collectively, so will we shape our literature. Blindness will be a
>> tragedy only if we see ourselves as authors see us. The contents of the
>> page, in the last analysis, reflect the conscience of the age. The
>> structure
>> of literature is but a hall of mirrors, giving us back (in images
>> slightly
>> larger or smaller than life) exactly what we put in. The challenge for us
>> is
>> to help our age raise its consciousness and reform its conscience. We
>> must
>> rid our fiction of fantasy and imbue it with fact. Then we shall have a
>> literature to match reality, and a popular image of blindness to match
>> the
>> truth, and our image of ourselves.
>> Poetry is the song of the spirit and the language of the soul. In the
>> drama
>> of our struggle to be free-in the story of our movement and the fight to
>> rid
>> the blind of old custodialism and man's ancient fear of the dark-there
>> are
>> epics which cry to be written,and songs which ask to be sung. The poets
>> and
>> novelists can write the words, but we must create the music.
>> We stand at a critical time in the history of the blind. If we falter or
>> turn back, the tragedy of blindness will be great, indeed. But, of
>> course,
>> we will not falter, and we will not turn back. Instead, we will go
>> forward
>> with joy in our hearts and a song of gladness on our lips. The future is
>> ours, and the novelists and the poets will record it. Come! Join me on
>> the
>> barricades, and we will make it come true!
>> FOOTNOTES
>> 1. Ernest Bramah, "Best Max Carrados Detective Stories", p. 6.
>> 2. Arthur Conan Doyle, "Sir Nigel", p. 102.
>> 3. Victor Hugo, "The Man Who Laughs", p. 316.
>> 4. Isabel Ostrander, "At One-Thirty: A Mystery", p. 6.
>> 5. Baynard Kendrick, "Make Mine Maclain", dust jacket.
>> 6. Ibid., p. 43.
>> 7. Bramah, op. cit., p. 7.
>> 8. John Milton, "The Portable Milton", pp. 615-616.
>> 9. Friedrich Schiller, "Complete Works of Friedrich Schiller", p. 447.
>> 10. Rudyard Kipling, "Selected Prose and Poetry of Rudyard Kipling", p.
>> 131.
>> 11. Ibid., p. 156.
>> 12. Ibid., p. 185.
>> 13. Rosamond Lehmann, "Invitation to the Waltz", p. 48, quoted in Jacob
>> Twersky, "Blindness in Literature".
>> 14. Jessica L. Langworthy, "Blindness in Fiction: A Study of the Attitude
>> of
>> Authors Towards Their Blind Characters," "Journal of Applied Psychology",
>> 14:282, 1930.
>> 15. Twersky, op. cit., p. 15.
>> 16. Ibid., P. 47.
>> 17. Robert Louis Stevenson, "Treasure Island", p. 36.
>> 18. "The Life of Lazatillo de Tormes", summarized in Magill's
>> "Masterplots", p. 2573.
>> 19. Laura E. Richards, "Melody", pp. 47-48.
>> 20. John G. Morris, "The Blind Girl of Wittenberg", p. 103.
>> 21. Reverend Thomas J. Carroll, "Blindness: What It is, What It Does, and
>> How to Live With It". This entire book deals with the concept of
>> blindness
>> as a "dying," and with the multiple "lacks and losses" of blindness.
>> 22. American Foundation for the Blind, Inc., "A Step-by-Step Guide to
>> Personal Management for Blind People". This entire book is taken up with
>> lists of so-called "how to" details about the routines of daily living
>> for
>> blind persons.
>> 23. There is a tenth theme to be found here and there on the shelves of
>> literature-a rare and fugitive image that stands out in the literary
>> gloom
>> like a light at the end of a tunnel. This image of truth is a least as
>> old
>> as Charles Lamb's tale of "Rosamund Gray", which presents an elderly
>> blind
>> woman who is not only normally competent but normally cantankerous. The
>> image is prominent in two of Sir Walter Scott's novels, "Old Mortality"
>> and
>> "The Bride of Lammamoor", in both of which blind persons are depicted
>> realistically and unsentimentally. It is evident again, to the extent at
>> least of the author's knowledge and ability, in Wilkie Collin's "Poor
>> Miss
>> Finch", written after Collins had made a serious study of Diderot's
>> "Letter
>> on the Blind" (a scientific treatise not without its errors but
>> remarkable
>> for its understanding). The image is manifest in Charles D. Stewart's
>> "Valley Waters", in which there is an important character who is
>> blind-and
>> yet there is about him no aura of miracle nor even of mystery, no
>> brooding
>> or mischief, no special powers, nothing in fact but naturalness and
>> normality. Similarly, in a novel entitled "Far in the Forest", H. Weir
>> Mitchell has drawn from life (so he tells us) a formidable but entirely
>> recognizable character named Philetus Richmond "who had lost his sight at
>> the age of fifty but could still swing an axe with the best of the
>> woodsmen."
>> Back to top
>> BIBLIOGRAPHY
>> American Foundation for the Blind, Inc., "A Step-by-Step Guide to
>> Personal
>> Management for Blind People", New York, 1970.
>> Barreyre, Gene, "The Blind Ship", New York, Dial, 1926.
>> Bramah, Ernest, "Best Max Carrados Detective Stories", New York, Dover,
>> 1972.
>> Bronte, Charlotte, "Jane Eyre", New; York, Dutton, 1963.
>> Caine, Hall, "The Scapegoat", New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1879.
>> Carroll, Reverend Thomas J., "Blindness: What It Is, What It Does, and
>> How
>> To live With It", Boston, Toronto, Little, Brown and Company, 1961.
>> Chaucer, Geoffrey, "Canterbury Tales", Garden City, translated by J.U.
>> Nicolson, 1936.
>> Collins, Wilkie, "Poor Miss Finch", New York, Harper and Brothers, 1902.
>> Conrad, Joseph, "The End of the Tether", Garden City, Doubleday, 1951.
>> Corey, Paul, "The Planet of the Blind", New York, Paperback Library,
>> 1969.
>> Craig, Dinah Mulock, "John Halifax, Gentleman", New York, A.L. Burt, nd.
>> Davis, William Stems, "Falaise of the Blessed Voice", New York, The
>> Macmillan Company, 1904.
>> Dickens, Charles, "Barnaby Rudge", New York, Oxford University Press,
>> 1968.
>> -----, "Cricket On the Hearth", London, Oxford University Press, 1956.
>> Diderot, Denis, "Lettre sur les Avengles", Geneva, E. Droz, 1951.
>> Doyle, Arthur Conan, "Sir Nigel", New York, McClure, Philips and Company,
>> 1906.
>> Gide, Andre, "La Symphonie Pastorale", Paris, Gallimard, 1966.
>> Glaspell, Susan, "The Glory of the Conquered", New York, Frederick A.
>> Stokes
>> Company, 1909.
>> Hugo, Victor, "The Man Who Laughs", New York, Grosset and Dunlap, nd.
>> Kendrick, Baynard, "Make Mine Maclain", New York, Morrow, 1947.
>> Kipling, Rudyard, "Selected Prose and Poetry of Rudyard
>> Kipling", Garden City, Garden City Publishing Company, 1937.
>> Kingsley, Charles, "Westward Ho!", New York, J.F. Taylor and Company,
>> 1899.
>> Lamb, Charles, "The Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret",
>> London,
>> 1798.
>> Langworthy, Jessica L., "Blindness in Fiction: A Study of the
>> Attitude of Authors Toward their Blind Characters," "Journal of Applied
>> Psychology", 14:282, 1930.
>> Lawrence, D.H., "England, My England and Other Short Stories", New York,
>> T.
>> Seltzer, 1922.
>> Lehmann, Rosamond, "Invitation to the Waltz", New York, 1933.
>> "Life of Lazarillo de Tormes", 1553, summarized in Magill,
>> Frank Nathen, "Magill's Masterplots", New York, Salem Press, 1964.
>> London, Jack, "The Sea Wolf", New York, Grosset and Dunlap, 1904.
>> Ludlow, James M., "Deborah, A Tale of the Times of Judas Maccabaeus", New
>> York, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1901.
>> Lytton, Bulwer, "The Last Days of Pompeii", Garden City, International
>> Collectors Library, 1946.
>> Maeterlinck, Maurice, "The Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck", translated by
>> Richard Hovey, New York, Duffield, 1908.
>> Marryat, Frederick, "The Little Savage", New York, E.P. Dutton and
>> Company,
>> 1907.
>> Milton, John, "Paradise Lost", New York, Heritage Press, 1940.
>> -----, "The Portable Milton", New York, Viking Press, 1949.
>> Mitchell, H. Weir, "Far in the Forest", New York, Century Company, 1899.
>> Morris, John G., "The Blind Girl of Wittenberg", Philadelphia, Lindsay
>> and
>> Blakison, 1856.
>> Ostrander, Isabel, "At One-Thirty: A Mystery", New York, W.J. Watt, 1915.
>> Richards, Laura E., "Melody", Boston, Estes and Lauriat, 1897.
>> Sachs, Hans, "Der Eulenspiegel mit den Blinden".
>> Schiller, Friedrich, "William Tell", translated by Robert
>> Waller Deering, Boston, Heath, 1961.
>> -----, "Don Carlos, Infant of Spain", translated by Charles E. Passage,
>> New
>> York, Ungar Publishing Company, 1959.
>> Scott, Sir Walter, "Old Mortality", London, Oxford University Press,
>> 1925.
>> -----, "The Bride of Lammamoor", London, Oxford University Press, 1925.
>> Shakespeare, William, "King Lear", New Haven, Yale University Press,
>> 1947.
>> Sophocles, "Oedipus Rex", translated by Robert Fitzgerald and Dudley
>> Fitts,
>> New York, Harcourt Brace, 1949.
>> -----, "Oedipus at Colonnus", translated by Charles R.
>> Walker, Garden City, Anchor Books, 1966.
>> Stagg, Clinton H., "Thornley Colton, Blind Detective", New York, G.
>> Howard
>> Watt, 1925.
>> Stevenson, Robert Louis, "Treasure Island", Keith Jennison large-type
>> edition, New York, Watt, nd.
>> -----, "Kidnapped", New York, A.L. Burt, 1883.
>> Stewart, Charles D., "Valley Waters", New York, E.P. Dutton and Company,
>> 1922.
>> Twersky, Jacob, Blindness in Literature, New York, American Foundation
>> for
>> the Blind, 1955.
>> Wells, H.G. "The Country of the B at d," Strand Magazine, London, 1904.
>> West, V. Sackville, The Dragon in Shallow Waters, New York, G.P. Putnam's
>> Sons, 1922.
>> Back to top
>>
>>  upon
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>> Lambert
>> Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 7:27 AM
>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors; RE: New Book,
>> blindness on TV
>>
>> Donna and Bill,
>> How I appreciate your conversation and insight into this interesting
>> musing
>> on how blindness becomes the lens through which art and literature
>> originate
>> and flourish.
>>
>> What a nice group of informative pieces on the authors.
>> I have saved it and will go back on a day when I can spend some quality
>> time
>> on it, and put some thought into it. Today is dedicated to working on,
>> and
>> rehearsing, two presentations that I have written - doing the timing,
>> etc.
>> on them to make sure they flow for my audience.   Doing lectures and
>> conference presentations is something I really enjoy.
>>
>> At this time, I am deeply involved in another major project. A video is
>> being produced that will accompany our two-person exhibition - Vision and
>> Revision: Two Artists with Limited Sight, Not Limited Vision- The video
>> will
>> show my work from inception and planning stage, through completion and
>> gallery installation. We did the final photography for it over the
>> weekend.
>> Two of my colleagues from the English Department did the voice over's of
>> my
>> writings that will take the viewer actually into the process and the
>> thoughts I experience when working with my hands on the pieces. Little by
>> little, all the pieces are coming together to bring this project to the
>> public when the show opens on March 7th. And, while that show is being
>> put
>> together for one gallery, I am already working with the personnel at the
>> second gallery where it will open on April 14th - multi-tasking is
>> something
>> that is not optional in my world.  I work on shows anywhere from one to
>> four
>> years in advance - and on many levels at the same time with gallery
>> personnel.
>>
>> Have a very productive day everyone!  I am off to "practice" my talk and
>> do
>> the tweaking necessary.
>> Lynda
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>> To: <meekerorgas at ameritech.net>; "'Writer's Division Mailing List'"
>> <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 4:20 PM
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors;RE: New Book,
>> blindness on TV
>>
>>
>>> Bill,
>>> Donna Hill here. I don't know about Homer, and neither does anyone else.
>>> His
>>> blindness and even his existence as the one writer of the works
>>> attributed to him is a matter of some controversy in the academic
>>> world. For proof of his blindness, lines from his poetry are used,
>>> which isn't quite enough for me. Homer as a blind poet is more
>>> important to me as a cultural myth.
>>>
>>> Milton, though he wrote his best work without sight,  was
>>> well-educated and well-known prior to blindness. The most remembered
>>> line he wrote about blindness doesn't say much for adapting -- approx
>>> "those serve too who only stand and wait." I found a great bio of him
>>> on poets.org, which I will place at the end of this message.
>>>
>>> Thurber lost sight in one eye in an accident in childhood which
>>> apparently led to losing sight in the other later in life. He had
>>> enough sight to enlist in the military and function as a cartoonist for
>> the NewYorker.
>>> Here
>>> is something from an article from Slate.com about him (after a
>>> collection of his letters was released) that discusses the effect of
>>> his blindness on his work.
>>> Block quote
>>> The tragedy of James Thurber.
>>>
>>> James Thurber's tragedy.
>>> By
>>> Wilfrid Sheed
>>>
>>> SEPT. 18 2003 3:33 PM
>>>
>>> At the age of 15 or so, I picked up The Thurber Carnival and realized
>>> that I'd found my Pied Piper; I wanted to be James Thurber. I would
>>> follow those sentences anywhere. But Thurber, The New Yorker writer
>>> and cartoonist (author, famously, of "The Secret Life of Walter
>>> Mitty"), had just passed his peak and was already descending into the
>>> total blindness that would embitter him and impair his writing. So,
>>> The Thurber Carnival was the perfect place to start, and it still is:
>>> It contains Thurber's essence and the best work he did in his
>>> pre-blind years-his cartoons and fables and those deadly little
>>> "casuals"
>>> from
>>> The New Yorker in which husbands and wives drove each other
>>> absolutely, unconditionally crazy, while huge silent dogs looked on
>>> like Buddhas, patiently waiting for the human race to come to its
>>> senses, or not, as the case may be.
>>>
>>> Now we have The Thurber Letters, collected by Harrison Kinney and
>>> Rosemary Thurber, to give us a fuller picture of the man. Most people
>>> would, I suppose, if faced with the grim choice, prefer to take their
>>> chances as blind writers rather than as deaf composers. Homer, the
>>> Cyclops of literature, did OK.
>>> And
>>> Milton got a great poem out of blindness. But Thurber's letters seem
>>> to me inexpressibly sad, perhaps because one can perceive the
>>> blindness setting in slowly-and, having seen the back of his
>>> biography, one also knows that there will be no great poems, so to
>>> speak, deriving from it.
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>> Thurber, like many enlisted men, had seen "Paree," and it had given
>>> all his pieces a lick of sophistication new to American humor. In
>>> effect, he and his whole generation had used Paris as a species of
>>> finishing school where country boys like Cole Porter and Ernest
>>> Hemingway could major in sophistication before bringing some home with
>>> them. There was never any question of anyone going back to the farm,
>>> of course, and so in the mid-'20s a bunch of these boys decided to
>>> start a magazine right there-and not just any old magazine, but the
>>> most sophisticated damn magazine in the whole world: "Not for the old
>>> lady in Dubuque," as its first issue trumpeted sophomorically. The New
>>> Yorker did turn out to be the most sophisticated magazine in the
>>> world, and the British in particular went nuts trying to imitate it.
>>>
>>> http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2003/09/blind_wit.html
>>> Block quote end
>>>
>>> Joyce had problems with his vision (iritis & glaucoma) starting in
>>> childhood when he needed thick glasses to read. He had numerous
>>> operations for it; he died during an operation, but I'm not sure if it
>>> was another one on his eyes.  In one letter he describes himself as
>>> having been "incapacitated"
>>> for
>>> a week from the iritis, but I don't know if he meant by the pain of
>>> the condition or because he wasn't adapted to living nonvisually. I
>>> haven't found any references to his using any adaptations such as
>>> Milton did when he dictated his later poetry.
>>>
>>> Here are some snippits from an old Atlantic Monthly article on Joyce's
>>> literary contribution in which his vision is mentioned and
>>> appropriately enough the influence it had on his writing. I included
>>> the first quote to show how much he was passing as sighted, or how
>>> little his visual problems were holding him back in his early years. The
>> URL's at the end.
>>>
>>> Block quote
>>> The Atlantic Monthly
>>>
>>> James Joyce
>>> By Harry Levin
>>> December, 1946
>>> ... At University College he had specialized in Romance Languages, and
>>> had shown such proficiency that there had been talk of a
>>> professorship. During his hardest years on the Continent, before a
>>> benefactor endowed his literary work, he worked as a commercial
>>> translator and as a teacher in a Berlitz school.
>>>
>>> ...
>>> It is a striking fact about English literature in the twentieth
>>> century that its most notable practitioners have seldom been
>>> Englishmen. The fact that they have so often been Irishmen supports,
>>> Synge's belief in the reinvigorating suggestiveness of Irish popular
>>> speech. That English was not Joyce's native language, in the strictest
>>> sense, he was keenly aware; and it helps to explain his unparalleled
>>> virtuosity. But a more concrete explanation is to be discerned among
>>> his physical traits, one of which we normally classify as a serious
>>> handicap. Joyce lived much of his life in varying states of
>>> semi-blindness.
>>> To
>>> preserve what eyesight he had, he underwent repeated operations and
>>> countermeasures. A schoolboy humiliation, when he broke his glasses
>>> and failed to do his lessons, is painfully recollected in the Portrait
>>> and again in Ulysses.
>>> His writing tends more and more toward low visibility; his imagination
>>> is auditory rather than visual. If the artist is a man for whom the
>>> visible world exists, remarked George Moore, then Joyce is essentially
>>> a metaphysician; for he is less concerned with the seeing eye than
>>> with the thinking mind.
>>>
>>> We may add that he is most directly concerned with the hearing ear.
>>> Doubtless the sonorities of Homer and Milton are intimately connected
>>> with their blindness.
>>> It is scarcely coincidental that Joyce, almost unique among modern
>>> prose writers in this respect, must be read aloud to be fully
>>> appreciated. In addition to his linguistic aptitude, and in
>>> compensation for his defective vision, he was gifted with an
>>> especially fine tenor voice. Professional singing was one of the
>>> possible careers he had contemplated. His singer's taste inclined
>>> toward Opera and bel canto, romantic ballads and Elizabethan airs: not
>>> music but song, he liked to say. His poems except for a few excursions
>>> into Swiftian satire, are songs; lyrics which, without their musical
>>> settings look strangely fragile. Yeats, upon first reading them,
>>> praised Joyce's delicate talent, and shrewdly wondered whether his
>>> ultimate form would be verse or prose.
>>> Operating
>>> within the broader area of fiction, he was to retain the cadenced
>>> precision of the poet. Above all he remained an accomplished listener,
>>> whose pages are continually animated by the accurate recording of
>>> overheard conversation.
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>> His pangs of composition have recently been described by Philippe
>>> Soupault as "a sort of daily damnation: the creation of the Joycean
>>> world. The perverse ingenuity of these later experiments has been
>>> deplored more frequently than deciphered. A long series of
>>> misunderstandings with the public inevitably reinforced those early
>>> vows of silence, exile, and cunning. Inhibited from writing naturally
>>> of natural instincts, Joyce ended by inventing an artificial language
>>> of innuendo and mockery. In Finnegans Wake he drew upon his linguistic
>>> skills and learned hobbies to contrive an Optophone--an instrument
>>> which, for the benefit of the blind, converts images into sounds. Out
>>> of it come, not merely echoes of the past, but warnings of the future.
>>> Mr. Earwicker's worldly misfortunes are climaxed by a lethal
>>> explosion: "the abnihilisation of the etym."
>>> Pessimists may interpret this enigma as the annihilation of all
>>> meaning, a chain reaction set off by the destruction of the atom.
>>> Optimists will stress the creation of matter ex nihilo--and trust in
>>> the Word to create another world.
>>>
>>> http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/95sep/links/levi.htm
>>> Block quote end
>>>
>>> Now for the Milton bio
>>> Block quote
>>> John Milton
>>>
>>> John Milton was born in London on December 9, 1608, into a
>>> middle-class family. He was educated at St. Paul's School, then at
>>> Christ's College, Cambridge, where he began to write poetry in Latin,
>>> Italian, and English, and prepared to enter the clergy.
>>>
>>> After university, however, he abandoned his plans to join the
>>> priesthood and spent the next six years in his father's country home
>>> in Buckinghamshire following a rigorous course of independent study to
>>> prepare for a career as a poet. His extensive reading included both
>>> classical and modern works of religion, science, philosophy, history,
>>> politics, and literature. In addition, Milton was proficient in Latin,
>>> Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Italian, and obtained a
>>> familiarity with Old English and Dutch as well.
>>>
>>> During his period of private study, Milton composed a number of poems,
>>> including "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," "On Shakespeare,"
>>> "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and the pastoral elegy "Lycidas." In May
>>> of 1638, Milton began a 13-month tour of France and Italy, during
>>> which he met many important intellectuals and influential people,
>>> including the astronomer Galileo, who appears in Milton's tract
>>> against censorship, "Areopagitica."
>>>
>>> In 1642, Milton returned from a trip into the countryside with a
>>> 16-year-old bride, Mary Powell. Even though they were estranged for
>>> most of their marriage, she bore him three daughters and a son before
>>> her death in 1652.
>>> Milton later married twice more: Katherine Woodcock in 1656, who died
>>> giving birth in 1658, and Elizabeth Minshull in 1662.
>>>
>>> During the English Civil War, Milton championed the cause of the
>>> Puritans and Oliver Cromwell, and wrote a series of pamphlets
>>> advocating radical political topics including the morality of divorce,
>>> the freedom of the press, populism, and sanctioned regicide. Milton
>>> served as secretary for foreign languages in Cromwell's government,
>>> composing official statements defending the Commonwealth. During this
>>> time, Milton steadily lost his eyesight, and was completely blind by
>>> 1651. He continued his duties, however, with the aid of Andrew Marvell
>>> and
>> other assistants.
>>>
>>> After the Restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, Milton was
>>> arrested as a defender of the Commonwealth, fined, and soon released.
>>> He lived the rest of his life in seclusion in the country, completing
>>> the blank-verse epic poem Paradise Lost in 1667, as well as its sequel
>>> Paradise Regained and the tragedy Samson Agonistes both in 1671.
>>> Milton oversaw the printing of a second edition of Paradise Lost in
>>> 1674, which included an explanation of "why the poem rhymes not,"
>>> clarifying his use of blank verse, along with introductory notes by
>>> Marvell. He died shortly afterwards, on November 8, 1674, in
>>> Buckinghamshire, England.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/707
>>> Block quote end
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Cheryl
>>> Orgas & William Meeker
>>> Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 9:59 AM
>>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors;RE: New
>>> Book, blindness on TV
>>>
>>> Linda,
>>>
>>> Blind or visually impaired authors Homer, John Milton, James Joyce,
>>> and James Thurber come to mind first.  That they were known for their
>>> works rather than their blindness is to me a measure of their success.
>>>
>>> Several authors have written novels without using common vowels, such
>>> as the letter "E."  So how about a novel or short story depicting a
>>> blind character without using the word "blind?"  That is, describing
>>> them and their actions including alternative techniques and letting
>>> the reader figure out that they are blind.
>>>
>>> Or how about a novel or short story written without  visual
>>> descriptions.
>>> That is, using only descriptions of sounds, textures, tastes, and
>>> feelings?
>>>
>>> I can think up these ideas, but I lack the skill, drive, and
>>> self-disclipline to execute them.  So have fun.
>>>
>>>
>>> Bill Meeker
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>> Lambert
>>> Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2014 6:59 AM
>>> To: newmanrl at cox.net; Writer's Division Mailing List
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind; RE: New Book,
>>> blindness on TV
>>>
>>> This conversation is making me begin to think about some authors I
>>> taught in the past in Humanities and English courses.  Now that I am
>>> "aware" of blindness, which I was NOT at all in the past, I am
>>> wondering how I would interpret the literature of a blind author. I
>>> taught Bourges and I never
>>> knew he was blind!   I am thinking that now, if I go back to read his
>>> work,
>>> I will interpret many things in a different way.  I taught the "Book
>>> of Sand" every semester!  Hmmmm.  Now it makes even more sense as an
>>> exampe lof of Postmodernism which was the focus it had for me at the
>>> time.  WOW, this is beginning to be a revelation to me.  I know that
>>> many of the artists I taught were blind or visually impaired, but
>>> their work was not generally explored through that lens.
>>> I am going to begin looking much deeper into this for my own research
>>> - if anyone has any more information on artists and writers who
>>> are/were blind I would love to hear from you as I begin my own little
>>> research project on this matter.
>>>
>>> I am re-learning how to do Power Point presentations now. Normally,
>>> this is how I lectured but until now, I could not have done it again.
>>> I know now, that I can do it, it's just going to take awhile for me to
>>> teach myself again.  I am scheduled to do two presentation at Slippery
>>> Rock University of PA in March - I'll use my milestone to give me
>>> verbal "cues" as I am speaking, for these presentations. But, I want
>>> to begin to develop some presentations using power point and I am sure
>>> I can do it again - I just need to have the time and put in the work
>>> to accomplish it.  I have always loved doing lectures and
>>> presentations and I want to do them again - so I am gonna work on it!
>>>
>>> Lynda
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Robert Leslie Newman" <newmanrl at cox.net>
>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 11:22 PM
>>> Subject: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind;RE: New Book,
>>> blindness on TV
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hi you all, this has been an interesting conversation:
>>>>
>>>> Here is another generalization that many around the world have
>>>> developed over the eons: Blindness is the most God awful, feared
>>>> physical condition that mankind can experience.
>>>>
>>>> I had read and heard this forever, from the mouths of people on the
>>>> street, to what I've learned in a variety of college classes..though,
>>>> over the past couple of decades blindness has been pushed down to
>>>> third place. Guess what has eclipsed being blind as the most feared?
>>>> Aids and cancer. And hey, I can believe that these two physical
>>>> conditions are far worse...after all, either one of these two monster
>>>> conditions can kill you!!! (Though, there are some who feel that
>>>> blindness is a living death. And yeah, if you allow it to rule! And
>>>> this is where the NFB has done the world a great service...as in we
>>>> have developed a philosophy, built a framework of alternative
>>>> techniques, and influenced the making of a wide variety of tools that
>>>> in combination...will allow most of us to reduce the effects of
>>>> blindness, down to  a level whereby most of us can say with an honesty
>>>> level of 100%, 100%, that the loss of sight is not a major impediment
>>>> to living a successful and happy life. No...the true problem we face
>>>> is more the ignorance and the lack of information about the human
>>>> potential to successfully live with blindness is the toughest
>>>> impediment to being blind. MMM, go figure? [Being blind isn't the
>>>> problem, living in a world of ignorance is.]
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>> Applebutter Hill
>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 9:10 PM
>>>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>> Lynda,
>>>> At 70, I should certainly hope you (or anyone) would have developed a
>>>> healthy level of skepticism. *grin*
>>>>
>>>> I know that black people face prejudice and low expectations, but I
>>>> think the fact that white people enslaved them to actually do
>>>> something, makes that low level quite a bit higher than for blind
>>>> people. We aren't deemed capable of planting a field, keeping up a
>>>> household or even caring for children -- as the incident in the
>>>> Midwest a few years ago shoed, when a child was removed shortly after
>>> birth from its blind parents.
>>>>
>>>> Our traditional purpose is to give the average person something they
>>>> can look at and say, "Well, I may have problems, but at least I'm not
>>> blind."
>>>> We
>>>> also have traditionally provided them with opportunities to do good
>>>> deeds.
>>>> Expecting us to no longer be helpless fundamentally changes how they
>>>> see themselves.
>>>>
>>>> Your post reminds me of a story I heard from a blind woman who was
>>>> accepted to grad school. Her aunt was furious that she had stolen the
>>>> position from someone who could really benefit from it. The belief was
>>>> that anything that a blind person accomplished was just another
>>>> example of the kindness of strangers in elevating a pitiful person and
>>>> helping them feel better about themselves. BTW, she has a doctorate in
>>>> law. I heard many similar stories when I was writing about Braille
>>>> literacy -- they weren't on topic at the time, and I had hoped to
>>>> gather some of the things people told me into articles about some of
>>>> these more subtle things that are going on to this day, but it never
>>>> happened.
>>>> Donna
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>>> Lambert
>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 6:31 PM
>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>> Donna, yes, the expectations for blind people are very low.  I believe
>>>> that is why blind people as a group are the highest educated of all
>>>> people with disabilities, yet, they are the lowest employed people of
>>>> all the groups.
>>>> This says it all - we are not expected to be smart, able, or willing
>>>> to succeed at anything more than very low levels.
>>>> This is my own thoughts on it and I recognize I am quite skeptical
>>>> about it
>>>> - but heck, I am 70 years old now, so I guess I can blame it on my age.
>>>> I think we have to work so far beyond what other people have to do to
>>>> find success at so many things. And, this is also true of black
>>>> people.  I do not know this from a distance, or from reading books on
>>>> the subject which of course I do all the time. I know it personally,
>>>> because my son is black and his family is black - they are very highly
>>>> educated professionals - she a physician, he a psychologist.  At every
>>>> level, black people still face very low expectations and racism - and
>>>> I think blind people are very close to the same in the general view of
>>>> the ST"STUPID public. I agree with you. They are ver STUPID, but we
>>>> won't tell them that, just yet. lol
>>>>
>>>> Lynda
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 3:34 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Lynda,
>>>>> Like you've noticed with your sister and the key, sighted people will
>>>>> not accept anything we do as anything other than a fluke or a miracle.
>>>>> Even faced with a clear description of the usefulness of other
>>>>> senses, they somehow still have to brush anything aside that
>>>>> conflicts with what they kno ... Blindness is essentially
>>>>> insurmountable. I think of it as being similar to the days when a few
>>>>> nutheads were trying to explain to the human race that the world is
>>>>> not
>>> flat.
>>>>>
>>>>> Coincidentally, I just got an e-mail from a rehab counsellor in PA,
>>>>> who I reached out to on Linked In -- I offer them a free e-book
>>>>> version of my novel and explain why I think it has value for them and
>>>>> their clients. I mention the issue of dealing with low expectations.
>>>>> This man said that, as
>>>>
>>>>> a
>>>>> person who used to work with BVI and now works with other
>>>>> disabilities, he believes that the issue of low expectations is much
>>>>> worse for those with vision loss. I have always felt that way, but I
>>>>> don't have the credentials to say so. It meant a lot to me to hear
>>>>> that
>>>> from someone.
>>>>>
>>>>> You hit on the reason behind my removing all references to blindness
>>>>> from my online book descriptions; it's a taboo. Just imagine someone
>>>>> getting my book and not knowing that the heroine is blind and has a
>>>>> guide dog. They will have to read through at least a page before it
>>>>> becomes clear to them. Some will be angry with me, because I didn't
>>>>> warn them. Some, I hope, will have gotten hooked by something else in
>>>>> the story and read it anyway. It's fiction, so they don't have to
>>>>> change their stupid belief systems, but I hope they will have a bit
>>>>> of an adjustment  in spite of themselves.
>>>>> Donna
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>>>> Lambert
>>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 9:18 AM
>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>
>>>>> It's a Friday morning snow storm here - a beautiful day outside. Time
>>>>> to get some coffee and begin my day, but first I wanted to drop a not
>>>>> on your discussion which is so interesting to me.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think Bridgit really hit it - unless a sighted person has had a lot
>>>>> of time together with a blind person, they are really clueless and
>>>>> they could care less about knowing positive things.  They still live
>>>>> with the mentality of the question they have asked themselves and
>>>>> each other for years, "Would you rather lose your sight, or your
>>> hearing?".
>>>>> To sighted people losing sight or hearing is the worst case scenario
>>>>> they can think of and they are not about to look any closer into
>>>>> either of the two life-challenges.  And, as Henrietta, experienced,
>>>>> even close family members really don't understand how we do things.
>>>>> Not really.  They watch us, but we are a mystery to them even though
>>>>> they have been around us many times over the years.
>>>>> Occasionally there is some little revelation that they grasp, but I
>>>>> think it is very rare.
>>>>>
>>>>> A couple years ago I went on a short 5 hour trip with my sister.
>>>>> When we arrived at our cousin's home, we had instructions to locate
>>>>> her house key and let ourselves in because they were away on vacation
>>>>> and we would have their home to stay in.  My sister retrieved the
>>>>> key, as instructed.  She began to try to open the door.  She fiddled
>>>>> around for quite awhile with the key and the lock in the door - yet,
>>>>> she could not get it open. She tried turning the key around, tried
>>>>> going faster, slower, but no luck.  Finally,
>>>>
>>>>> I
>>>>> quietly said to her, "Give me the key and let me see what I can do."
>>>>> She snickered and said "Oh, sure, you are going to open the door that
>>>>> you can't even see!"  I took the key from her, felt the key, and
>>>>> inserted it into the door's lock slowly. Then, I put my left had on
>>>>> the door, just above the lock, so I could FEEL any movement the lock
>>>>> would make.  And, I leaned very close to the lock, and I listened.
>>>>> Very quickly, as I slowly turned the key, I felt the vibration of it
>>>>> moving, and I heard the click as it was disengaged.  I smiled, and
>>>>> handed over the key to her, and said, "The door is open."  She loudly
>>>>> proclaimed, "I cannot believe it! A blind person could open the door
>>>>> and I couldn't."
>>>>>
>>>>> I smiled at her and said, "You could not open the door because you
>>>>> were using only your eyes. I opened it because I could feel it and
>>>>> hear it moving."  To her it was something very weird that I had
>>>>> actually opened up the door that she had struggled with and could not
>>>>> get the job done.  I think in her mind it was a lucky accident even
>>>>> though I explained why it happened.  Most sighted people do not think
>>>>> we can do much of anything, no matter what we achieve - honestly,
>>>>> that is what I think. So, for most sighted people to read about a
>>>>> blind hero in a fictional account, I say, "Dream on!"  I think the
>>>>> interest level for a sighted person to even read a book through is
>>>>> really a stretch unless that person is really on a mission to learn
>>>>> more about blindness and diversity and inclusion. Maybe in a
>>>>> literature course, where it would be included in the required
>>>>> reading, but on their own, I think the chances are quite slim.  But,
>>>>> then, as I write this I am optimistic enough to think I see a "movie"
>>>>> that could be made that would be exciting to them. Who knows? I sure
>>>>> don't.  Why is it that we are constantly told we are "amazing" when
>>>>> we do things that are high level achievements for anyone at all?  Why
>>>>> is it that some people droll all over us about how inspiring we are
>>>>> and how tragic it is that we
>>>> lost our sight?
>>>>> I just smile at them and say, "NO, not really! It is just who I am
>>>>> and who
>>>>
>>>>> I
>>>>> have always been."  That usually leaves them speechless and the
>>>>> conversation ends.  Write on! Lynda
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>>>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 9:07 PM
>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Great story!
>>>>>> Donna
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>>> Henrietta Brewer
>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 7:32 PM
>>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You guys make me laugh. You're right, Sighted people can't imagine
>>>>>> the blind being the hero. At Christmas, when the power was out in
>>>>>> our town, I had twenty five or thirty people here most days. We had
>>>>>> a generator so we had a few lights but not in more then half the
>>>>>> house.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I didn't think much of it while everyone was here. Though I was
>>>>>> tired of doing all the fetching because no one could find anything
>>>>>> in the dark.
>>>>>> When
>>>>>> everyone left and I was cleaning house, I saw how difficult it was
>>>>>> for our guests. They had only a flashlight in the bathroom and their
>>>>>> bedroom and nothing was where it should be.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> they all mention now, that they will call me in any black out. But
>>>>>> it took reality to get even family to realize that a blind person
>>>>>> can be helpful in a black out. lol Henrietta On Feb 13, 2014, at
>>>>>> 12:10 AM, Bridgit Pollpeter
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> When I wrote a short mystery story for a detective fiction class I
>>>>>>> took at university, I made my main character blind, which is the
>>>>>>> first time I did this. Anyway, at one point, the house the two main
>>>>>>> characters are sleeping in goes up in flames, and the blind
>>>>>>> character navigates them out of the house. Using his other senses,
>>>>>>> he makes it out the front door. I did do some research before
>>>>>>> writing the scene, but mostly based it off my own knowledge of what
>>>>>>> a blind person might do in that particular situation. When
>>>>>>> critiqueing our stories, a classmate said, to my face, it wasn't
>>>>>>> believeable that a blind person could do that and I should change
>>>>>>> that scene. Another classmate, to my surprise, said who better than
>>>>>>> a blind person to navigate through a situation where sight wouldn't
>>>>>>> be much help because of the smoke, and that by smell and feeling
>>>>>>> heat, surely a blind person would be able to navigate just as well,
>>>>>>> if not better, than a sighted person. After considering this point,
>>>>>>> the first person half-heartedly agreed. My point being that I agree
>>>>>>> with Chris that even though these stories are being written by
>>>>>>> blind people, most of the sighted world can't, or won't, buy a
>>>>>>> blind person doing the things we make them do, living as
>>>>>>> independent, active,
>>>> vital people.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Bridgit
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>>>> Chris Kuell
>>>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 7:47 AM
>>>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Donna,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm generally skeptical by nature, but I really hope they do a good
>>>>>>> job with this show. It's exactly what we've been talking about
>>>>>>> here--an opportunity to crush the stupid stereotypes and let the
>>>>>>> public see a guy who is interesting, and just happens to be blind.
>>>>>>> If it does a good job, and if the public enjoys it, it could open
>>>>>>> the door to more blind characters in the
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> arts. Personally, I feel certain that the reason books like yours
>>>>>>> and mine aren't getting read by agents and traditional publishers
>>>>>>> is because we have blind protagonists. An agent, or more likely, an
>>>>>>> agent's assistant reads my query and thinks--a blind protagonist?
>>>>>>> Nobody is going to buy that. It's too outside mainstream experience.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hopefully, the times, they are a changing.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> chris
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
>>>>>>> stylist mailing list
>>>>>>> stylist at nfbnet.org
>>>>>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
>>>>>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info
>>>>>>> for
>>>>>>> stylist:
>>>>>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/bpollpeter%40h
>>>>>>> o
>>>>>>> tm
>>>>>>> ai
>>>>>>> l.com
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
>>>>>>> stylist mailing list
>>>>>>> stylist at nfbnet.org
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>>>>>>> for
>>>>>> stylist:
>>>>>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/gary.brewer%40
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>>>>>>> om
>>>>>>> cast.net
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
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>>>>>> stylist:
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>>>>>
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>>>> 0gmail
>>>>>> .com
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
>>>>>> stylist mailing list
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>>>>>> stylist:
>>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>> ternet
>>>>> .net
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
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>>>>> stylist at nfbnet.org
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>>>>> stylist:
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
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>>>>> stylist:
>>>>>
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>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Writers Division web site
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>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Writers Division web site
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>>>
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>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 08:41:06 -0500
>> From: "Jacobson, Shawn D" <Shawn.D.Jacobson at hud.gov>
>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List' <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind; RE:  New Book,
>> 	blindness on TV
>> Message-ID:
>> 	<8838F3FB8A7BB044AA6DE247E617C6F20101DAA204 at ELANNEPV117.exh.prod.hud.gov>
>> 	
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>>
>> On the other hand, when I attended the Iowa School for the Blind, we had
>> what I would call a subculture.  We had our own variant of baseball
>> (played
>> in stairwells).  We also had our own traditions arising from being in the
>> institution.  The culture was less about blindness (per se) than about
>> where
>> we lived and about being isolated from the outside world.
>>
>> Shawn
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Bridgit
>> Pollpeter
>> Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 11:12 AM
>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind; RE: New Book,
>> blindness on TV
>>
>> I don't think we can refer to blindness as a culture. A culture has a
>> language, customs, often a religion, etc. very distinct things specific to
>> a
>> particular group. Blindness doesn't have any of this. As blind people, we
>> participate in various cultures. Being blind and using different methods
>> and
>> tools doesn't equate to a culture. We grow up and live in and choose to
>> join
>> a culture, and some of us happen to be disabled. A blind person who is
>> Native American or Hungarian or middle eastern doesn't share the same
>> culture as I do because we are blind. We are all part of unique and
>> diverse
>> cultures, blindness not being part of it. Blindness may color our world
>> view
>> based on the psychological and societal ramifications of bliefs held
>> within
>> a certain culture, but blindness itself has nothing to do with culture.
>>
>> Bridgit
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>> Applebutter
>> Hill
>> Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2014 12:50 PM
>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind;RE: New Book,
>> blindness
>> on TV
>>
>>
>> Lynda,
>> Well stated. Just because you can read the words in a book doesn't mean
>> you
>> can appreciate the references and meanings. You end up enjoying it and
>> interpreting it from the point of view you have developed from your
>> experience in your own culture. It's kind of like an extension of the
>> idea
>> of  running into a word or historical or literary reference that's
>> unfamiliar to you. You can read on and even get a lot out of the book,
>> but
>> you will have missed something. It's also like going back to a book you
>> enjoyed as a kid and finding things in it that you didn't notice the
>> first
>> time. Your experiences and the breadth of your knowledge give you tools
>> that
>> enable you to come closer to understanding what the writer has put into
>> the
>> work.
>>
>> As for blind  writers, we all start out as part of our cultures  --
>> white,
>> Latino, African-American, Asian, native American, mixed race;
>> middle-class,
>> rich or poor; Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Hindi, atheist; Southern Western
>> and so on.
>>
>> How integrated into society our families are as a whole makes a huge
>> difference as well; new immigrants and refugees vs. the DAR, for
>> instance.
>> Most blind people grow up sighted and learned something about blindness
>> from
>> the beliefs and practices of our native culture. but blindness subjects
>> all
>> of us to a certain level of marginalization, regardless of our success.
>> We
>> grow to see our specific culture through our experiences as blind people.
>> Our response to this marginalization, however, differs widely. In part
>> this
>> is due to the culture we live within, and in part it depends on our
>> individual emotional make-up. It also depends on whether or not we have
>> accepted the place in our culture given to "the blind." There are also
>> blind
>> people who grew up in homes and communities that are more enlightened
>> than
>> most and don't experience the same level of marginalization as most of
>> us.
>> Hopefully, our NFB children fall into this group. This is not to say that
>> they don't experience discrimination and ignorance, but they deal with it
>> from a more secure, less gut-wrenching place than most.
>>
>> One of the most significant differences between other marginalized
>> minorities and the blindness community is that we are a scattered
>> minority.
>> Most blind people are the only blind people in their families.
>> This separation is not generally the case with other minorities. In the
>> oppression of women and blacks, for instance, it would be highly unusual
>> to
>> find a woman who didn't have day to day contact with other women; same
>> for
>> blacks, religious minorities and economic status.
>>
>> Gays come closer to this situation than any other group, but the reality
>> of
>> their sexual preference drives them to find each other in a way that
>> blindness does not. Also, their ability to "pass" allows them access to
>> social, educational and employment opportunities we don't have.
>>
>> The fact that blindness as a culture is not as cohesive as being part of
>> other minorities may make looking for a predominant blindness perspective
>> in
>> the work of blind writers more difficult . In the NFB, we have developed
>> our
>> own culture and identity and there are shared perspectives upon which
>> each
>> of us base our individual beliefs. As strong as we are and as much as we
>> have accomplished, however, we represent a small portion of the blindness
>> community as a whole. I wonder if it isn't that way with other civil
>> rights
>> movements. There is a radicalized minority within the minority which
>> leads
>> the way. Blind writers don't all share this perspective.
>>
>> Anyway, I will be interested in hearing what you think after a
>> re-examination of the work of blind writers. Donna
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>> Lambert
>> Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2014 8:20 AM
>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind;RE: New Book,
>> blindness
>> on TV
>>
>> It would be done the same way we interpret the writings or art of
>> different
>> cultural groups. If you do not study the culture of the artist/writer
>> then
>> you do not really have a grasp of meanings, influences, and psychology in
>> the work they produce.
>>
>> For instance, when I taught African American Literature, the students had
>> to
>> study the various African influences in the work - the "why" the writer
>> has
>> chosen different themes, and trace those themes back in their history.
>>
>> I taught Puerto Rican art/literature, and Native American art/writing -
>> and
>> to understand these more fully, my students were required not only to
>> spend
>> the semester in the classroom studies, but to actually go on trips to
>> those
>> locations to explore the landscape, the culture, the psychology of the
>> culture, the music, dance, customs, etc.  Without looking deeply into the
>> culture we cannot even begin to look through a different lens when
>> reading
>> or observing the art of that person.
>>
>> My African American friend was my very close colleague. Once we were at a
>> conference together and we went into a laughing fit one night in our
>> hotel
>> room when we began to realize that SHE had a more Greek Worldview , and
>> my
>> worldview was more African!
>>
>> We are far more than a blind person - that is just who we are externally
>> at
>> this moment. But, we are all the generations of our ancestors, we have
>> deep
>> roots in the past and if we do not explore those things then we remain
>> ignorant of who we really are and how we got to where we are today.
>>
>> When I walk in the woods, on the ridge behind my home, and hear the
>> waters
>> of the creek below me - I hear my great grandmother walking beside me.
>> She
>> is Native American and I am very aware of her presence in my life today.
>> When I first visited Austria and Germany, I looked around at the people
>> who
>> live there, and I saw ME.  My sister and I looked at each other and she
>> said, "All of these people here look just like us. I see us in all of
>> their
>> faces."
>>
>> So I think that is why I embraced my own sight loss so quickly because I
>> realize I am far more than what I appear to be at a momentary glance. As
>> are
>> we all. We carry our ancestors inside of us and they guide us in our life
>> journey in all that we do.
>>
>> Lynda
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "justin williams" <justin.williams2 at gmail.com>
>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2014 8:01 AM
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind;RE: New Book,
>> blindness
>> on TV
>>
>>
>>> How would ou have looked at an author who is blind differently or an
>>> artist who is blind differently?
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>> Lambert
>>> Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2014 7:59 AM
>>> To: newmanrl at cox.net; Writer's Division Mailing List
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind; RE: New Book,
>>> blindness on TV
>>>
>>> This conversation is making me begin to think about some authors I
>>> taught in the past in Humanities and English courses.  Now that I am
>>> "aware" of blindness, which I was NOT at all in the past, I am
>>> wondering how I would interpret the literature of a blind author. I
>>> taught Bourges and I never
>>> knew he was blind!   I am thinking that now, if I go back to read his
>>> work,
>>> I will interpret many things in a different way.  I taught the "Book
>>> of Sand" every semester!  Hmmmm.  Now it makes even more sense as an
>>> exampe lof of Postmodernism which was the focus it had for me at the
>>> time.  WOW, this is beginning to be a revelation to me.  I know that
>>> many of the artists I taught were blind or visually impaired, but
>>> their work was not generally explored through that lens. I am going to
>>
>>> begin looking much deeper into this for my own research
>>> - if anyone has any more information on artists and writers who
>>> are/were blind I would love to hear from you as I begin my own little
>>> research project on this matter.
>>>
>>> I am re-learning how to do Power Point presentations now. Normally,
>>> this is how I lectured but until now, I could not have done it again.
>>> I know now, that I can do it, it's just going to take awhile for me to
>>
>>> teach myself again.  I am scheduled to do two presentation at Slippery
>>
>>> Rock University of PA in March - I'll use my milestone to give me
>>> verbal "cues" as I am speaking, for these presentations. But, I want
>>> to begin to develop some presentations using power point and I am sure
>>
>>> I can do it again - I just need to have the time and put in the work
>>> to accomplish it.  I have always loved doing lectures and
>>> presentations and I want to do them again - so I am gonna work on it!
>>>
>>> Lynda
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Robert Leslie Newman" <newmanrl at cox.net>
>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 11:22 PM
>>> Subject: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind;RE: New Book,
>>> blindness on TV
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hi you all, this has been an interesting conversation:
>>>>
>>>> Here is another generalization that many around the world have
>>>> developed over the eons: Blindness is the most God awful, feared
>>>> physical condition that mankind can experience.
>>>>
>>>> I had read and heard this forever, from the mouths of people on the
>>>> street, to what I've learned in a variety of college classes..though,
>>
>>>> over the past couple of decades blindness has been pushed down to
>>>> third place. Guess what has eclipsed being blind as the most feared?
>>>> Aids and cancer. And hey, I can believe that these two physical
>>>> conditions are far worse...after all, either one of these two monster
>>
>>>> conditions can kill you!!! (Though, there are some who feel that
>>>> blindness is a living death. And yeah, if you allow it to rule! And
>>>> this is where the NFB has done the world a great service...as in we
>>>> have developed a philosophy, built a framework of alternative
>>>> techniques, and influenced the making of a wide variety of tools that
>>
>>>> in combination...will allow most of us to reduce the effects of
>>>> blindness, down to  a level whereby most of us can say with an
>>>> honesty level of 100%, 100%, that the loss of sight is not a major
>>>> impediment to living a successful and happy life. No...the true
>>>> problem we face is more the ignorance and the lack of information
>>>> about the human potential to successfully live with blindness is the
>>>> toughest impediment to being blind. MMM, go figure? [Being blind
>>>> isn't the problem, living in a world of ignorance is.]
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>> Applebutter Hill
>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 9:10 PM
>>>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>> Lynda,
>>>> At 70, I should certainly hope you (or anyone) would have developed a
>>
>>>> healthy level of skepticism. *grin*
>>>>
>>>> I know that black people face prejudice and low expectations, but I
>>>> think the fact that white people enslaved them to actually do
>>>> something, makes that low level quite a bit higher than for blind
>>>> people. We aren't deemed capable of planting a field, keeping up a
>>>> household or even caring for children -- as the incident in the
>>>> Midwest a few years ago shoed, when a child was removed shortly after
>>> birth from its blind parents.
>>>>
>>>> Our traditional purpose is to give the average person something they
>>>> can look at and say, "Well, I may have problems, but at least I'm not
>>> blind."
>>>> We
>>>> also have traditionally provided them with opportunities to do good
>>>> deeds. Expecting us to no longer be helpless fundamentally changes
>>>> how they see themselves.
>>>>
>>>> Your post reminds me of a story I heard from a blind woman who was
>>>> accepted to grad school. Her aunt was furious that she had stolen the
>>
>>>> position from someone who could really benefit from it. The belief
>>>> was that anything that a blind person accomplished was just another
>>>> example of the kindness of strangers in elevating a pitiful person
>>>> and helping them feel better about themselves. BTW, she has a
>>>> doctorate in law. I heard many similar stories when I was writing
>>>> about Braille literacy -- they weren't on topic at the time, and I
>>>> had hoped to gather some of the things people told me into articles
>>>> about some of these more subtle things that are going on to this day,
>>
>>>> but it never happened. Donna
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>>> Lambert
>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 6:31 PM
>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>> Donna, yes, the expectations for blind people are very low.  I
>>>> believe that is why blind people as a group are the highest educated
>>>> of all people with disabilities, yet, they are the lowest employed
>>>> people of all the groups. This says it all - we are not expected to
>>>> be smart, able, or willing to succeed at anything more than very low
>>>> levels. This is my own thoughts on it and I recognize I am quite
>>>> skeptical about it
>>>> - but heck, I am 70 years old now, so I guess I can blame it on my
>> age.
>>>> I think we have to work so far beyond what other people have to do to
>>>> find success at so many things. And, this is also true of black
>>>> people.  I do not know this from a distance, or from reading books on
>>>> the subject which of course I do all the time. I know it personally,
>>>> because my son is black and his family is black - they are very
>> highly
>>>> educated professionals - she a physician, he a psychologist.  At
>> every
>>>> level, black people still face very low expectations and racism - and
>>>> I think blind people are very close to the same in the general view
>> of
>>>> the ST"STUPID public. I agree with you. They are ver STUPID, but we
>>>> won't tell them that, just yet. lol
>>>>
>>>> Lynda
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 3:34 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Lynda,
>>>>> Like you've noticed with your sister and the key, sighted people
>>>>> will not accept anything we do as anything other than a fluke or a
>>>>> miracle. Even faced with a clear description of the usefulness of
>>>>> other senses, they somehow still have to brush anything aside that
>>>>> conflicts with what they kno ... Blindness is essentially
>>>>> insurmountable. I think of it as being similar to the days when a
>>>>> few nutheads were trying to explain to the human race that the world
>>
>>>>> is not
>>> flat.
>>>>>
>>>>> Coincidentally, I just got an e-mail from a rehab counsellor in PA,
>>>>> who I reached out to on Linked In -- I offer them a free e-book
>>>>> version of my novel and explain why I think it has value for them
>>>>> and their clients. I mention the issue of dealing with low
>>>>> expectations. This man said that, as
>>>>
>>>>> a
>>>>> person who used to work with BVI and now works with other
>>>>> disabilities, he believes that the issue of low expectations is much
>>
>>>>> worse for those with vision loss. I have always felt that way, but I
>>
>>>>> don't have the credentials to say so. It meant a lot to me to hear
>>>>> that
>>>> from someone.
>>>>>
>>>>> You hit on the reason behind my removing all references to blindness
>>
>>>>> from my online book descriptions; it's a taboo. Just imagine someone
>>
>>>>> getting my book and not knowing that the heroine is blind and has a
>>>>> guide dog. They will have to read through at least a page before it
>>>>> becomes clear to them. Some will be angry with me, because I didn't
>>>>> warn them. Some, I hope, will have gotten hooked by something else
>>>>> in the story and read it anyway. It's fiction, so they don't have to
>>
>>>>> change their stupid belief systems, but I hope they will have a bit
>>>>> of an adjustment  in spite of themselves. Donna -----Original
>>>>> Message-----
>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>>>> Lambert
>>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 9:18 AM
>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>
>>>>> It's a Friday morning snow storm here - a beautiful day outside.
>>>>> Time to get some coffee and begin my day, but first I wanted to drop
>>
>>>>> a not on your discussion which is so interesting to me.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think Bridgit really hit it - unless a sighted person has had a
>>>>> lot of time together with a blind person, they are really clueless
>>>>> and they could care less about knowing positive things.  They still
>>>>> live with the mentality of the question they have asked themselves
>>>>> and each other for years, "Would you rather lose your sight, or your
>>> hearing?".
>>>>> To sighted people losing sight or hearing is the worst case scenario
>>
>>>>> they can think of and they are not about to look any closer into
>>>>> either of the two life-challenges.  And, as Henrietta, experienced,
>>>>> even close family members really don't understand how we do things.
>>>>> Not really.  They watch us, but we are a mystery to them even though
>>
>>>>> they have been around us many times over the years. Occasionally
>>>>> there is some little revelation that they grasp, but I think it is
>>>>> very rare.
>>>>>
>>>>> A couple years ago I went on a short 5 hour trip with my sister.
>>>>> When we arrived at our cousin's home, we had instructions to locate
>>>>> her house key and let ourselves in because they were away on
>>>>> vacation and we would have their home to stay in.  My sister
>>>>> retrieved the key, as instructed.  She began to try to open the
>>>>> door.  She fiddled around for quite awhile with the key and the lock
>>
>>>>> in the door - yet, she could not get it open. She tried turning the
>>>>> key around, tried going faster, slower, but no luck.  Finally,
>>>>
>>>>> I
>>>>> quietly said to her, "Give me the key and let me see what I can do."
>>
>>>>> She snickered and said "Oh, sure, you are going to open the door
>>>>> that you can't even see!"  I took the key from her, felt the key,
>>>>> and inserted it into the door's lock slowly. Then, I put my left had
>>
>>>>> on the door, just above the lock, so I could FEEL any movement the
>>>>> lock would make.  And, I leaned very close to the lock, and I
>>>>> listened. Very quickly, as I slowly turned the key, I felt the
>>>>> vibration of it moving, and I heard the click as it was disengaged.
>>
>>>>> I smiled, and handed over the key to her, and said, "The door is
>>>>> open."  She loudly proclaimed, "I cannot believe it! A blind person
>>>>> could open the door and I couldn't."
>>>>>
>>>>> I smiled at her and said, "You could not open the door because you
>>>>> were using only your eyes. I opened it because I could feel it and
>>>>> hear it moving."  To her it was something very weird that I had
>>>>> actually opened up the door that she had struggled with and could
>>>>> not get the job done.  I think in her mind it was a lucky accident
>>>>> even though I explained why it happened.  Most sighted people do not
>>
>>>>> think we can do much of anything, no matter what we achieve -
>>>>> honestly, that is what I think. So, for most sighted people to read
>>>>> about a blind hero in a fictional account, I say, "Dream on!"  I
>>>>> think the interest level for a sighted person to even read a book
>>>>> through is really a stretch unless that person is really on a
>>>>> mission to learn more about blindness and diversity and inclusion.
>>>>> Maybe in a literature course, where it would be included in the
>>>>> required reading, but on their own, I think the chances are quite
>>>>> slim.  But, then, as I write this I am optimistic enough to think I
>>>>> see a "movie" that could be made that would be exciting to them. Who
>>
>>>>> knows? I sure don't.  Why is it that we are constantly told we are
>>>>> "amazing" when we do things that are high level achievements for
>>>>> anyone at all?  Why is it that some people droll all over us about
>>>>> how inspiring we are and how tragic it is that we
>>>> lost our sight?
>>>>> I just smile at them and say, "NO, not really! It is just who I am
>>>>> and who
>>>>
>>>>> I
>>>>> have always been."  That usually leaves them speechless and the
>>>>> conversation ends.  Write on! Lynda
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>>>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 9:07 PM
>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Great story!
>>>>>> Donna
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>>> Henrietta Brewer
>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 7:32 PM
>>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You guys make me laugh. You're right, Sighted people can't imagine
>>>>>> the blind being the hero. At Christmas, when the power was out in
>>>>>> our town, I had twenty five or thirty people here most days. We had
>>
>>>>>> a generator so we had a few lights but not in more then half the
>>>>>> house.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I didn't think much of it while everyone was here. Though I was
>>>>>> tired of doing all the fetching because no one could find anything
>>>>>> in the dark. When everyone left and I was cleaning house, I saw how
>>>>>> difficult it was for our guests. They had only a flashlight in the
>>>>>> bathroom and
>> their
>>>>>> bedroom and nothing was where it should be.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> they all mention now, that they will call me in any black out. But
>>>>>> it took reality to get even family to realize that a blind person
>>>>>> can be helpful in a black out. lol Henrietta On Feb 13, 2014, at
>>>>>> 12:10 AM, Bridgit Pollpeter
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> When I wrote a short mystery story for a detective fiction class I
>>
>>>>>>> took at university, I made my main character blind, which is the
>>>>>>> first time I did this. Anyway, at one point, the house the two
>>>>>>> main characters are sleeping in goes up in flames, and the blind
>>>>>>> character navigates them out of the house. Using his other senses,
>>
>>>>>>> he makes it out the front door. I did do some research before
>>>>>>> writing the scene, but mostly based it off my own knowledge of
>>>>>>> what a blind person might do in that particular situation. When
>>>>>>> critiqueing our stories, a classmate said, to my face, it wasn't
>>>>>>> believeable that a blind person could do that and I should change
>>>>>>> that scene. Another classmate, to my surprise, said who better
>>>>>>> than a blind person to navigate through a situation where sight
>>>>>>> wouldn't be much help because of the smoke, and that by smell and
>>>>>>> feeling heat, surely a blind person would be able to navigate just
>>
>>>>>>> as well, if not better, than a sighted person. After considering
>>>>>>> this point, the first person half-heartedly agreed. My point being
>>
>>>>>>> that I agree with Chris that even though these stories are being
>>>>>>> written by blind people, most of the sighted world can't, or
>>>>>>> won't, buy a blind person doing the things we make them do, living
>>
>>>>>>> as independent, active,
>>>> vital people.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Bridgit
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>>>> Chris Kuell
>>>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 7:47 AM
>>>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Donna,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm generally skeptical by nature, but I really hope they do a
>>>>>>> good job with this show. It's exactly what we've been talking
>>>>>>> about here--an opportunity to crush the stupid stereotypes and let
>>
>>>>>>> the public see a guy who is interesting, and just happens to be
>>>>>>> blind. If it does a good job, and if the public enjoys it, it
>>>>>>> could open the door to more blind characters in the
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> arts. Personally, I feel certain that the reason books like yours
>>>>>>> and mine aren't getting read by agents and traditional publishers
>>>>>>> is because we have blind protagonists. An agent, or more likely,
>>>>>>> an agent's assistant reads my query and thinks--a blind
>>>>>>> protagonist? Nobody is going to buy that. It's too outside
>>>>>>> mainstream experience.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hopefully, the times, they are a changing.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> chris
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>>
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>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 3
>> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 11:37:09 -0500
>> From: "Lynda Lambert" <llambert at zoominternet.net>
>> To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors,	new books
>> 	and more &:  Is Literature Against us? NFB Speech
>> Message-ID: <253D9227934B43A1A57A85D67E37CBB5 at Lambert>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
>> 	reply-type=original
>>
>> I finally read this conference presentation this morning.  It is
>> fantastic.
>>
>> I can think of a variety of other references and situations found in
>> literature besides the ones he talks about here.  While I was listening
>> to
>> this speech, I was envisioning the art works throughout history that
>> support
>>
>> his examples. One very strong image that came to my mind was Caravaggio's
>> paintings, circa 1602 of the blinding of Saul.  We see in more than one
>> version, the moment that Christ appeared to him in a blinding light.  All
>> of
>>
>> the people around him were blinded as well as Saul. t the instant he was
>> struck blind.  such  powerful paintings are forever embedded in my mind
>> from
>>
>> studies I did decades ago. The paintings of all ages that show the idea
>> of
>> blinding and blindness are unforgetable and illuminating.  Here we can
>> connect the dots that with the sudden blindness comes a change so
>> dramatic
>> and profound.  In the literature, the images remain as clearly to us -
>> the
>> images come alive and we believe what we have read in the text if we are
>> deep readers and are engaged in the stories.  When you stand before
>> Caravaggio's paintings in the churches in Europe where they hang, you can
>> feel the disaster that has taken place in the stories, and you can  hear
>> the
>>
>> terror and the screams of the people there in that scene. The same for
>> the
>> literature , because they are universal themes that are for people of
>> every
>>
>> age and for all times.
>>
>> I really appreciate the time it took for you to find this speech and I
>> have
>>
>> copied it for later reference when I am able to look more deeply into it.
>>
>> What a brilliant mind I can see behind the text here in this speech!   I
>> really loved reading this today.  Isn't scholarship and deep research
>> exciting!!!
>> Thank you so much! Lynda
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Jacobson, Shawn D" <Shawn.D.Jacobson at hud.gov>
>> To: <newmanrl at cox.net>; "'Writer's Division Mailing List'"
>> <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 8:20 AM
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors, new books and
>> more &: Is Literature Against us? NFB Speech
>>
>>
>>> This brings back memories.  I remember reading "Blindness is Literature
>>> Against us" in braille at the Iowa Braille School.  This was back in the
>>> early '70's when being a Federationist could get you in trouble, so you
>>> had to hide Federation literature under the bed.
>>>
>>> Anyway, thanks for reminding us.
>>>
>>> Shawn
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Robert
>>> Leslie Newman
>>> Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 10:07 AM
>>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors, new books and
>>> more &: Is Literature Against us? NFB Speech
>>>
>>> Hey you all, here is more on the topic of blind authors, the blind as
>>> portrayed on TV, in books, etc. This is a Kenneth Jernigan banquet
>>> speech
>>> and it hits at more of this present theme of ours:
>>> Blindness: Is Literature Against Us?
>>> An Address Delivered by Kenneth Jernigan
>>> President, National Federation of the Blind
>>> At the Banquet of the Annual Convention
>>> Chicago, July 3, 1974
>>> History, we are told, is the record of what human beings have done;
>>> literature, the record of what they have thought. Last year I examined
>>> with
>>> you the place of the blind in history-not just what we have done but
>>> what
>>> the historians have remembered and said we have done. The two, as we
>>> found,
>>> are vastly different.
>>> This year I would like to talk with you about the place of the blind in
>>> literature. How have we been perceived? What has been our role? How have
>>> the
>>> poets and novelists, the essayists and dramatists seen us? Have they
>>> "told
>>> it like it is," or merely liked it as they've told it?
>>> With history there is at least a supposed foundation of fact. Whatever
>>> the
>>> twisting or omission or misinterpretation or downright falsehood, that
>>> foundation presumably remains-a tether and a touchstone, always subject
>>> to
>>> reexamination and new proof. Not so with literature. The author is free
>>> to
>>> cut through facts to the essence, to dream and soar and surmise. Going
>>> deeper than history, the myths and feelings of a people are enshrined in
>>> its
>>> literature. Literary culture in all its forms constitutes possibly the
>>> main
>>> transmission belt of our society's beliefs and values-more important
>>> even
>>> than the schools, the churches, the news media, or the family. How,
>>> then,
>>> have we fared in literature?
>>> The literary record reveals no single theme or unitary view of the life
>>> of
>>> the blind. Instead, it displays a bewildering variety of images-often
>>> conflicting and contradictory, not only as between different ages or
>>> cultures, or among the works of various writers, but even within the
>>> pages
>>> of a single book.
>>> Yet, upon closer examination the principal themes and motifs of
>>> literature
>>> and popular culture are nine in number and may be summarized as follows:
>>> blindness as compensatory or miraculous power, blindness as total
>>> tragedy;
>>> blindness as foolishness and helplessness; blindness as unrelieved
>>> wickedness and evil; blindness as perfect virtue; blindness as
>>> punishment
>>> for sin; blindness as abnormality or dehumanization; blindness as
>>> purification; and blindness as symbol or parable.
>>> Let us begin with blindness and compensatory powers. Suppose one of you
>>> should ask me whether I think there is any advantage in being blind; and
>>> suppose I should answer like this: "Not an advantage perhaps: still it
>>> has
>>> compensations that one might not think of. A new world to explore, new
>>> experiences, new powers awakening; strange new perceptions; life in the
>>> fourth dimension." How would you react to that? You would, I suspect,
>>> laugh
>>> me out of the room. I doubt that a single person here would buy such
>>> stereotyped stupidity. You and I know from firsthand experience that
>>> there
>>> is no "fourth dimension" to blindness-no miraculous new powers
>>> awakening,
>>>
>>> no
>>> strange new perceptions, no brave new worlds to explore. Yet, the words
>>> I
>>> have quoted are those of a blind character in a popular novel of some
>>> time
>>> back. (I don't know whether the term has significance, but a blind
>>> "private
>>> eye," no less.)
>>> The association of blindness with compensatory powers, illustrated by
>>> the
>>> blind detective I have just mentioned, represents a venerable tradition,
>>> reaching back to classical mythology. A favorite method of punishment
>>> among
>>> the gods of ancient Greece was blinding-regarded apparently as a fate
>>> worse
>>> than death-following which, more often than not, the gods so pitied the
>>> blinded victim that they relented and conferred upon him extraordinary
>>> gifts, usually the power of prophecy or some other exceptional skill.
>>> Thus,
>>> Homer was widely regarded as having been compensated by the gift of
>>> poetry.
>>> In the same way Tiresias, who wandered through the plays of Sophocles,
>>> received for his blindness the gift of prophecy.
>>> The theme of divine compensation following divine retribution survived
>>> the
>>> passage of the ages and the decline of the pagan religions. Sir Arthur
>>> Conan
>>> Doyle (one of the most eminent novelists of the last century, and the
>>> creator of Sherlock Holmes) conjured up a blind character with something
>>> of
>>> Holmes's sleuthing talents, in a book entitled Sir Nigel. This figure is
>>> introduced as one who has the mysterious ability to detect by hearing a
>>> hidden tunnel, which runs beneath the besieged castle. His compensatory
>>> powers are described in a conversation between two other people in the
>>> novel:
>>> "This man was once rich and of good repute [says one], but he was
>>> beggared
>>> by this robber lord who afterwards put out his eyes, so that he has
>>> lived
>>> for many years in darkness at the charity of others."
>>> "How can he help in our enterprise if he be indeed blind?" [asks his
>>> companion.]
>>> "It is for that very reason, fair Lord, that he can be of greater
>>> service
>>> than any other man. For it often happens that when a man has lost a
>>> sense,
>>> the good God will strengthen those that remain. Hence it is that Andreas
>>> has
>>> such ears that he can hear the sap in the trees or the cheep of the
>>> mouse
>>>
>>> in
>>> its burrow . . ."2
>>> The great nineteenth-century novelist Victor Hugo, in The Man Who
>>> Laughs,
>>> reflected the view of a host of modern writers that blindness carries
>>> with
>>> it a certain purity and ecstasy, which somehow makes up for the loss of
>>> sight. His blind heroine, Dea, is portrayed as "absorbed by that kind of
>>> ecstasy peculiar to the blind, which seems at times to give them a song
>>> to
>>> listen to in their souls and to make up to them for the light which they
>>> lack by some strain of ideal music. Blindness," says Hugo, "is a cavern
>>> to
>>> which reaches the deep harmony of the Eternal."3
>>> Probably it is this mystical notion of a "sixth sense" accompanying
>>> blindness that accounts for the rash of blind detectives and
>>> investigators
>>> in popular fiction. Max Carrados, the man who talked of living in the
>>> "fourth dimension," first appeared in 1914 and went on to survive a
>>> number
>>> of superhuman escapades through the nineteen twenties. In 1915 came
>>> another
>>> sightless sleuth-the remarkable Damon Gaunt, who "never lost a case."4
>>> So
>>>
>>> it
>>> is with "Thornley Colton, Blind Detective," the brainchild of Clinton H.
>>> Stagg; and so it is with the most illustrious of all the private eyes
>>> without eyes, Captain Duncan Maclain, whose special qualities are set
>>> forth
>>> in the deathless prose of a dust jacket:
>>> "Shooting to kill by sound, playing chess with fantastic precision, and,
>>> of
>>> course, quickening the hearts of the opposite sex, Captain Maclain has
>>> won
>>> the unreserved admiration of reviewers."5
>>> Even the author is carried away with the genius of his hero: "There were
>>> moments," he writes, "when powers slightly greater than those possessed
>>> by
>>> ordinary mortals seemed bestowed on Duncan Maclain. Such moments worried
>>> him."6
>>> They might worry us, as well; for all of this mumbo jumbo about abnormal
>>> or
>>> supernatural powers doesn't lessen the stereotype of the blind person as
>>> alien and different, unnatural and peculiar. It makes it worse.
>>> Not only is it untrue, but it is also a profound disservice to the
>>> blind;
>>> for it suggests that whatever a blind person may accomplish is not due
>>> to
>>> his own ability but to some magic inherent in blindness itself. This
>>> assumption of compensatory powers removes the blind person at a stroke
>>> of
>>> the pen from the realm of the normal-the ordinary, everyday world of
>>> plain
>>> people-and places him in a limbo of abnormality. Whether supernormal or
>>> subnormal does not matter-he is without responsibility, without rights,
>>> and
>>> without society. We have been conned into this view of second-class
>>> status
>>> long enough. The play is over. We want no more of magic powers and
>>> compensations. We want our rights as citizens and human beings-and we
>>> intend
>>> to have them!
>>> It is significant that, for all his supposed charm and talent, Maclain
>>> never
>>> gets the girl-or any girl. The author plainly regards him as ineligible
>>> for
>>> such normal human relationships as love, sex, and marriage. Max Carrados
>>> put
>>> it this way in replying to an acquaintance who expressed great comfort
>>> in
>>> his presence: "Blindness invites confidence," he says. "We are out of
>>> the
>>> running-for us human rivalry ceases to exist."7
>>> This notion of compensatory powers-the doctrine that blindness is its
>>> own
>>> reward-is no compliment but an insult. It robs us of all credit for our
>>> achievements and all responsibility for our failings. It neatly relieves
>>> society of any obligation to equalize conditions or provide
>>> opportunities
>>>
>>> or
>>> help us help ourselves. It leaves us in the end without the capacity to
>>> lead
>>> a regular, competitive, and participating life in the community around
>>> us.
>>> The blind, in short, may (according to this view) be extraordinary, but
>>> we
>>> can never be ordinary. Don't you believe it! We are normal
>>> people-neither
>>> especially blessed nor especially cursed-and the fiction to the contrary
>>> must come to an end! It is not mumbo jumbo we want, or magical
>>> powers-but
>>> our rights as free people, our responsibilities as citizens, and our
>>> dignity
>>> as human beings.
>>> Negative as it is, this image of compensatory powers is less vicious and
>>> destructive than some others which run through the literature of fiction
>>> and
>>> fantasy. The most damaging of all is also the oldest and most
>>> persistent:
>>> namely, the theme of blindness as total tragedy, the image summed up in
>>> the
>>> ancient Hebrew saying, "The blind man is as one dead." The Oedipus cycle
>>> of
>>> Greek tragic plays pressed the death-in-life stereotype to its farthest
>>> extreme. Thus, in "Oedipus Rex", in which the king puts out his own
>>> eyes,
>>> the statement occurs: "Thou art better off dead than living blind." It
>>> remained, however, for an Englishman, blind himself, to write the last
>>> word
>>> (what today would be called "the bottom line") on blindness as total
>>> disaster. John Milton says in Samson Agonistes:
>>> Blind among enemies, worse than chains, Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit
>>> age!... Inferior to the vilest now become of man or worm; the vilest
>>> here
>>> excel me, They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed To daily fraud,
>>> contempt, abuse, and wrong, Within doors, or without, still as a fool,
>>> In
>>> power of others, never in my own; Scarce half I seem to live, Dead more
>>> than
>>> half.... a moving grave.8
>>> What is most striking about this epic poem is not the presence of the
>>> disaster concept (that might have been expected) but the fact that
>>> Milton
>>>
>>> of
>>> all people was the author. His greatest writing (including "Paradise
>>> Lost")
>>> was done after his blindness. Then why did he do it? The answer is
>>> simple:
>>> We the blind tend to see ourselves as others see us. Even when we know
>>> to
>>> the contrary, we tend to accept the public view of our limitations.
>>> Thus,
>>>
>>> we
>>> help make those limitations a reality. Betrayed by the forces of
>>> literature
>>> and tradition, Milton (in his turn) betrayed himself and all others who
>>> are
>>> blind. In fact, he actually strengthened and reinforced the
>>> stereotype-and
>>> he did it in spite of his own personal experience to the contrary. The
>>> force
>>> of literature is strong, indeed!
>>> The disaster concept of blindness did not stop with Milton. "William
>>> Tell",
>>> the eighteenth-century play by Schiller, shows us an old man, blinded
>>> and
>>> forced to become a beggar. His son says:
>>> Oh, the eye's light, of all the gifts of Heaven the dearest, best! ...
>>> And
>>> he must drag on through all his days in endless darkness! . . To die is
>>> nothing. But to have life, and not have sight-Oh, that is misery
>>> indeed!9
>>> A century later the disaster concept was as popular as ever. In
>>> Kipling's
>>> book, The Light That Failed, no opportunity is lost to tell us that
>>> blindness is worse than death. The hero, Dick Heldar, upon learning that
>>> he
>>> is to become blind, remarks: "It's the living death .... We're to be
>>> shut
>>>
>>> up
>>> in the dark ... and we shan't see anybody, and we shall never have
>>> anything
>>> we want, not though we live to be a hundred." 10 Later in the book, he
>>> rages
>>> against the whole world "because it was alive and could see, while he,
>>> Dick,
>>> was dead in the death of the blind, who, at the best, are only burdens
>>> upon
>>> their associates." 11 And when this self-pitying character finally
>>> manages
>>> to get himself killed (to the relief of all concerned), the best Kipling
>>> can
>>> say of him is that "his luck had held till the last, even to the
>>> crowning
>>> mercy of a kindly bullet through his head." 12
>>> Joseph Conrad, in "The End of the Tether", kills off Captain Whalley by
>>> drowning, as a fate much preferable to remaining alive without sight. In
>>> D.H. Lawrence's "The Blind Man", there is a war-blinded casualty named
>>> Maurice, whose total despair and misery are unrelieved by any hint of
>>> future
>>> hope; and Rosamond Lehmann, in her novel "Invitation to the Waltz", goes
>>> Lawrence one better- or, rather, one worse. Her war-blinded hero,
>>> although
>>> he appears to be living a respectable life, is portrayed as if for all
>>> practical purposes he were a walking corpse. He leads, we are told, "a
>>> counterfeit of life bred from his murdered youth." And when he brings
>>> himself somehow to dance with a former sweetheart, it is a sorry
>>> spectacle:
>>> "She danced with him," says the author, "in love and sorrow. He held her
>>> close to him, and he was far away from her, far from the music, buried
>>> and
>>> indifferent. She danced with his youth and his death." 13
>>> For writers such as these, the supposed tragedy of blindness is so
>>> unbearable that only two solutions can be imagined: either the victim
>>> must
>>> be cured or he must be killed. A typical illustration is Susan
>>> Glaspell's
>>> "The Glory of the Conquered", of which an unkind critic has written: "It
>>> is
>>> a rather easy solution of the problem to make her hero die at the end of
>>> the
>>> book, but probably the author did not know what else to do with him." 14
>>> Let us now leave tragedy and move to foolishness and helplessness. The
>>> blind
>>> man as a figure of fun and the butt of ridicule is no doubt as old as
>>> farce
>>> and slapstick. In the Middle Ages the role was regularly acted out on
>>> festive holidays when blind beggars were rounded up and outfitted in
>>> donkey's ears, than made to gibber and gesticulate to the delight of
>>> country
>>> bumpkins. Reflecting this general hilarity, Chaucer (in "The Merchant's
>>> Tale") presents a young wife, married to an old blind man, who deceives
>>> him
>>> by meeting her lover in a tree while taking the husband for a walk. The
>>> Chaucerian twist is that the old man suddenly regains his sight as the
>>> couple are making love in the branches-whereupon the quick-witted girl
>>> explains that her amorous behavior was solely for the purpose of
>>> restoring
>>> his sight. Shakespeare is just as bad. He makes the blinded Gloucester
>>> in
>>> "King Lear" so thoroughly confused and helpless that he can be persuaded
>>> of
>>> anything and deceived by any trick. Isaac, in the Old Testament, is
>>> duped
>>>
>>> by
>>> his son Jacob, who masquerades as Esau, disguising himself in goatskins,
>>> and
>>> substituting kid meat for the venison his father craves-all without a
>>> glimmer of recognition on the part of the old man, who must have taken
>>> leave
>>> of the rest of his senses as well as his sense of sight.
>>> An unusually harsh example of the duping of blind people is found in the
>>> sixteenth-century play "Der Euienspiegel mit den Blinden". The hero
>>> meets
>>> three blind beggars and promises them a valuable coin to pay for their
>>> food
>>> and lodging at a nearby inn; but when they all reach out for the money,
>>> he
>>> gives it to none of them, and each supposes that the others have
>>> received
>>> it. You can imagine the so-called "funny ending." After they go to the
>>> inn
>>> and dine lavishly, the innkeeper demands his payment; and each of the
>>> blind
>>> beggars thereupon accuses the others of lying, thievery, and assorted
>>> crimes. The innkeeper-shouting "You people defraud everyone!"--drives
>>> the
>>> three into his pigsty and locks the gate, lamenting to his wife: "What
>>> shall
>>> we do with them, let them go without punishment after they have eaten
>>> and
>>> drunk so much, for nothing? But if we keep them, they will spread lice
>>> and
>>> fleas and we will have to feed them. I wish they were on the gallows."
>>> 15
>>> The play has a "happy ending," but what an image persists of the
>>> character
>>> of those who are blind: criminal and corrupt, contagious and
>>> contaminated,
>>> confounded and confused, wandering homeless and helpless in an alien
>>> landscape. Their book of life might well be called "Gullible's Travels."
>>> The helpless blind man is a universal stereotype. In Maeterlinck's play,
>>> "The Blind", all of the characters are portrayed as sightless in order
>>> to
>>> make a philosophical point; but what emerges on the stage is a
>>> ridiculous
>>> tableau of groping, groaning, and grasping at the air.
>>> One of the very worst offenders against the truth about blindness is the
>>> eminent French author of our own day, Andre Gide, in "La Symphonie
>>> Pastorale". A blind reviewer of the novel has described it well: "The
>>> girl
>>> Gertrude at fifteen, before the pastor begins to educate her, has all
>>> the
>>> signs of an outright idiot. This is explained simply as the result of
>>> her
>>> blindness .... [Gide] asserts that without physical sight one cannot
>>> really
>>> know the truth. Gertrude lives happily in the good, pure world the
>>> pastor
>>> creates for her .... Gertrude knows next to nothing about the evil and
>>> pain
>>> in the actual world. As a sightless person she cannot consciously know
>>> sin,
>>> is blissfully ignorant, like Adam and Eve before eating of the forbidden
>>> fruit. Only when her sight is restored does she really know evil for
>>> what
>>>
>>> it
>>> is and recognize sin. Then, on account of the sinning she has done with
>>> the
>>> pastor without knowing it was sinning, she is miserable and commits
>>> suicide."16
>>> In literature not only is blindness depicted as stupidity but also as
>>> wickedness, the very incarnation of pure evil. The best-known model is
>>> the
>>> old pirate "Blind Pew," in Stevenson's "Treasure Island". When the young
>>> hero, Jim Hawkins, first encounters Pew, he feels that he "never saw a
>>> more
>>> dreadful figure" than this "horrible, soft-spoken, eyeless creature";
>>> and
>>> when Pew gets the boy in his clutches, Jim observes that he "never heard
>>> a
>>> voice so cruel, and cold, and ugly as that blind man's." 17
>>> A much earlier version of the wicked blind man theme is seen in the
>>> picaresque romance of the sixteenth century, "Lazatillo de Tormes".
>>> Lazarillo is apprenticed as a guide to an old blind man, who is the very
>>> personification of evil.
>>> "When the blind man told the boy to put his ear to a statue and listen
>>> for
>>>
>>> a
>>> peculiar noise, Lazarillo obeyed. Then the old man knocked the boy's
>>> head
>>> sharply against the stone, so his ears rang for three days......"18
>>> Throughout the ages the connection between blindness and meanness has
>>> been
>>> very nearly irresistible to authors, and it has struck a responsive note
>>> with audiences--audiences already conditioned through folklore and fable
>>> to
>>> believe that blindness brings out the worst in people. Given the casual
>>> cruelty with which the blind have generally been treated, such
>>> villainous
>>> caricatures have also provided a convenient excuse and justification.
>>> After
>>> all, if the blind are rascals and rapscallions, they should be handled
>>> accordingly- and no pity wasted.
>>> Alternating with the theme of blindness as perfect evil is its exact
>>> reverse: the theme of blindness as perfect virtue. On the surface these
>>> two
>>> popular stereotypes appear to be contradictory; but it takes no great
>>> psychological insight to recognize them as opposite sides of the same
>>> counterfeit coin. What they have in common is the notion that blindness
>>> is
>>>
>>> a
>>> transforming event, entirely removing the victim front the ordinary
>>> dimensions of life and humanity.
>>> Blindness must either be the product of sin and the devil or of angels
>>> and
>>> halos. Of the latter type is Melody, in Laura Richards' novel of the
>>> same
>>> name: "The blind child," we are told, "touched life with her hand, and
>>> knew
>>> it. She knew every tree of the forest by its bark; knew when it
>>> blossomed,
>>> and how .... Not a cat or dog in the village but would leave his own
>>> master
>>> or mistress at a single call from Melody." 19 She is not merely
>>> virtuous;
>>> she is magical. She rescues a baby from a burning building, cures the
>>> sick
>>> by her singing, and redeems alcoholics from the curse of drink.
>>> It is passing strange, and what is strangest of all is that this absurd
>>> creature is the invention of Laura Richards, the daughter of Samuel
>>> Gridley
>>> Howe, a pioneer educator of the blind. Like Milton, Mrs. Richards knew
>>> better. She was betrayed by the forces of tradition and custom, of
>>> folklore
>>> and literature. In turn she betrayed herself and the blind, and gave
>>> reinforcement to the stereotype. Worst of all, she doubtless never knew
>>> what
>>> she had done, and thought of herself as a benefactor of the blind and a
>>> champion of their cause. Ignorance is truly the greatest of all
>>> tragedies.
>>> The sickest of all the romantic illusions is the pious opinion that
>>> blindness is only a blessing in disguise. In "The Blind Girl of
>>> Wittenberg",
>>> by John G. Morris, a young man says to the heroine: "God has deprived
>>> you
>>>
>>> of
>>> sight but only that your heart might be illuminated with more brilliant
>>> light." Every blind girl I know would have slapped his face for such
>>> insulting drivel; but the reply of this fictional female is worse than
>>> the
>>> original remark: "Do you not think, sir," she says, "that we blind
>>> people
>>> have a world within us which is perhaps more beautiful than yours, and
>>> that
>>> we have a light within us which shines more brilliantly than your sun?"
>>> 20
>>> So it goes with the saccharine sweet that has robbed us of humanity and
>>> made
>>> the legend and hurt our cause. There is Caleb, the "little blind seer"
>>> of
>>> James Ludlow's awful novel, "Deborah". There is Bertha, Dickens'
>>> ineffably
>>> sweet and noble blind heroine of "The Cricket on the Hearth", who comes
>>> off
>>> almost as an imbecile. There is the self-sacrificing Nydia, in "The Last
>>> Days of Pompeii"; and there is Naomi, in Hall Caine's novel,
>>> "Scapegoat".
>>> But enough! It is sweetness without light, and literature without
>>> enlightment.
>>> One of the oldest and cruelest themes in the archives of fiction is the
>>> notion of blindness as a punishment for sin. Thus, Oedipus was blinded
>>> as
>>>
>>> a
>>> punishment for incest, and Shakespeare's Gloucester for adultery. The
>>> theme
>>> often goes hand in hand with the stereotype of blindness as a kind of
>>> purification rite--an act which wipes the slate clean and transforms
>>> human
>>> character into purity and goodness. So Amyas Leigh, in Kingsley's
>>> "Westward
>>> Ho", having been blinded by a stroke of lightning, is instantly
>>> converted
>>> from a crook to a saint.
>>> Running like an ugly stain through many of these master plots- and,
>>> perhaps,
>>> in a subtle way underlying all of them-is the image of blindness as
>>> dehumanization, a kind of banishment from the world of normal life and
>>> relationships. Neither Dickens' blind Bertha, nor Bulwer-Lytton's Nydia,
>>> when they find themselves in love, have the slightest idea that anybody
>>> could ever love them back- nor does the reader; nor, for that matter, do
>>> the
>>> other characters in the novels. Kipling, in a story entitled "They,"
>>> tells
>>> of a charming and apparently competent blind woman, Miss Florence, who
>>> loves
>>> children but "of course" cannot have any of her own. Kipling doesn't say
>>> why
>>> she can't, but it's plain that she is unable to imagine a blind person
>>> either married or raising children. Miss Florence, however, is magically
>>> compensated. She is surrounded on her estate by the ghosts of little
>>> children who have died in the neighborhood and have thereupon rushed to
>>> her
>>> in spirit. We are not meant to infer that she is as crazy as a hoot
>>> owl--only that she is blind, and therefore entitled to her spooky
>>> fantasies.
>>> The last of the popular literary themes is that which deals with
>>> blindness
>>> not literally but symbolically, for purposes of satire or parable. From
>>> folklore to film the image recurs of blindness as a form of death or
>>> damnation, or as a symbol of other kinds of unseeing (as in the maxim,
>>> "where there is no vision, the people perish)." In this category would
>>> come
>>> H.G. Well's classic "The Country of the Blind"; also, "The Planet of the
>>> Blind", by Paul Corey; and Maeterlinck's "The Blind". In the short story
>>> by
>>> Conrad Aiken, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," blindness becomes a metaphor
>>> for
>>> schizophrenia.
>>> In virtually all of these symbolic treatments, there is an implied
>>> acceptance of blindness as a state of ignorance and confusion, of the
>>> inversion of normal perceptions and values, and of a condition equal to
>>> if
>>> not worse than death. The havoc wrought upon the lives of blind people
>>> in
>>> ages past by these literary traditions is done, and it cannot be undone;
>>> but
>>> the future is yet to be determined. And that future, shaped by the
>>> instrument of truth, will be determined by us. Self-aware and
>>> self-reliant-neither unreasonably belligerent nor unduly
>>> self-effacing-we
>>> must, in a matter-of-fact way, take up the challenge of determining our
>>> own
>>> destiny. We know who we are; we know what we can do; and we know how to
>>> act
>>> in concert.
>>> And what can we learn from this study of literature? What does it all
>>> mean?
>>> For one thing, it places in totally new perspective the pronouncements
>>> and
>>> writings of many of the so-called "experts" who today hold forth in the
>>> field of work with the blind. They tell us (these would-be
>>> "professionals,"
>>> these hirelings of the American Foundation for the Blind and HEW, these
>>> pseudoscientists with their government grants and lofty titles and
>>> impressive papers) that blindness is not just the loss of sight, but a
>>> total
>>> transformation of the person.
>>> They tell us that blindness is not merely a loss to the eyes, but to the
>>> personality as well-that it is a "death," a blow to the very being of
>>> the
>>> individual. They tell us that the eye is a sex symbol, and that the
>>> blind
>>> person cannot be a "whole man"-or, for that matter, presumably a whole
>>> woman
>>> either. They tell us that we have multiple "lacks and losses." 21
>>> The American Foundation for the Blind devises a 239 page guidebook22 for
>>> our
>>> personal management," with sixteen steps to help us take a bath, and
>>> specific techniques for clapping our hands and shaking our heads. We are
>>> given detailed instructions for buttering our bread, tying our shoes,
>>> and
>>> even understanding the meaning of the words "up" and "down." And all of
>>> this
>>> is done with federal grants, and much insistence that it is new
>>> discovery
>>> and modern thought.
>>> But our study of literature gives it the lie. These are not new
>>> concepts.
>>> They are as unenlightened as the Middle Ages. They are as old as Oedipus
>>> Rex. As for science, they have about as much of it as man's ancient fear
>>> of
>>> the dark. They are not fact, but fiction; not new truths, but medieval
>>> witchcraft, decked out in modern garb-computerized mythology. What we
>>> have
>>> bought with our federal tax dollars and our technology and our numerous
>>> government grants is only a restatement of the tired old fables of
>>> primitive
>>> astrology and dread of the night.
>>> And let us not forget NAC (The National Accreditation Council for
>>> Agencies
>>> Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped). When the members of NAC and
>>> its
>>> accredited minions try to act as our custodians and wardens, they are
>>> only
>>> behaving in the time honored way of the Elizabethan "keepers of the
>>> poor."
>>> When they seek to deck us out in donkey's ears and try to make us gibber
>>> and
>>> gesticulate, they are only attempting what the country bumpkins of 600
>>> years
>>> ago did with better grace and more efficiency.
>>> We have repudiated these false myths of our inferiority and
>>> helplessness.
>>>
>>> We
>>> have rejected the notion of magical powers and special innocence and
>>> naivete. Those who would try to compel us to live in the past would do
>>> well
>>> to look to their going. Once people have tasted freedom, they cannot go
>>> back. We will never again return to the ward status and second-class
>>> citizenship of the old custodialism. There are many of us (sighted and
>>> blind
>>> alike) who will take to the streets and fight with our bare hands if we
>>> must
>>> before we will let it happen.
>>> And we must never forget the power of literature. Revolutions do not
>>> begin
>>> in the streets, but in the libraries and the classrooms. It has been so
>>> throughout history. In the terrible battles of the American Civil War,
>>> for
>>> example, the writers and poets fought, too. When the Southern armies
>>> came
>>>
>>> to
>>> Bull Run, they brought with them Sir Walter Scott and the image of life
>>> he
>>> had taught them to believe. Ivanhoe and brave King Richard stood in the
>>> lines with Stonewall Jackson to hurl the Yankees back. The War would
>>> have
>>> ended sooner except for the dreams of the poets. And when the Northern
>>> troops went down to Richmond, through the bloody miles that barred the
>>> way,
>>> they carried with them the Battle Hymn of the Republic and Harriet
>>> Beecher
>>> Stowe. It was Uncle Tom and little Eliza who fired the shots and led the
>>> charges that broke the Southern lines. Never mind that neither Scott nor
>>> Stowe told it exactly as it was. What they said was believed, and
>>> believing
>>> made it come true.
>>> To the question IS LITERATURE AGAINST Us, there can be no unqualified
>>> response. If we consider only the past, the answer is certainly yes. We
>>> have
>>> Conventional fiction, like conventional history, has told it like it
>>> isn't.
>>> Although there have been notable exceptions, 23 the story has been
>>> monotonously and negatively the same.
>>> If we consider the present, the answer is mixed. There are signs of
>>> change,
>>> but the old stereotypes and the false images still predominate-and they
>>> are
>>> reinforced and given weight by the writings and beliefs of many of the
>>> "experts" in our own field of work with the blind.
>>> If we turn to the future, the answer is that the future-in literature as
>>> in
>>> life-is not predetermined but self-determined. As we shape our lives,
>>> singly
>>> and collectively, so will we shape our literature. Blindness will be a
>>> tragedy only if we see ourselves as authors see us. The contents of the
>>> page, in the last analysis, reflect the conscience of the age. The
>>> structure
>>> of literature is but a hall of mirrors, giving us back (in images
>>> slightly
>>> larger or smaller than life) exactly what we put in. The challenge for
>>> us
>>>
>>> is
>>> to help our age raise its consciousness and reform its conscience. We
>>> must
>>> rid our fiction of fantasy and imbue it with fact. Then we shall have a
>>> literature to match reality, and a popular image of blindness to match
>>> the
>>> truth, and our image of ourselves.
>>> Poetry is the song of the spirit and the language of the soul. In the
>>> drama
>>> of our struggle to be free-in the story of our movement and the fight to
>>> rid
>>> the blind of old custodialism and man's ancient fear of the dark-there
>>> are
>>> epics which cry to be written,and songs which ask to be sung. The poets
>>> and
>>> novelists can write the words, but we must create the music.
>>> We stand at a critical time in the history of the blind. If we falter or
>>> turn back, the tragedy of blindness will be great, indeed. But, of
>>> course,
>>> we will not falter, and we will not turn back. Instead, we will go
>>> forward
>>> with joy in our hearts and a song of gladness on our lips. The future is
>>> ours, and the novelists and the poets will record it. Come! Join me on
>>> the
>>> barricades, and we will make it come true!
>>> FOOTNOTES
>>> 1. Ernest Bramah, "Best Max Carrados Detective Stories", p. 6.
>>> 2. Arthur Conan Doyle, "Sir Nigel", p. 102.
>>> 3. Victor Hugo, "The Man Who Laughs", p. 316.
>>> 4. Isabel Ostrander, "At One-Thirty: A Mystery", p. 6.
>>> 5. Baynard Kendrick, "Make Mine Maclain", dust jacket.
>>> 6. Ibid., p. 43.
>>> 7. Bramah, op. cit., p. 7.
>>> 8. John Milton, "The Portable Milton", pp. 615-616.
>>> 9. Friedrich Schiller, "Complete Works of Friedrich Schiller", p. 447.
>>> 10. Rudyard Kipling, "Selected Prose and Poetry of Rudyard Kipling", p.
>>> 131.
>>> 11. Ibid., p. 156.
>>> 12. Ibid., p. 185.
>>> 13. Rosamond Lehmann, "Invitation to the Waltz", p. 48, quoted in Jacob
>>> Twersky, "Blindness in Literature".
>>> 14. Jessica L. Langworthy, "Blindness in Fiction: A Study of the
>>> Attitude
>>>
>>> of
>>> Authors Towards Their Blind Characters," "Journal of Applied
>>> Psychology",
>>> 14:282, 1930.
>>> 15. Twersky, op. cit., p. 15.
>>> 16. Ibid., P. 47.
>>> 17. Robert Louis Stevenson, "Treasure Island", p. 36.
>>> 18. "The Life of Lazatillo de Tormes", summarized in Magill's
>>> "Masterplots", p. 2573.
>>> 19. Laura E. Richards, "Melody", pp. 47-48.
>>> 20. John G. Morris, "The Blind Girl of Wittenberg", p. 103.
>>> 21. Reverend Thomas J. Carroll, "Blindness: What It is, What It Does,
>>> and
>>> How to Live With It". This entire book deals with the concept of
>>> blindness
>>> as a "dying," and with the multiple "lacks and losses" of blindness.
>>> 22. American Foundation for the Blind, Inc., "A Step-by-Step Guide to
>>> Personal Management for Blind People". This entire book is taken up with
>>> lists of so-called "how to" details about the routines of daily living
>>> for
>>> blind persons.
>>> 23. There is a tenth theme to be found here and there on the shelves of
>>> literature-a rare and fugitive image that stands out in the literary
>>> gloom
>>> like a light at the end of a tunnel. This image of truth is a least as
>>> old
>>> as Charles Lamb's tale of "Rosamund Gray", which presents an elderly
>>> blind
>>> woman who is not only normally competent but normally cantankerous. The
>>> image is prominent in two of Sir Walter Scott's novels, "Old Mortality"
>>> and
>>> "The Bride of Lammamoor", in both of which blind persons are depicted
>>> realistically and unsentimentally. It is evident again, to the extent at
>>> least of the author's knowledge and ability, in Wilkie Collin's "Poor
>>> Miss
>>> Finch", written after Collins had made a serious study of Diderot's
>>> "Letter
>>> on the Blind" (a scientific treatise not without its errors but
>>> remarkable
>>> for its understanding). The image is manifest in Charles D. Stewart's
>>> "Valley Waters", in which there is an important character who is
>>> blind-and
>>> yet there is about him no aura of miracle nor even of mystery, no
>>> brooding
>>> or mischief, no special powers, nothing in fact but naturalness and
>>> normality. Similarly, in a novel entitled "Far in the Forest", H. Weir
>>> Mitchell has drawn from life (so he tells us) a formidable but entirely
>>> recognizable character named Philetus Richmond "who had lost his sight
>>> at
>>> the age of fifty but could still swing an axe with the best of the
>>> woodsmen."
>>> Back to top
>>> BIBLIOGRAPHY
>>> American Foundation for the Blind, Inc., "A Step-by-Step Guide to
>>> Personal
>>> Management for Blind People", New York, 1970.
>>> Barreyre, Gene, "The Blind Ship", New York, Dial, 1926.
>>> Bramah, Ernest, "Best Max Carrados Detective Stories", New York, Dover,
>>> 1972.
>>> Bronte, Charlotte, "Jane Eyre", New; York, Dutton, 1963.
>>> Caine, Hall, "The Scapegoat", New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1879.
>>> Carroll, Reverend Thomas J., "Blindness: What It Is, What It Does, and
>>> How
>>> To live With It", Boston, Toronto, Little, Brown and Company, 1961.
>>> Chaucer, Geoffrey, "Canterbury Tales", Garden City, translated by J.U.
>>> Nicolson, 1936.
>>> Collins, Wilkie, "Poor Miss Finch", New York, Harper and Brothers, 1902.
>>> Conrad, Joseph, "The End of the Tether", Garden City, Doubleday, 1951.
>>> Corey, Paul, "The Planet of the Blind", New York, Paperback Library,
>>> 1969.
>>> Craig, Dinah Mulock, "John Halifax, Gentleman", New York, A.L. Burt, nd.
>>> Davis, William Stems, "Falaise of the Blessed Voice", New York, The
>>> Macmillan Company, 1904.
>>> Dickens, Charles, "Barnaby Rudge", New York, Oxford University Press,
>>> 1968.
>>> -----, "Cricket On the Hearth", London, Oxford University Press, 1956.
>>> Diderot, Denis, "Lettre sur les Avengles", Geneva, E. Droz, 1951.
>>> Doyle, Arthur Conan, "Sir Nigel", New York, McClure, Philips and
>>> Company,
>>> 1906.
>>> Gide, Andre, "La Symphonie Pastorale", Paris, Gallimard, 1966.
>>> Glaspell, Susan, "The Glory of the Conquered", New York, Frederick A.
>>> Stokes
>>> Company, 1909.
>>> Hugo, Victor, "The Man Who Laughs", New York, Grosset and Dunlap, nd.
>>> Kendrick, Baynard, "Make Mine Maclain", New York, Morrow, 1947.
>>> Kipling, Rudyard, "Selected Prose and Poetry of Rudyard
>>> Kipling", Garden City, Garden City Publishing Company, 1937.
>>> Kingsley, Charles, "Westward Ho!", New York, J.F. Taylor and Company,
>>> 1899.
>>> Lamb, Charles, "The Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret",
>>> London,
>>> 1798.
>>> Langworthy, Jessica L., "Blindness in Fiction: A Study of the
>>> Attitude of Authors Toward their Blind Characters," "Journal of Applied
>>> Psychology", 14:282, 1930.
>>> Lawrence, D.H., "England, My England and Other Short Stories", New York,
>>> T.
>>> Seltzer, 1922.
>>> Lehmann, Rosamond, "Invitation to the Waltz", New York, 1933.
>>> "Life of Lazarillo de Tormes", 1553, summarized in Magill,
>>> Frank Nathen, "Magill's Masterplots", New York, Salem Press, 1964.
>>> London, Jack, "The Sea Wolf", New York, Grosset and Dunlap, 1904.
>>> Ludlow, James M., "Deborah, A Tale of the Times of Judas Maccabaeus",
>>> New
>>> York, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1901.
>>> Lytton, Bulwer, "The Last Days of Pompeii", Garden City, International
>>> Collectors Library, 1946.
>>> Maeterlinck, Maurice, "The Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck", translated by
>>> Richard Hovey, New York, Duffield, 1908.
>>> Marryat, Frederick, "The Little Savage", New York, E.P. Dutton and
>>> Company,
>>> 1907.
>>> Milton, John, "Paradise Lost", New York, Heritage Press, 1940.
>>> -----, "The Portable Milton", New York, Viking Press, 1949.
>>> Mitchell, H. Weir, "Far in the Forest", New York, Century Company, 1899.
>>> Morris, John G., "The Blind Girl of Wittenberg", Philadelphia, Lindsay
>>> and
>>> Blakison, 1856.
>>> Ostrander, Isabel, "At One-Thirty: A Mystery", New York, W.J. Watt,
>>> 1915.
>>> Richards, Laura E., "Melody", Boston, Estes and Lauriat, 1897.
>>> Sachs, Hans, "Der Eulenspiegel mit den Blinden".
>>> Schiller, Friedrich, "William Tell", translated by Robert
>>> Waller Deering, Boston, Heath, 1961.
>>> -----, "Don Carlos, Infant of Spain", translated by Charles E. Passage,
>>> New
>>> York, Ungar Publishing Company, 1959.
>>> Scott, Sir Walter, "Old Mortality", London, Oxford University Press,
>>> 1925.
>>> -----, "The Bride of Lammamoor", London, Oxford University Press, 1925.
>>> Shakespeare, William, "King Lear", New Haven, Yale University Press,
>>> 1947.
>>> Sophocles, "Oedipus Rex", translated by Robert Fitzgerald and Dudley
>>> Fitts,
>>> New York, Harcourt Brace, 1949.
>>> -----, "Oedipus at Colonnus", translated by Charles R.
>>> Walker, Garden City, Anchor Books, 1966.
>>> Stagg, Clinton H., "Thornley Colton, Blind Detective", New York, G.
>>> Howard
>>> Watt, 1925.
>>> Stevenson, Robert Louis, "Treasure Island", Keith Jennison large-type
>>> edition, New York, Watt, nd.
>>> -----, "Kidnapped", New York, A.L. Burt, 1883.
>>> Stewart, Charles D., "Valley Waters", New York, E.P. Dutton and Company,
>>> 1922.
>>> Twersky, Jacob, Blindness in Literature, New York, American Foundation
>>> for
>>> the Blind, 1955.
>>> Wells, H.G. "The Country of the B at d," Strand Magazine, London, 1904.
>>> West, V. Sackville, The Dragon in Shallow Waters, New York, G.P.
>>> Putnam's
>>> Sons, 1922.
>>> Back to top
>>>
>>> upon
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>> Lambert
>>> Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 7:27 AM
>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors; RE: New Book,
>>> blindness on TV
>>>
>>> Donna and Bill,
>>> How I appreciate your conversation and insight into this interesting
>>> musing
>>> on how blindness becomes the lens through which art and literature
>>> originate
>>> and flourish.
>>>
>>> What a nice group of informative pieces on the authors.
>>> I have saved it and will go back on a day when I can spend some quality
>>> time
>>> on it, and put some thought into it. Today is dedicated to working on,
>>> and
>>> rehearsing, two presentations that I have written - doing the timing,
>>> etc.
>>> on them to make sure they flow for my audience.   Doing lectures and
>>> conference presentations is something I really enjoy.
>>>
>>> At this time, I am deeply involved in another major project. A video is
>>> being produced that will accompany our two-person exhibition - Vision
>>> and
>>> Revision: Two Artists with Limited Sight, Not Limited Vision- The video
>>> will
>>> show my work from inception and planning stage, through completion and
>>> gallery installation. We did the final photography for it over the
>>> weekend.
>>> Two of my colleagues from the English Department did the voice over's of
>>> my
>>> writings that will take the viewer actually into the process and the
>>> thoughts I experience when working with my hands on the pieces. Little
>>> by
>>> little, all the pieces are coming together to bring this project to the
>>> public when the show opens on March 7th. And, while that show is being
>>> put
>>> together for one gallery, I am already working with the personnel at the
>>> second gallery where it will open on April 14th - multi-tasking is
>>> something
>>> that is not optional in my world.  I work on shows anywhere from one to
>>> four
>>> years in advance - and on many levels at the same time with gallery
>>> personnel.
>>>
>>> Have a very productive day everyone!  I am off to "practice" my talk and
>>> do
>>> the tweaking necessary.
>>> Lynda
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>>> To: <meekerorgas at ameritech.net>; "'Writer's Division Mailing List'"
>>> <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 4:20 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors;RE: New Book,
>>> blindness on TV
>>>
>>>
>>>> Bill,
>>>> Donna Hill here. I don't know about Homer, and neither does anyone
>>>> else.
>>>> His
>>>> blindness and even his existence as the one writer of the works
>>>> attributed to him is a matter of some controversy in the academic
>>>> world. For proof of his blindness, lines from his poetry are used,
>>>> which isn't quite enough for me. Homer as a blind poet is more
>>>> important to me as a cultural myth.
>>>>
>>>> Milton, though he wrote his best work without sight,  was
>>>> well-educated and well-known prior to blindness. The most remembered
>>>> line he wrote about blindness doesn't say much for adapting -- approx
>>>> "those serve too who only stand and wait." I found a great bio of him
>>>> on poets.org, which I will place at the end of this message.
>>>>
>>>> Thurber lost sight in one eye in an accident in childhood which
>>>> apparently led to losing sight in the other later in life. He had
>>>> enough sight to enlist in the military and function as a cartoonist for
>>> the NewYorker.
>>>> Here
>>>> is something from an article from Slate.com about him (after a
>>>> collection of his letters was released) that discusses the effect of
>>>> his blindness on his work.
>>>> Block quote
>>>> The tragedy of James Thurber.
>>>>
>>>> James Thurber's tragedy.
>>>> By
>>>> Wilfrid Sheed
>>>>
>>>> SEPT. 18 2003 3:33 PM
>>>>
>>>> At the age of 15 or so, I picked up The Thurber Carnival and realized
>>>> that I'd found my Pied Piper; I wanted to be James Thurber. I would
>>>> follow those sentences anywhere. But Thurber, The New Yorker writer
>>>> and cartoonist (author, famously, of "The Secret Life of Walter
>>>> Mitty"), had just passed his peak and was already descending into the
>>>> total blindness that would embitter him and impair his writing. So,
>>>> The Thurber Carnival was the perfect place to start, and it still is:
>>>> It contains Thurber's essence and the best work he did in his
>>>> pre-blind years-his cartoons and fables and those deadly little
>>>> "casuals"
>>>> from
>>>> The New Yorker in which husbands and wives drove each other
>>>> absolutely, unconditionally crazy, while huge silent dogs looked on
>>>> like Buddhas, patiently waiting for the human race to come to its
>>>> senses, or not, as the case may be.
>>>>
>>>> Now we have The Thurber Letters, collected by Harrison Kinney and
>>>> Rosemary Thurber, to give us a fuller picture of the man. Most people
>>>> would, I suppose, if faced with the grim choice, prefer to take their
>>>> chances as blind writers rather than as deaf composers. Homer, the
>>>> Cyclops of literature, did OK.
>>>> And
>>>> Milton got a great poem out of blindness. But Thurber's letters seem
>>>> to me inexpressibly sad, perhaps because one can perceive the
>>>> blindness setting in slowly-and, having seen the back of his
>>>> biography, one also knows that there will be no great poems, so to
>>>> speak, deriving from it.
>>>>
>>>> ...
>>>>
>>>> Thurber, like many enlisted men, had seen "Paree," and it had given
>>>> all his pieces a lick of sophistication new to American humor. In
>>>> effect, he and his whole generation had used Paris as a species of
>>>> finishing school where country boys like Cole Porter and Ernest
>>>> Hemingway could major in sophistication before bringing some home with
>>>> them. There was never any question of anyone going back to the farm,
>>>> of course, and so in the mid-'20s a bunch of these boys decided to
>>>> start a magazine right there-and not just any old magazine, but the
>>>> most sophisticated damn magazine in the whole world: "Not for the old
>>>> lady in Dubuque," as its first issue trumpeted sophomorically. The New
>>>> Yorker did turn out to be the most sophisticated magazine in the
>>>> world, and the British in particular went nuts trying to imitate it.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2003/09/blind_wit.html
>>>> Block quote end
>>>>
>>>> Joyce had problems with his vision (iritis & glaucoma) starting in
>>>> childhood when he needed thick glasses to read. He had numerous
>>>> operations for it; he died during an operation, but I'm not sure if it
>>>> was another one on his eyes.  In one letter he describes himself as
>>>> having been "incapacitated"
>>>> for
>>>> a week from the iritis, but I don't know if he meant by the pain of
>>>> the condition or because he wasn't adapted to living nonvisually. I
>>>> haven't found any references to his using any adaptations such as
>>>> Milton did when he dictated his later poetry.
>>>>
>>>> Here are some snippits from an old Atlantic Monthly article on Joyce's
>>>> literary contribution in which his vision is mentioned and
>>>> appropriately enough the influence it had on his writing. I included
>>>> the first quote to show how much he was passing as sighted, or how
>>>> little his visual problems were holding him back in his early years.
>>>> The
>>> URL's at the end.
>>>>
>>>> Block quote
>>>> The Atlantic Monthly
>>>>
>>>> James Joyce
>>>> By Harry Levin
>>>> December, 1946
>>>> ... At University College he had specialized in Romance Languages, and
>>>> had shown such proficiency that there had been talk of a
>>>> professorship. During his hardest years on the Continent, before a
>>>> benefactor endowed his literary work, he worked as a commercial
>>>> translator and as a teacher in a Berlitz school.
>>>>
>>>> ...
>>>> It is a striking fact about English literature in the twentieth
>>>> century that its most notable practitioners have seldom been
>>>> Englishmen. The fact that they have so often been Irishmen supports,
>>>> Synge's belief in the reinvigorating suggestiveness of Irish popular
>>>> speech. That English was not Joyce's native language, in the strictest
>>>> sense, he was keenly aware; and it helps to explain his unparalleled
>>>> virtuosity. But a more concrete explanation is to be discerned among
>>>> his physical traits, one of which we normally classify as a serious
>>>> handicap. Joyce lived much of his life in varying states of
>>>> semi-blindness.
>>>> To
>>>> preserve what eyesight he had, he underwent repeated operations and
>>>> countermeasures. A schoolboy humiliation, when he broke his glasses
>>>> and failed to do his lessons, is painfully recollected in the Portrait
>>>> and again in Ulysses.
>>>> His writing tends more and more toward low visibility; his imagination
>>>> is auditory rather than visual. If the artist is a man for whom the
>>>> visible world exists, remarked George Moore, then Joyce is essentially
>>>> a metaphysician; for he is less concerned with the seeing eye than
>>>> with the thinking mind.
>>>>
>>>> We may add that he is most directly concerned with the hearing ear.
>>>> Doubtless the sonorities of Homer and Milton are intimately connected
>>>> with their blindness.
>>>> It is scarcely coincidental that Joyce, almost unique among modern
>>>> prose writers in this respect, must be read aloud to be fully
>>>> appreciated. In addition to his linguistic aptitude, and in
>>>> compensation for his defective vision, he was gifted with an
>>>> especially fine tenor voice. Professional singing was one of the
>>>> possible careers he had contemplated. His singer's taste inclined
>>>> toward Opera and bel canto, romantic ballads and Elizabethan airs: not
>>>> music but song, he liked to say. His poems except for a few excursions
>>>> into Swiftian satire, are songs; lyrics which, without their musical
>>>> settings look strangely fragile. Yeats, upon first reading them,
>>>> praised Joyce's delicate talent, and shrewdly wondered whether his
>>>> ultimate form would be verse or prose.
>>>> Operating
>>>> within the broader area of fiction, he was to retain the cadenced
>>>> precision of the poet. Above all he remained an accomplished listener,
>>>> whose pages are continually animated by the accurate recording of
>>>> overheard conversation.
>>>>
>>>> ...
>>>>
>>>> His pangs of composition have recently been described by Philippe
>>>> Soupault as "a sort of daily damnation: the creation of the Joycean
>>>> world. The perverse ingenuity of these later experiments has been
>>>> deplored more frequently than deciphered. A long series of
>>>> misunderstandings with the public inevitably reinforced those early
>>>> vows of silence, exile, and cunning. Inhibited from writing naturally
>>>> of natural instincts, Joyce ended by inventing an artificial language
>>>> of innuendo and mockery. In Finnegans Wake he drew upon his linguistic
>>>> skills and learned hobbies to contrive an Optophone--an instrument
>>>> which, for the benefit of the blind, converts images into sounds. Out
>>>> of it come, not merely echoes of the past, but warnings of the future.
>>>> Mr. Earwicker's worldly misfortunes are climaxed by a lethal
>>>> explosion: "the abnihilisation of the etym."
>>>> Pessimists may interpret this enigma as the annihilation of all
>>>> meaning, a chain reaction set off by the destruction of the atom.
>>>> Optimists will stress the creation of matter ex nihilo--and trust in
>>>> the Word to create another world.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/95sep/links/levi.htm
>>>> Block quote end
>>>>
>>>> Now for the Milton bio
>>>> Block quote
>>>> John Milton
>>>>
>>>> John Milton was born in London on December 9, 1608, into a
>>>> middle-class family. He was educated at St. Paul's School, then at
>>>> Christ's College, Cambridge, where he began to write poetry in Latin,
>>>> Italian, and English, and prepared to enter the clergy.
>>>>
>>>> After university, however, he abandoned his plans to join the
>>>> priesthood and spent the next six years in his father's country home
>>>> in Buckinghamshire following a rigorous course of independent study to
>>>> prepare for a career as a poet. His extensive reading included both
>>>> classical and modern works of religion, science, philosophy, history,
>>>> politics, and literature. In addition, Milton was proficient in Latin,
>>>> Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Italian, and obtained a
>>>> familiarity with Old English and Dutch as well.
>>>>
>>>> During his period of private study, Milton composed a number of poems,
>>>> including "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," "On Shakespeare,"
>>>> "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and the pastoral elegy "Lycidas." In May
>>>> of 1638, Milton began a 13-month tour of France and Italy, during
>>>> which he met many important intellectuals and influential people,
>>>> including the astronomer Galileo, who appears in Milton's tract
>>>> against censorship, "Areopagitica."
>>>>
>>>> In 1642, Milton returned from a trip into the countryside with a
>>>> 16-year-old bride, Mary Powell. Even though they were estranged for
>>>> most of their marriage, she bore him three daughters and a son before
>>>> her death in 1652.
>>>> Milton later married twice more: Katherine Woodcock in 1656, who died
>>>> giving birth in 1658, and Elizabeth Minshull in 1662.
>>>>
>>>> During the English Civil War, Milton championed the cause of the
>>>> Puritans and Oliver Cromwell, and wrote a series of pamphlets
>>>> advocating radical political topics including the morality of divorce,
>>>> the freedom of the press, populism, and sanctioned regicide. Milton
>>>> served as secretary for foreign languages in Cromwell's government,
>>>> composing official statements defending the Commonwealth. During this
>>>> time, Milton steadily lost his eyesight, and was completely blind by
>>>> 1651. He continued his duties, however, with the aid of Andrew Marvell
>>>> and
>>> other assistants.
>>>>
>>>> After the Restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, Milton was
>>>> arrested as a defender of the Commonwealth, fined, and soon released.
>>>> He lived the rest of his life in seclusion in the country, completing
>>>> the blank-verse epic poem Paradise Lost in 1667, as well as its sequel
>>>> Paradise Regained and the tragedy Samson Agonistes both in 1671.
>>>> Milton oversaw the printing of a second edition of Paradise Lost in
>>>> 1674, which included an explanation of "why the poem rhymes not,"
>>>> clarifying his use of blank verse, along with introductory notes by
>>>> Marvell. He died shortly afterwards, on November 8, 1674, in
>>>> Buckinghamshire, England.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/707
>>>> Block quote end
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Cheryl
>>>> Orgas & William Meeker
>>>> Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 9:59 AM
>>>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors;RE: New
>>>> Book, blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>> Linda,
>>>>
>>>> Blind or visually impaired authors Homer, John Milton, James Joyce,
>>>> and James Thurber come to mind first.  That they were known for their
>>>> works rather than their blindness is to me a measure of their success.
>>>>
>>>> Several authors have written novels without using common vowels, such
>>>> as the letter "E."  So how about a novel or short story depicting a
>>>> blind character without using the word "blind?"  That is, describing
>>>> them and their actions including alternative techniques and letting
>>>> the reader figure out that they are blind.
>>>>
>>>> Or how about a novel or short story written without  visual
>>>> descriptions.
>>>> That is, using only descriptions of sounds, textures, tastes, and
>>>> feelings?
>>>>
>>>> I can think up these ideas, but I lack the skill, drive, and
>>>> self-disclipline to execute them.  So have fun.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Bill Meeker
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>>> Lambert
>>>> Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2014 6:59 AM
>>>> To: newmanrl at cox.net; Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind; RE: New Book,
>>>> blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>> This conversation is making me begin to think about some authors I
>>>> taught in the past in Humanities and English courses.  Now that I am
>>>> "aware" of blindness, which I was NOT at all in the past, I am
>>>> wondering how I would interpret the literature of a blind author. I
>>>> taught Bourges and I never
>>>> knew he was blind!   I am thinking that now, if I go back to read his
>>>> work,
>>>> I will interpret many things in a different way.  I taught the "Book
>>>> of Sand" every semester!  Hmmmm.  Now it makes even more sense as an
>>>> exampe lof of Postmodernism which was the focus it had for me at the
>>>> time.  WOW, this is beginning to be a revelation to me.  I know that
>>>> many of the artists I taught were blind or visually impaired, but
>>>> their work was not generally explored through that lens.
>>>> I am going to begin looking much deeper into this for my own research
>>>> - if anyone has any more information on artists and writers who
>>>> are/were blind I would love to hear from you as I begin my own little
>>>> research project on this matter.
>>>>
>>>> I am re-learning how to do Power Point presentations now. Normally,
>>>> this is how I lectured but until now, I could not have done it again.
>>>> I know now, that I can do it, it's just going to take awhile for me to
>>>> teach myself again.  I am scheduled to do two presentation at Slippery
>>>> Rock University of PA in March - I'll use my milestone to give me
>>>> verbal "cues" as I am speaking, for these presentations. But, I want
>>>> to begin to develop some presentations using power point and I am sure
>>>> I can do it again - I just need to have the time and put in the work
>>>> to accomplish it.  I have always loved doing lectures and
>>>> presentations and I want to do them again - so I am gonna work on it!
>>>>
>>>> Lynda
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "Robert Leslie Newman" <newmanrl at cox.net>
>>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 11:22 PM
>>>> Subject: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind;RE: New Book,
>>>> blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Hi you all, this has been an interesting conversation:
>>>>>
>>>>> Here is another generalization that many around the world have
>>>>> developed over the eons: Blindness is the most God awful, feared
>>>>> physical condition that mankind can experience.
>>>>>
>>>>> I had read and heard this forever, from the mouths of people on the
>>>>> street, to what I've learned in a variety of college classes..though,
>>>>> over the past couple of decades blindness has been pushed down to
>>>>> third place. Guess what has eclipsed being blind as the most feared?
>>>>> Aids and cancer. And hey, I can believe that these two physical
>>>>> conditions are far worse...after all, either one of these two monster
>>>>> conditions can kill you!!! (Though, there are some who feel that
>>>>> blindness is a living death. And yeah, if you allow it to rule! And
>>>>> this is where the NFB has done the world a great service...as in we
>>>>> have developed a philosophy, built a framework of alternative
>>>>> techniques, and influenced the making of a wide variety of tools that
>>>>> in combination...will allow most of us to reduce the effects of
>>>>> blindness, down to  a level whereby most of us can say with an honesty
>>>>> level of 100%, 100%, that the loss of sight is not a major impediment
>>>>> to living a successful and happy life. No...the true problem we face
>>>>> is more the ignorance and the lack of information about the human
>>>>> potential to successfully live with blindness is the toughest
>>>>> impediment to being blind. MMM, go figure? [Being blind isn't the
>>>>> problem, living in a world of ignorance is.]
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>> Applebutter Hill
>>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 9:10 PM
>>>>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>
>>>>> Lynda,
>>>>> At 70, I should certainly hope you (or anyone) would have developed a
>>>>> healthy level of skepticism. *grin*
>>>>>
>>>>> I know that black people face prejudice and low expectations, but I
>>>>> think the fact that white people enslaved them to actually do
>>>>> something, makes that low level quite a bit higher than for blind
>>>>> people. We aren't deemed capable of planting a field, keeping up a
>>>>> household or even caring for children -- as the incident in the
>>>>> Midwest a few years ago shoed, when a child was removed shortly after
>>>> birth from its blind parents.
>>>>>
>>>>> Our traditional purpose is to give the average person something they
>>>>> can look at and say, "Well, I may have problems, but at least I'm not
>>>> blind."
>>>>> We
>>>>> also have traditionally provided them with opportunities to do good
>>>>> deeds.
>>>>> Expecting us to no longer be helpless fundamentally changes how they
>>>>> see themselves.
>>>>>
>>>>> Your post reminds me of a story I heard from a blind woman who was
>>>>> accepted to grad school. Her aunt was furious that she had stolen the
>>>>> position from someone who could really benefit from it. The belief was
>>>>> that anything that a blind person accomplished was just another
>>>>> example of the kindness of strangers in elevating a pitiful person and
>>>>> helping them feel better about themselves. BTW, she has a doctorate in
>>>>> law. I heard many similar stories when I was writing about Braille
>>>>> literacy -- they weren't on topic at the time, and I had hoped to
>>>>> gather some of the things people told me into articles about some of
>>>>> these more subtle things that are going on to this day, but it never
>>>>> happened.
>>>>> Donna
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>>>> Lambert
>>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 6:31 PM
>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>
>>>>> Donna, yes, the expectations for blind people are very low.  I believe
>>>>> that is why blind people as a group are the highest educated of all
>>>>> people with disabilities, yet, they are the lowest employed people of
>>>>> all the groups.
>>>>> This says it all - we are not expected to be smart, able, or willing
>>>>> to succeed at anything more than very low levels.
>>>>> This is my own thoughts on it and I recognize I am quite skeptical
>>>>> about it
>>>>> - but heck, I am 70 years old now, so I guess I can blame it on my
>>>>> age.
>>>>> I think we have to work so far beyond what other people have to do to
>>>>> find success at so many things. And, this is also true of black
>>>>> people.  I do not know this from a distance, or from reading books on
>>>>> the subject which of course I do all the time. I know it personally,
>>>>> because my son is black and his family is black - they are very highly
>>>>> educated professionals - she a physician, he a psychologist.  At every
>>>>> level, black people still face very low expectations and racism - and
>>>>> I think blind people are very close to the same in the general view of
>>>>> the ST"STUPID public. I agree with you. They are ver STUPID, but we
>>>>> won't tell them that, just yet. lol
>>>>>
>>>>> Lynda
>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>>>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 3:34 PM
>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Lynda,
>>>>>> Like you've noticed with your sister and the key, sighted people will
>>>>>> not accept anything we do as anything other than a fluke or a
>>>>>> miracle.
>>>>>> Even faced with a clear description of the usefulness of other
>>>>>> senses, they somehow still have to brush anything aside that
>>>>>> conflicts with what they kno ... Blindness is essentially
>>>>>> insurmountable. I think of it as being similar to the days when a few
>>>>>> nutheads were trying to explain to the human race that the world is
>>>>>> not
>>>> flat.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Coincidentally, I just got an e-mail from a rehab counsellor in PA,
>>>>>> who I reached out to on Linked In -- I offer them a free e-book
>>>>>> version of my novel and explain why I think it has value for them and
>>>>>> their clients. I mention the issue of dealing with low expectations.
>>>>>> This man said that, as
>>>>>
>>>>>> a
>>>>>> person who used to work with BVI and now works with other
>>>>>> disabilities, he believes that the issue of low expectations is much
>>>>>> worse for those with vision loss. I have always felt that way, but I
>>>>>> don't have the credentials to say so. It meant a lot to me to hear
>>>>>> that
>>>>> from someone.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You hit on the reason behind my removing all references to blindness
>>>>>> from my online book descriptions; it's a taboo. Just imagine someone
>>>>>> getting my book and not knowing that the heroine is blind and has a
>>>>>> guide dog. They will have to read through at least a page before it
>>>>>> becomes clear to them. Some will be angry with me, because I didn't
>>>>>> warn them. Some, I hope, will have gotten hooked by something else in
>>>>>> the story and read it anyway. It's fiction, so they don't have to
>>>>>> change their stupid belief systems, but I hope they will have a bit
>>>>>> of an adjustment  in spite of themselves.
>>>>>> Donna
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>>>>> Lambert
>>>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 9:18 AM
>>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It's a Friday morning snow storm here - a beautiful day outside. Time
>>>>>> to get some coffee and begin my day, but first I wanted to drop a not
>>>>>> on your discussion which is so interesting to me.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think Bridgit really hit it - unless a sighted person has had a lot
>>>>>> of time together with a blind person, they are really clueless and
>>>>>> they could care less about knowing positive things.  They still live
>>>>>> with the mentality of the question they have asked themselves and
>>>>>> each other for years, "Would you rather lose your sight, or your
>>>> hearing?".
>>>>>> To sighted people losing sight or hearing is the worst case scenario
>>>>>> they can think of and they are not about to look any closer into
>>>>>> either of the two life-challenges.  And, as Henrietta, experienced,
>>>>>> even close family members really don't understand how we do things.
>>>>>> Not really.  They watch us, but we are a mystery to them even though
>>>>>> they have been around us many times over the years.
>>>>>> Occasionally there is some little revelation that they grasp, but I
>>>>>> think it is very rare.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A couple years ago I went on a short 5 hour trip with my sister.
>>>>>> When we arrived at our cousin's home, we had instructions to locate
>>>>>> her house key and let ourselves in because they were away on vacation
>>>>>> and we would have their home to stay in.  My sister retrieved the
>>>>>> key, as instructed.  She began to try to open the door.  She fiddled
>>>>>> around for quite awhile with the key and the lock in the door - yet,
>>>>>> she could not get it open. She tried turning the key around, tried
>>>>>> going faster, slower, but no luck.  Finally,
>>>>>
>>>>>> I
>>>>>> quietly said to her, "Give me the key and let me see what I can do."
>>>>>> She snickered and said "Oh, sure, you are going to open the door that
>>>>>> you can't even see!"  I took the key from her, felt the key, and
>>>>>> inserted it into the door's lock slowly. Then, I put my left had on
>>>>>> the door, just above the lock, so I could FEEL any movement the lock
>>>>>> would make.  And, I leaned very close to the lock, and I listened.
>>>>>> Very quickly, as I slowly turned the key, I felt the vibration of it
>>>>>> moving, and I heard the click as it was disengaged.  I smiled, and
>>>>>> handed over the key to her, and said, "The door is open."  She loudly
>>>>>> proclaimed, "I cannot believe it! A blind person could open the door
>>>>>> and I couldn't."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I smiled at her and said, "You could not open the door because you
>>>>>> were using only your eyes. I opened it because I could feel it and
>>>>>> hear it moving."  To her it was something very weird that I had
>>>>>> actually opened up the door that she had struggled with and could not
>>>>>> get the job done.  I think in her mind it was a lucky accident even
>>>>>> though I explained why it happened.  Most sighted people do not think
>>>>>> we can do much of anything, no matter what we achieve - honestly,
>>>>>> that is what I think. So, for most sighted people to read about a
>>>>>> blind hero in a fictional account, I say, "Dream on!"  I think the
>>>>>> interest level for a sighted person to even read a book through is
>>>>>> really a stretch unless that person is really on a mission to learn
>>>>>> more about blindness and diversity and inclusion. Maybe in a
>>>>>> literature course, where it would be included in the required
>>>>>> reading, but on their own, I think the chances are quite slim.  But,
>>>>>> then, as I write this I am optimistic enough to think I see a "movie"
>>>>>> that could be made that would be exciting to them. Who knows? I sure
>>>>>> don't.  Why is it that we are constantly told we are "amazing" when
>>>>>> we do things that are high level achievements for anyone at all?  Why
>>>>>> is it that some people droll all over us about how inspiring we are
>>>>>> and how tragic it is that we
>>>>> lost our sight?
>>>>>> I just smile at them and say, "NO, not really! It is just who I am
>>>>>> and who
>>>>>
>>>>>> I
>>>>>> have always been."  That usually leaves them speechless and the
>>>>>> conversation ends.  Write on! Lynda
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>>>>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 9:07 PM
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Great story!
>>>>>>> Donna
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>>>> Henrietta Brewer
>>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 7:32 PM
>>>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You guys make me laugh. You're right, Sighted people can't imagine
>>>>>>> the blind being the hero. At Christmas, when the power was out in
>>>>>>> our town, I had twenty five or thirty people here most days. We had
>>>>>>> a generator so we had a few lights but not in more then half the
>>>>>>> house.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I didn't think much of it while everyone was here. Though I was
>>>>>>> tired of doing all the fetching because no one could find anything
>>>>>>> in the dark.
>>>>>>> When
>>>>>>> everyone left and I was cleaning house, I saw how difficult it was
>>>>>>> for our guests. They had only a flashlight in the bathroom and their
>>>>>>> bedroom and nothing was where it should be.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> they all mention now, that they will call me in any black out. But
>>>>>>> it took reality to get even family to realize that a blind person
>>>>>>> can be helpful in a black out. lol Henrietta On Feb 13, 2014, at
>>>>>>> 12:10 AM, Bridgit Pollpeter
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> When I wrote a short mystery story for a detective fiction class I
>>>>>>>> took at university, I made my main character blind, which is the
>>>>>>>> first time I did this. Anyway, at one point, the house the two main
>>>>>>>> characters are sleeping in goes up in flames, and the blind
>>>>>>>> character navigates them out of the house. Using his other senses,
>>>>>>>> he makes it out the front door. I did do some research before
>>>>>>>> writing the scene, but mostly based it off my own knowledge of what
>>>>>>>> a blind person might do in that particular situation. When
>>>>>>>> critiqueing our stories, a classmate said, to my face, it wasn't
>>>>>>>> believeable that a blind person could do that and I should change
>>>>>>>> that scene. Another classmate, to my surprise, said who better than
>>>>>>>> a blind person to navigate through a situation where sight wouldn't
>>>>>>>> be much help because of the smoke, and that by smell and feeling
>>>>>>>> heat, surely a blind person would be able to navigate just as well,
>>>>>>>> if not better, than a sighted person. After considering this point,
>>>>>>>> the first person half-heartedly agreed. My point being that I agree
>>>>>>>> with Chris that even though these stories are being written by
>>>>>>>> blind people, most of the sighted world can't, or won't, buy a
>>>>>>>> blind person doing the things we make them do, living as
>>>>>>>> independent, active,
>>>>> vital people.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Bridgit
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>>>>> Chris Kuell
>>>>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 7:47 AM
>>>>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Donna,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm generally skeptical by nature, but I really hope they do a good
>>>>>>>> job with this show. It's exactly what we've been talking about
>>>>>>>> here--an opportunity to crush the stupid stereotypes and let the
>>>>>>>> public see a guy who is interesting, and just happens to be blind.
>>>>>>>> If it does a good job, and if the public enjoys it, it could open
>>>>>>>> the door to more blind characters in the
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> arts. Personally, I feel certain that the reason books like yours
>>>>>>>> and mine aren't getting read by agents and traditional publishers
>>>>>>>> is because we have blind protagonists. An agent, or more likely, an
>>>>>>>> agent's assistant reads my query and thinks--a blind protagonist?
>>>>>>>> Nobody is going to buy that. It's too outside mainstream
>>>>>>>> experience.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hopefully, the times, they are a changing.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> chris
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
>>>>>>>> stylist mailing list
>>>>>>>> stylist at nfbnet.org
>>>>>>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
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>>>>>>>> o
>>>>>>>> tm
>>>>>>>> ai
>>>>>>>> l.com
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
>>>>>>>> stylist mailing list
>>>>>>>> stylist at nfbnet.org
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>>>>>>>> om
>>>>>>>> cast.net
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> 0gmail
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> ternet
>>>>>> .net
>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Writers Division web site
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>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> ternet.net
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
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>>>> stylist at nfbnet.org
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>>>> stylist:
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>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Writers Division web site
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> ----
>>>
>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Writers Division web site
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>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 4
>> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 11:44:37 -0500
>> From: "Lynda Lambert" <llambert at zoominternet.net>
>> To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>> Message-ID: <70459D802F2C4A1F884098F17FC28C48 at Lambert>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
>> 	reply-type=original
>>
>> flat?  Here be Dragons!
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 8:39 PM
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>
>>
>>> Apparently, there was a recent survey that found that 26 percent of
>>> Americans did not know that the Earth goes around the Sun. That's
>>> different
>>> than believing it doesn't, but it's still a sobering commentary on the
>>> general level of awareness.
>>>
>>> Although, I must say, the part I'm standing on certainly does feel flat.
>>> *grin*
>>> Donna
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Homme,
>>> James
>>> Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 1:21 PM
>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>
>>> Hay. The world is flat. I'm stickin' to that story.
>>> Jim
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>> Applebutter
>>> Hill
>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 3:35 PM
>>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>
>>> Lynda,
>>> Like you've noticed with your sister and the key, sighted people will
>>> not
>>> accept anything we do as anything other than a fluke or a miracle. Even
>>> faced with a clear description of the usefulness of other senses, they
>>> somehow still have to brush anything aside that conflicts with what they
>>> kno
>>> ... Blindness is essentially insurmountable. I think of it as being
>>> similar
>>> to the days when a few nutheads were trying to explain to the human race
>>> that the world is not flat.
>>>
>>> Coincidentally, I just got an e-mail from a rehab counsellor in PA, who
>>> I
>>> reached out to on Linked In -- I offer them a free e-book version of my
>>> novel and explain why I think it has value for them and their clients. I
>>> mention the issue of dealing with low expectations. This man said that,
>>> as
>>>
>>> a
>>> person who used to work with BVI and now works with other disabilities,
>>> he
>>> believes that the issue of low expectations is much worse for those with
>>> vision loss. I have always felt that way, but I don't have the
>>> credentials
>>> to say so. It meant a lot to me to hear that from someone.
>>>
>>> You hit on the reason behind my removing all references to blindness
>>> from
>>>
>>> my
>>> online book descriptions; it's a taboo. Just imagine someone getting my
>>> book
>>> and not knowing that the heroine is blind and has a guide dog. They will
>>> have to read through at least a page before it becomes clear to them.
>>> Some
>>> will be angry with me, because I didn't warn them. Some, I hope, will
>>> have
>>> gotten hooked by something else in the story and read it anyway. It's
>>> fiction, so they don't have to change their stupid belief systems, but I
>>> hope they will have a bit of an adjustment  in spite of themselves.
>>> Donna
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>> Lambert
>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 9:18 AM
>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>
>>> It's a Friday morning snow storm here - a beautiful day outside. Time to
>>> get
>>> some coffee and begin my day, but first I wanted to drop a not on your
>>> discussion which is so interesting to me.
>>>
>>> I think Bridgit really hit it - unless a sighted person has had a lot of
>>> time together with a blind person, they are really clueless and they
>>> could
>>> care less about knowing positive things.  They still live with the
>>> mentality
>>> of the question they have asked themselves and each other for years,
>>> "Would
>>> you rather lose your sight, or your hearing?".  To sighted people losing
>>> sight or hearing is the worst case scenario they can think of and they
>>> are
>>> not about to look any closer into either of the two life-challenges.
>>> And,
>>> as Henrietta, experienced, even close family members really don't
>>> understand
>>> how we do things. Not really.  They watch us, but we are a mystery to
>>> them
>>> even though they have been around us many times over the years.
>>> Occasionally there is some little revelation that they grasp, but I
>>> think
>>>
>>> it
>>> is very rare.
>>>
>>> A couple years ago I went on a short 5 hour trip with my sister.  When
>>> we
>>> arrived at our cousin's home, we had instructions to locate her house
>>> key
>>> and let ourselves in because they were away on vacation and we would
>>> have
>>> their home to stay in.  My sister retrieved the key, as instructed.  She
>>> began to try to open the door.  She fiddled around for quite awhile with
>>> the
>>> key and the lock in the door - yet, she could not get it open. She tried
>>> turning the key around, tried going faster, slower, but no luck.
>>> Finally,
>>>
>>> I
>>> quietly said to her, "Give me the key and let me see what I can do."
>>> She
>>> snickered and said "Oh, sure, you are going to open the door that you
>>> can't
>>> even see!"  I took the key from her, felt the key, and inserted it into
>>> the
>>> door's lock slowly. Then, I put my left had on the door, just above the
>>> lock, so I could FEEL any movement the lock would make.  And, I leaned
>>> very
>>> close to the lock, and I listened.  Very quickly, as I slowly turned the
>>> key, I felt the vibration of it moving, and I heard the click as it was
>>> disengaged.  I smiled, and handed over the key to her, and said, "The
>>> door
>>> is open."  She loudly proclaimed, "I cannot believe it! A blind person
>>> could
>>> open the door and I couldn't."
>>>
>>> I smiled at her and said, "You could not open the door because you were
>>> using only your eyes. I opened it because I could feel it and hear it
>>> moving."  To her it was something very weird that I had actually opened
>>> up
>>> the door that she had struggled with and could not get the job done.  I
>>> think in her mind it was a lucky accident even though I explained why it
>>> happened.  Most sighted people do not think we can do much of anything,
>>> no
>>> matter what we achieve - honestly, that is what I think. So, for most
>>> sighted people to read about a blind hero in a fictional account, I say,
>>> "Dream on!"  I think the interest level for a sighted person to even
>>> read
>>>
>>> a
>>> book through is really a stretch unless that person is really on a
>>> mission
>>> to learn more about blindness and diversity and inclusion. Maybe in a
>>> literature course, where it would be included in the required reading,
>>> but
>>> on their own, I think the chances are quite slim.  But, then, as I write
>>> this I am optimistic enough to think I see a "movie" that could be made
>>> that
>>> would be exciting to them. Who knows? I sure don't.  Why is it that we
>>> are
>>> constantly told we are "amazing" when we do things that are high level
>>> achievements for anyone at all?  Why is it that some people droll all
>>> over
>>> us about how inspiring we are and how tragic it is that we lost our
>>> sight?
>>> I just smile at them and say, "NO, not really! It is just who I am and
>>> who
>>>
>>> I
>>> have always been."  That usually leaves them speechless and the
>>> conversation
>>> ends.  Write on! Lynda
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 9:07 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>
>>>
>>>> Great story!
>>>> Donna
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>> Henrietta Brewer
>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 7:32 PM
>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>> You guys make me laugh. You're right, Sighted people can't imagine the
>>>> blind being the hero. At Christmas, when the power was out in our
>>>> town, I had twenty five or thirty people here most days. We had a
>>>> generator so we had a few lights but not in more then half the house.
>>>>
>>>> I didn't think much of it while everyone was here. Though I was tired
>>>> of doing all the fetching because no one could find anything in the
>>>> dark.
>>>> When
>>>> everyone left and I was cleaning house, I saw how difficult it was for
>>>> our guests. They had only a flashlight in the bathroom and their
>>>> bedroom and nothing was where it should be.
>>>>
>>>> they all mention now, that they will call me in any black out. But it
>>>> took reality to get even family to realize that a blind person can be
>>>> helpful in a black out. lol Henrietta On Feb 13, 2014, at 12:10 AM,
>>>> Bridgit Pollpeter
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> When I wrote a short mystery story for a detective fiction class I
>>>>> took at university, I made my main character blind, which is the
>>>>> first time I did this. Anyway, at one point, the house the two main
>>>>> characters are sleeping in goes up in flames, and the blind character
>>>>> navigates them out of the house. Using his other senses, he makes it
>>>>> out the front door. I did do some research before writing the scene,
>>>>> but mostly based it off my own knowledge of what a blind person might
>>>>> do in that particular situation. When critiqueing our stories, a
>>>>> classmate said, to my face, it wasn't believeable that a blind person
>>>>> could do that and I should change that scene. Another classmate, to
>>>>> my surprise, said who better than a blind person to navigate through
>>>>> a situation where sight wouldn't be much help because of the smoke,
>>>>> and that by smell and feeling heat, surely a blind person would be
>>>>> able to navigate just as well, if not better, than a sighted person.
>>>>> After considering this point, the first person half-heartedly agreed.
>>>>> My point being that I agree with Chris that even though these stories
>>>>> are being written by blind people, most of the sighted world can't,
>>>>> or won't, buy a blind person doing the things we make them do, living
>>>>> as independent, active, vital people.
>>>>>
>>>>> Bridgit
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Chris
>>>>> Kuell
>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 7:47 AM
>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Donna,
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm generally skeptical by nature, but I really hope they do a good
>>>>> job with this show. It's exactly what we've been talking about
>>>>> here--an opportunity to crush the stupid stereotypes and let the
>>>>> public see a guy who is interesting, and just happens to be blind. If
>>>>> it does a good job, and if the public enjoys it, it could open the
>>>>> door to more blind characters in the
>>>>>
>>>>> arts. Personally, I feel certain that the reason books like yours and
>>>>> mine aren't getting read by agents and traditional publishers is
>>>>> because we have blind protagonists. An agent, or more likely, an
>>>>> agent's assistant reads my query and thinks--a blind protagonist?
>>>>> Nobody is going to buy that. It's too outside mainstream experience.
>>>>>
>>>>> Hopefully, the times, they are a changing.
>>>>>
>>>>> chris
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
>>>>> stylist mailing list
>>>>> stylist at nfbnet.org
>>>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
>>>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>>>>> stylist:
>>>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/bpollpeter%40hot
>>>>> m
>>>>> ai
>>>>> l.com
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
>>>>> stylist mailing list
>>>>> stylist at nfbnet.org
>>>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
>>>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>>>> stylist:
>>>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/gary.brewer%40co
>>>>> m
>>>>> cast.net
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Writers Division web site
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>>>> stylist mailing list
>>>> stylist at nfbnet.org
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>>>> stylist:
>>>>
>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/applebutterhill%40gmail
>>>> .com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Writers Division web site
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>>>> stylist:
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>>> .net
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
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>>> com
>>>
>>> ________________________________
>>>
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>>> If
>>> you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender
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>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 5
>> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 12:37:27 -0600
>> From: "Cheryl Orgas & William Meeker" <meekerorgas at ameritech.net>
>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>> Subject: [stylist] FW:  Blind or Visually Impaired Authors
>> Message-ID: <003501cf2cd8$79a02450$6ce06cf0$@ameritech.net>
>> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"
>>
>> Not sure if this got through the first time.
>>
>> Bill Meeker
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Cheryl Orgas & William Meeker [mailto:meekerorgas at ameritech.net]
>> Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 1:34 PM
>> To: 'Applebutter Hill'
>> Subject: RE: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors;RE: New Book,
>> blindness on TV
>>
>> Donna,
>>
>> Thank you so much for your work unearthing these illuminating articles
>> about
>> the authors I mentioned.  I am enjoying them a lot.
>>
>> Thurber was one of my favorite writers since I was a teenager.  When I
>> read
>> print I read and reread the "Thurber Carnival."  In addition to "The
>> Secret
>> Life of Walter Mitty," "The Night the Bed Fell" makes me laugh every time
>> I
>> read it.
>>
>> James Joyce is one of my favorite authors too.  I agree with the article
>> statement that he is best read out loud. I highly recommend Alexander
>> Scourby's superb reading of Ulysses, DB19994.  I don't know an other man
>> who
>> can read a female part as convincingly as Scourby reads Molly Bloom.  And
>> Leopold Bloom's encounter with The Blind Stripling captures perfectly a
>> sighted man's interior dialogue around meeting a blind person at a street
>> corner.  The description of The Blind Stripling responding to the
>> encounter
>> I think captures the dignity in the blind man's demeanor and hints at
>> what
>> he may be feeling.  Every year I look forward to attending an annual
>> Bloom's
>> Day event in Madison, Wisconsin and hearing different people read
>> excerpts
>> from Ulysses.
>>
>> While I can't yet get my brain around Finnegan's Wake, Patrick Horgan
>> reads
>> it, DB21424, adeptly.
>>
>>
>> And I haven't read Milton, but Paradise Lost is downloaded and waiting to
>> be
>> read.
>>
>>
>> Thanks again for increasing my understanding of these authors and giving
>> me
>> enjoyment at the same time.
>>
>>
>> Bill Meeker
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Applebutter Hill [mailto:applebutterhill at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 3:21 PM
>> To: meekerorgas at ameritech.net; 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>> Subject: RE: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors;RE: New Book,
>> blindness on TV
>>
>> Bill,
>> Donna Hill here. I don't know about Homer, and neither does anyone else.
>> His
>> blindness and even his existence as the one writer of the works
>> attributed
>> to him is a matter of some controversy in the academic world. For proof
>> of
>> his blindness, lines from his poetry are used, which isn't quite enough
>> for
>> me. Homer as a blind poet is more important to me as a cultural myth.
>>
>> Milton, though he wrote his best work without sight,  was well-educated
>> and
>> well-known prior to blindness. The most remembered line he wrote about
>> blindness doesn't say much for adapting -- approx "those serve too who
>> only
>> stand and wait." I found a great bio of him on poets.org, which I will
>> place
>> at the end of this message.
>>
>> Thurber lost sight in one eye in an accident in childhood which
>> apparently
>> led to losing sight in the other later in life. He had enough sight to
>> enlist in the military and function as a cartoonist for the NewYorker.
>> Here
>> is something from an article from Slate.com about him (after a collection
>> of
>> his letters was released) that discusses the effect of his blindness on
>> his
>> work.
>> Block quote
>> The tragedy of James Thurber.
>>
>> James Thurber's tragedy.
>> By
>> Wilfrid Sheed
>>
>> SEPT. 18 2003 3:33 PM
>>
>> At the age of 15 or so, I picked up The Thurber Carnival and realized
>> that
>> I'd found my Pied Piper; I wanted to be James Thurber. I would follow
>> those
>> sentences anywhere. But Thurber, The New Yorker writer and cartoonist
>> (author, famously, of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"),?had just passed
>> his peak and was already descending into the total blindness that would
>> embitter him and impair his writing. So, The Thurber Carnival was the
>> perfect place to start, and it still is: It contains Thurber's essence
>> and
>> the best work he did in his pre-blind years?his cartoons and fables and
>> those deadly little "casuals"
>> from
>> The New Yorker in which husbands and wives drove each other absolutely,
>> unconditionally crazy, while huge silent dogs looked on like Buddhas,
>> patiently waiting for the human race to come to its senses, or not, as
>> the
>> case may be.
>>
>> Now we have The Thurber Letters, collected by Harrison Kinney and
>> Rosemary
>> Thurber, to give us a fuller picture of the man. Most people would, I
>> suppose, if faced with the grim choice, prefer to take their chances as
>> blind writers rather than as deaf composers. Homer, the Cyclops of
>> literature, did OK. And Milton got a great poem out of blindness. But
>> Thurber's letters seem to me inexpressibly sad, perhaps because one can
>> perceive the blindness setting in slowly?and, having seen the back of his
>> biography, one also knows that there will be no great poems, so to speak,
>> deriving from it.
>>
>> ...
>>
>> Thurber, like many enlisted men, had seen "Paree," and it had given all
>> his
>> pieces a lick of sophistication new to American humor. In effect, he and
>> his
>> whole generation had used Paris as a species of finishing school where
>> country boys like Cole Porter and Ernest Hemingway could major in
>> sophistication before bringing some home with them. There was never any
>> question of anyone going back to the farm, of course, and so in the
>> mid-'20s
>> a bunch of these boys decided to start a magazine right there?and not
>> just
>> any old magazine, but the most sophisticated damn magazine in the whole
>> world: "Not for the old lady in Dubuque," as its first issue trumpeted
>> sophomorically. The New Yorker did turn out to be the most sophisticated
>> magazine in the world, and the British in particular went nuts trying to
>> imitate it.
>>
>> http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2003/09/blind_wit.html
>> Block quote end
>>
>> Joyce had problems with his vision (iritis & glaucoma) starting in
>> childhood
>> when he needed thick glasses to read. He had numerous operations for it;
>> he
>> died during an operation, but I'm not sure if it was another one on his
>> eyes.  In one letter he describes himself as having been "incapacitated"
>> for
>> a week from the iritis, but I don't know if he meant by the pain of the
>> condition or because he wasn't adapted to living nonvisually. I haven't
>> found any references to his using any adaptations such as Milton did when
>> he
>> dictated his later poetry.
>>
>> Here are some snippits from an old Atlantic Monthly article on Joyce's
>> literary contribution in which his vision is mentioned and appropriately
>> enough the influence it had on his writing. I included the first quote to
>> show how much he was passing as sighted, or how little his visual
>> problems
>> were holding him back in his early years. The URL's at the end.
>>
>> Block quote
>> The Atlantic Monthly
>>
>> James Joyce
>> By Harry Levin
>> December, 1946
>> ... At University College he had specialized in Romance Languages, and
>> had
>> shown such proficiency that there had been talk of a professorship.
>> During
>> his hardest years on the Continent, before a benefactor endowed his
>> literary
>> work, he worked as a commercial translator and as a teacher in a Berlitz
>> school.
>>
>> ...
>> It is a striking fact about English literature in the twentieth century
>> that
>> its most notable practitioners have seldom been Englishmen. The fact that
>> they have so often been Irishmen supports, Synge's belief in the
>> reinvigorating suggestiveness of Irish popular speech. That English was
>> not
>> Joyce's native language, in the strictest sense, he was keenly aware; and
>> it
>> helps to explain his unparalleled virtuosity. But a more concrete
>> explanation is to be discerned among his physical traits, one of which we
>> normally classify as a serious handicap. Joyce lived much of his life in
>> varying states of semi-blindness.
>> To
>> preserve what eyesight he had, he underwent repeated operations and
>> countermeasures. A schoolboy humiliation, when he broke his glasses and
>> failed to do his lessons, is painfully recollected in the Portrait and
>> again
>> in Ulysses.
>> His writing tends more and more toward low visibility; his imagination is
>> auditory rather than visual. If the artist is a man for whom the visible
>> world exists, remarked George Moore, then Joyce is essentially a
>> metaphysician; for he is less concerned with the seeing eye than with the
>> thinking mind.
>>
>> We may add that he is most directly concerned with the hearing ear.
>> Doubtless the sonorities of Homer and Milton are intimately connected
>> with
>> their blindness.
>> It is scarcely coincidental that Joyce, almost unique among modern prose
>> writers in this respect, must be read aloud to be fully appreciated. In
>> addition to his linguistic aptitude, and in compensation for his
>> defective
>> vision, he was gifted with an especially fine tenor voice. Professional
>> singing was one of the possible careers he had contemplated. His singer's
>> taste inclined toward Opera and bel canto, romantic ballads and
>> Elizabethan
>> airs: not music but song, he liked to say. His poems except for a few
>> excursions into Swiftian satire, are songs; lyrics which, without their
>> musical settings look strangely fragile. Yeats, upon first reading them,
>> praised Joyce's delicate talent, and shrewdly wondered whether his
>> ultimate
>> form would be verse or prose.
>> Operating
>> within the broader area of fiction, he was to retain the cadenced
>> precision
>> of the poet. Above all he remained an accomplished listener, whose pages
>> are
>> continually animated by the accurate recording of overheard conversation.
>>
>> ...
>>
>> His pangs of composition have recently been described by Philippe
>> Soupault
>> as "a sort of daily damnation: the creation of the Joycean world. The
>> perverse ingenuity of these later experiments has been deplored more
>> frequently than deciphered. A long series of misunderstandings with the
>> public inevitably reinforced those early vows of silence, exile, and
>> cunning. Inhibited from writing naturally of natural instincts, Joyce
>> ended
>> by inventing an artificial language of innuendo and mockery. In Finnegans
>> Wake he drew upon his linguistic skills and learned hobbies to contrive
>> an
>> Optophone--an instrument which, for the benefit of the blind, converts
>> images into sounds. Out of it come, not merely echoes of the past, but
>> warnings of the future. Mr. Earwicker's worldly misfortunes are climaxed
>> by
>> a lethal explosion: "the abnihilisation of the etym."
>> Pessimists may interpret this enigma as the annihilation of all meaning,
>> a
>> chain reaction set off by the destruction of the atom. Optimists will
>> stress
>> the creation of matter ex nihilo--and trust in the Word to create another
>> world.
>>
>> http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/95sep/links/levi.htm
>> Block quote end
>>
>> Now for the Milton bio
>> Block quote
>> John Milton
>>
>> John Milton was born in London on December 9, 1608, into a middle-class
>> family. He was educated at St. Paul's School, then at Christ's College,
>> Cambridge, where he began to write poetry in Latin, Italian, and English,
>> and prepared to enter the clergy.
>>
>> After university, however, he abandoned his plans to join the priesthood
>> and
>> spent the next six years in his father's country home in Buckinghamshire
>> following a rigorous course of independent study to prepare for a career
>> as
>> a poet. His extensive reading included both classical and modern works of
>> religion, science, philosophy, history, politics, and literature. In
>> addition, Milton was proficient in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish,
>> and Italian, and obtained a familiarity with Old English and Dutch as
>> well.
>>
>> During his period of private study, Milton composed a number of poems,
>> including "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," "On Shakespeare,"
>> "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and the pastoral elegy "Lycidas." In May of
>> 1638, Milton began a 13-month tour of France and Italy, during which he
>> met
>> many important intellectuals and influential people, including the
>> astronomer Galileo, who appears in Milton's tract against censorship,
>> "Areopagitica."
>>
>> In 1642, Milton returned from a trip into the countryside with a
>> 16-year-old
>> bride, Mary Powell. Even though they were estranged for most of their
>> marriage, she bore him three daughters and a son before her death in
>> 1652.
>> Milton later married twice more: Katherine Woodcock in 1656, who died
>> giving
>> birth in 1658, and Elizabeth Minshull in 1662.
>>
>> During the English Civil War, Milton championed the cause of the Puritans
>> and Oliver Cromwell, and wrote a series of pamphlets advocating radical
>> political topics including the morality of divorce, the freedom of the
>> press, populism, and sanctioned regicide. Milton served as secretary for
>> foreign languages in Cromwell's government, composing official statements
>> defending the Commonwealth. During this time, Milton steadily lost his
>> eyesight, and was completely blind by 1651. He continued his duties,
>> however, with the aid of Andrew Marvell and other assistants.
>>
>> After the Restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, Milton was
>> arrested as a defender of the Commonwealth, fined, and soon released. He
>> lived the rest of his life in seclusion in the country, completing the
>> blank-verse epic poem Paradise Lost in 1667, as well as its sequel
>> Paradise
>> Regained and the tragedy Samson Agonistes both in 1671. Milton oversaw
>> the
>> printing of a second edition of Paradise Lost in 1674, which included an
>> explanation of "why the poem rhymes not," clarifying his use of blank
>> verse,
>> along with introductory notes by Marvell. He died shortly afterwards, on
>> November 8, 1674, in Buckinghamshire, England.
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/707
>> Block quote end
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Cheryl
>> Orgas
>> & William Meeker
>> Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 9:59 AM
>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Blind or Visually Impaired Authors;RE: New Book,
>> blindness on TV
>>
>> Linda,
>>
>> Blind or visually impaired authors Homer, John Milton, James Joyce, and
>> James Thurber come to mind first.  That they were known for their works
>> rather than their blindness is to me a measure of their success.
>>
>> Several authors have written novels without using common vowels, such as
>> the
>> letter "E."  So how about a novel or short story depicting a blind
>> character
>> without using the word "blind?"  That is, describing them and their
>> actions
>> including alternative techniques and letting the reader figure out that
>> they
>> are blind.
>>
>> Or how about a novel or short story written without  visual descriptions.
>> That is, using only descriptions of sounds, textures, tastes, and
>> feelings?
>>
>> I can think up these ideas, but I lack the skill, drive, and
>> self-disclipline to execute them.  So have fun.
>>
>>
>> Bill Meeker
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>> Lambert
>> Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2014 6:59 AM
>> To: newmanrl at cox.net; Writer's Division Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind; RE: New Book,
>> blindness on TV
>>
>> This conversation is making me begin to think about some authors I taught
>> in
>> the past in Humanities and English courses.  Now that I am "aware" of
>> blindness, which I was NOT at all in the past, I am wondering how I would
>> interpret the literature of a blind author. I taught Bourges and I never
>> knew he was blind!   I am thinking that now, if I go back to read his
>> work,
>> I will interpret many things in a different way.  I taught the "Book of
>> Sand" every semester!  Hmmmm.  Now it makes even more sense as an exampe
>> lof
>> of Postmodernism which was the focus it had for me at the time.  WOW,
>> this
>> is beginning to be a revelation to me.  I know that many of the artists I
>> taught were blind or visually impaired, but their work was not generally
>> explored through that lens.
>> I am going to begin looking much deeper into this for my own research -
>> if
>> anyone has any more information on artists and writers who are/were blind
>> I
>> would love to hear from you as I begin my own little research project on
>> this matter.
>>
>> I am re-learning how to do Power Point presentations now. Normally, this
>> is
>> how I lectured but until now, I could not have done it again. I know now,
>> that I can do it, it's just going to take awhile for me to teach myself
>> again.  I am scheduled to do two presentation at Slippery Rock University
>> of
>> PA in March - I'll use my milestone to give me verbal "cues" as I am
>> speaking, for these presentations. But, I want to begin to develop some
>> presentations using power point and I am sure I can do it again - I just
>> need to have the time and put in the work to accomplish it.  I have
>> always
>> loved doing lectures and presentations and I want to do them again - so I
>> am
>> gonna work on it!
>>
>> Lynda
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Robert Leslie Newman" <newmanrl at cox.net>
>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 11:22 PM
>> Subject: [stylist] Low expectations of the blind;RE: New Book, blindness
>> on
>> TV
>>
>>
>>> Hi you all, this has been an interesting conversation:
>>>
>>> Here is another generalization that many around the world have
>>> developed over the eons: Blindness is the most God awful, feared
>>> physical condition that mankind can experience.
>>>
>>> I had read and heard this forever, from the mouths of people on the
>>> street, to what I've learned in a variety of college classes..though,
>>> over the past couple of decades blindness has been pushed down to
>>> third place. Guess what has eclipsed being blind as the most feared?
>>> Aids and cancer. And hey, I can believe that these two physical
>>> conditions are far worse...after all, either one of these two monster
>>> conditions can kill you!!! (Though, there are some who feel that
>>> blindness is a living death. And yeah, if you allow it to rule! And
>>> this is where the NFB has done the world a great service...as in we
>>> have developed a philosophy, built a framework of alternative
>>> techniques, and influenced the making of a wide variety of tools that
>>> in combination...will allow most of us to reduce the effects of
>>> blindness, down to  a level whereby most of us can say with an honesty
>>> level of 100%, 100%, that the loss of sight is not a major impediment
>>> to living a successful and happy life. No...the true problem we face
>>> is more the ignorance and the lack of information about the human
>>> potential to successfully live with blindness is the toughest
>>> impediment to being blind. MMM, go figure? [Being blind isn't the
>>> problem, living in a world of ignorance is.]
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>> Applebutter Hill
>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 9:10 PM
>>> To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>
>>> Lynda,
>>> At 70, I should certainly hope you (or anyone) would have developed a
>>> healthy level of skepticism. *grin*
>>>
>>> I know that black people face prejudice and low expectations, but I
>>> think the fact that white people enslaved them to actually do
>>> something, makes that low level quite a bit higher than for blind
>>> people. We aren't deemed capable of planting a field, keeping up a
>>> household or even caring for children -- as the incident in the
>>> Midwest a few years ago shoed, when a child was removed shortly after
>> birth from its blind parents.
>>>
>>> Our traditional purpose is to give the average person something they
>>> can look at and say, "Well, I may have problems, but at least I'm not
>> blind."
>>> We
>>> also have traditionally provided them with opportunities to do good
>>> deeds.
>>> Expecting us to no longer be helpless fundamentally changes how they
>>> see themselves.
>>>
>>> Your post reminds me of a story I heard from a blind woman who was
>>> accepted to grad school. Her aunt was furious that she had stolen the
>>> position from someone who could really benefit from it. The belief was
>>> that anything that a blind person accomplished was just another
>>> example of the kindness of strangers in elevating a pitiful person and
>>> helping them feel better about themselves. BTW, she has a doctorate in
>>> law. I heard many similar stories when I was writing about Braille
>>> literacy -- they weren't on topic at the time, and I had hoped to
>>> gather some of the things people told me into articles about some of
>>> these more subtle things that are going on to this day, but it never
>>> happened.
>>> Donna
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>> Lambert
>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 6:31 PM
>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>
>>> Donna, yes, the expectations for blind people are very low.  I believe
>>> that is why blind people as a group are the highest educated of all
>>> people with disabilities, yet, they are the lowest employed people of
>>> all the groups.
>>> This says it all - we are not expected to be smart, able, or willing
>>> to succeed at anything more than very low levels.
>>> This is my own thoughts on it and I recognize I am quite skeptical
>>> about it
>>> - but heck, I am 70 years old now, so I guess I can blame it on my age.
>>> I think we have to work so far beyond what other people have to do to
>>> find success at so many things. And, this is also true of black
>>> people.  I do not know this from a distance, or from reading books on
>>> the subject which of course I do all the time. I know it personally,
>>> because my son is black and his family is black - they are very highly
>>> educated professionals - she a physician, he a psychologist.  At every
>>> level, black people still face very low expectations and racism - and
>>> I think blind people are very close to the same in the general view of
>>> the ST"STUPID public. I agree with you. They are ver STUPID, but we
>>> won't tell them that, just yet. lol
>>>
>>> Lynda
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 3:34 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>
>>>
>>>> Lynda,
>>>> Like you've noticed with your sister and the key, sighted people will
>>>> not accept anything we do as anything other than a fluke or a miracle.
>>>> Even faced with a clear description of the usefulness of other
>>>> senses, they somehow still have to brush anything aside that
>>>> conflicts with what they kno ... Blindness is essentially
>>>> insurmountable. I think of it as being similar to the days when a few
>>>> nutheads were trying to explain to the human race that the world is
>>>> not
>> flat.
>>>>
>>>> Coincidentally, I just got an e-mail from a rehab counsellor in PA,
>>>> who I reached out to on Linked In -- I offer them a free e-book
>>>> version of my novel and explain why I think it has value for them and
>>>> their clients. I mention the issue of dealing with low expectations.
>>>> This man said that, as
>>>
>>>> a
>>>> person who used to work with BVI and now works with other
>>>> disabilities, he believes that the issue of low expectations is much
>>>> worse for those with vision loss. I have always felt that way, but I
>>>> don't have the credentials to say so. It meant a lot to me to hear
>>>> that
>>> from someone.
>>>>
>>>> You hit on the reason behind my removing all references to blindness
>>>> from my online book descriptions; it's a taboo. Just imagine someone
>>>> getting my book and not knowing that the heroine is blind and has a
>>>> guide dog. They will have to read through at least a page before it
>>>> becomes clear to them. Some will be angry with me, because I didn't
>>>> warn them. Some, I hope, will have gotten hooked by something else in
>>>> the story and read it anyway. It's fiction, so they don't have to
>>>> change their stupid belief systems, but I hope they will have a bit
>>>> of an adjustment  in spite of themselves.
>>>> Donna
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lynda
>>>> Lambert
>>>> Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 9:18 AM
>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>> It's a Friday morning snow storm here - a beautiful day outside. Time
>>>> to get some coffee and begin my day, but first I wanted to drop a not
>>>> on your discussion which is so interesting to me.
>>>>
>>>> I think Bridgit really hit it - unless a sighted person has had a lot
>>>> of time together with a blind person, they are really clueless and
>>>> they could care less about knowing positive things.  They still live
>>>> with the mentality of the question they have asked themselves and
>>>> each other for years, "Would you rather lose your sight, or your
>> hearing?".
>>>> To sighted people losing sight or hearing is the worst case scenario
>>>> they can think of and they are not about to look any closer into
>>>> either of the two life-challenges.  And, as Henrietta, experienced,
>>>> even close family members really don't understand how we do things.
>>>> Not really.  They watch us, but we are a mystery to them even though
>>>> they have been around us many times over the years.
>>>> Occasionally there is some little revelation that they grasp, but I
>>>> think it is very rare.
>>>>
>>>> A couple years ago I went on a short 5 hour trip with my sister.
>>>> When we arrived at our cousin's home, we had instructions to locate
>>>> her house key and let ourselves in because they were away on vacation
>>>> and we would have their home to stay in.  My sister retrieved the
>>>> key, as instructed.  She began to try to open the door.  She fiddled
>>>> around for quite awhile with the key and the lock in the door - yet,
>>>> she could not get it open. She tried turning the key around, tried
>>>> going faster, slower, but no luck.  Finally,
>>>
>>>> I
>>>> quietly said to her, "Give me the key and let me see what I can do."
>>>> She snickered and said "Oh, sure, you are going to open the door that
>>>> you can't even see!"  I took the key from her, felt the key, and
>>>> inserted it into the door's lock slowly. Then, I put my left had on
>>>> the door, just above the lock, so I could FEEL any movement the lock
>>>> would make.  And, I leaned very close to the lock, and I listened.
>>>> Very quickly, as I slowly turned the key, I felt the vibration of it
>>>> moving, and I heard the click as it was disengaged.  I smiled, and
>>>> handed over the key to her, and said, "The door is open."  She loudly
>>>> proclaimed, "I cannot believe it! A blind person could open the door
>>>> and I couldn't."
>>>>
>>>> I smiled at her and said, "You could not open the door because you
>>>> were using only your eyes. I opened it because I could feel it and
>>>> hear it moving."  To her it was something very weird that I had
>>>> actually opened up the door that she had struggled with and could not
>>>> get the job done.  I think in her mind it was a lucky accident even
>>>> though I explained why it happened.  Most sighted people do not think
>>>> we can do much of anything, no matter what we achieve - honestly,
>>>> that is what I think. So, for most sighted people to read about a
>>>> blind hero in a fictional account, I say, "Dream on!"  I think the
>>>> interest level for a sighted person to even read a book through is
>>>> really a stretch unless that person is really on a mission to learn
>>>> more about blindness and diversity and inclusion. Maybe in a
>>>> literature course, where it would be included in the required
>>>> reading, but on their own, I think the chances are quite slim.  But,
>>>> then, as I write this I am optimistic enough to think I see a "movie"
>>>> that could be made that would be exciting to them. Who knows? I sure
>>>> don't.  Why is it that we are constantly told we are "amazing" when
>>>> we do things that are high level achievements for anyone at all?  Why
>>>> is it that some people droll all over us about how inspiring we are
>>>> and how tragic it is that we
>>> lost our sight?
>>>> I just smile at them and say, "NO, not really! It is just who I am
>>>> and who
>>>
>>>> I
>>>> have always been."  That usually leaves them speechless and the
>>>> conversation ends.  Write on! Lynda
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "Applebutter Hill" <applebutterhill at gmail.com>
>>>> To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 9:07 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Great story!
>>>>> Donna
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>> Henrietta Brewer
>>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 7:32 PM
>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>
>>>>> You guys make me laugh. You're right, Sighted people can't imagine
>>>>> the blind being the hero. At Christmas, when the power was out in
>>>>> our town, I had twenty five or thirty people here most days. We had
>>>>> a generator so we had a few lights but not in more then half the
>>>>> house.
>>>>>
>>>>> I didn't think much of it while everyone was here. Though I was
>>>>> tired of doing all the fetching because no one could find anything
>>>>> in the dark.
>>>>> When
>>>>> everyone left and I was cleaning house, I saw how difficult it was
>>>>> for our guests. They had only a flashlight in the bathroom and their
>>>>> bedroom and nothing was where it should be.
>>>>>
>>>>> they all mention now, that they will call me in any black out. But
>>>>> it took reality to get even family to realize that a blind person
>>>>> can be helpful in a black out. lol Henrietta On Feb 13, 2014, at
>>>>> 12:10 AM, Bridgit Pollpeter
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> When I wrote a short mystery story for a detective fiction class I
>>>>>> took at university, I made my main character blind, which is the
>>>>>> first time I did this. Anyway, at one point, the house the two main
>>>>>> characters are sleeping in goes up in flames, and the blind
>>>>>> character navigates them out of the house. Using his other senses,
>>>>>> he makes it out the front door. I did do some research before
>>>>>> writing the scene, but mostly based it off my own knowledge of what
>>>>>> a blind person might do in that particular situation. When
>>>>>> critiqueing our stories, a classmate said, to my face, it wasn't
>>>>>> believeable that a blind person could do that and I should change
>>>>>> that scene. Another classmate, to my surprise, said who better than
>>>>>> a blind person to navigate through a situation where sight wouldn't
>>>>>> be much help because of the smoke, and that by smell and feeling
>>>>>> heat, surely a blind person would be able to navigate just as well,
>>>>>> if not better, than a sighted person. After considering this point,
>>>>>> the first person half-heartedly agreed. My point being that I agree
>>>>>> with Chris that even though these stories are being written by
>>>>>> blind people, most of the sighted world can't, or won't, buy a
>>>>>> blind person doing the things we make them do, living as
>>>>>> independent, active,
>>> vital people.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Bridgit
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>>> Chris Kuell
>>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 7:47 AM
>>>>>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [stylist] New Book, blindness on TV
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Donna,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm generally skeptical by nature, but I really hope they do a good
>>>>>> job with this show. It's exactly what we've been talking about
>>>>>> here--an opportunity to crush the stupid stereotypes and let the
>>>>>> public see a guy who is interesting, and just happens to be blind.
>>>>>> If it does a good job, and if the public enjoys it, it could open
>>>>>> the door to more blind characters in the
>>>>>>
>>>>>> arts. Personally, I feel certain that the reason books like yours
>>>>>> and mine aren't getting read by agents and traditional publishers
>>>>>> is because we have blind protagonists. An agent, or more likely, an
>>>>>> agent's assistant reads my query and thinks--a blind protagonist?
>>>>>> Nobody is going to buy that. It's too outside mainstream experience.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hopefully, the times, they are a changing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> chris
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
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>>>>>> stylist at nfbnet.org
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>>>>>> stylist:
>>>>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/bpollpeter%40h
>>>>>> o
>>>>>> tm
>>>>>> ai
>>>>>> l.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Writers Division web site
>>>>>> http://writers.nfb.org/
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>>>>> stylist:
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>>>>>> c
>>>>>> om
>>>>>> cast.net
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>
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>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/llambert%40zoomin
>>> ternet
>>>> .net
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Writers Division web site
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>>
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>>
>> ------------------------------
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>> Subject: Digest Footer
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>> ------------------------------
>>
>> End of stylist Digest, Vol 118, Issue 25
>> ****************************************
>>
>
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>