The first outsider artist I remember was Wild Man Fischer. Back in the heyday of Warner Bros records, the late 60s, Frank Zappa recorded Wild Man Fischer. Fischer had been discovered singing on the streets for 10 cents a song. I heard his recording, “Songs for Sale,” on one of the great Warner Bros/Reprise sampler […]
Where the Hits Keep ComingInadvertently, an email of mine asking for disability researchers investigating how popular music sheds light on disability politics, identity, history, multiculturalism, or sociology was posted on a listserv. I got a few potential leads and interesting responses. One was from someone at a Welsh independent living center who is an underground/metal/experimental […]
Wheelchair Morality According to the New York Times review this morning there is a new movie, “Sympathy for Delicious.” It’s the directorial debut for Mark Ruffalo. It tells the story of a wheelchair user who only wants to be a rock star DJ but his ability to miraculously heal everyone but himself keeps getting in […]
Penngrove California: In the latest news from the Penngrove Disabled Action Brigade, the advocacy group has once again published holiday greetings. It is a long-standing tradition, going back to when the organization was known as the Penngrove Handicapped Social Club. For now, the Brigade has shelved their universal healthcare/public option advocacy fight. Instead, their primary […]
In today’s entries to the Disability in the Humanities listserv, DS-HUM, there was a discussion of a new album cover of Nikki Minaj. I couldn’t resist opining:It looks like the Pink Friday album cover is a continuation of Nikki Minaj’s redefinition and playing with the images of women rappers. From a quick reading of Wikipedia […]
Under the influence of our 14 year old, dance-crazed neighbor I’ve watched Glee from the beginning. (Under her influence I’ve also watched every episode of So You Think You Can Dance for the past three years.) On first watch of Glee I was impressed with how exaggerated and over the top the show was. It […]
Buff Bagwell was a US wrestler who used a wheelchair for prop. This was years ago. I found an action figure of him. Pushing a button on the back of the wheelchair caused the wrestler figure to leap out of his wheelchair—strange but kind of cool. Today, not being able to remember his name, I […]
I managed to make the deadline for the VSA Arts Postcard Project. The theme was to create a postcard with the artist’s definition of disability. Since Christmas I’ve been playing around with my new disabled action figures. It seemed to me that perhaps one of the facets of my definition might be this. […]
Little by little, the good, gray Times has started to recognize disability. Sometimes, it’s even bold in recognizing our perception of the lived experience of disability, rather than the stereotypes. The boldest that I noticed was, of course, the articles written by the late Harriet McBryde Johnson. Last week I noticed on my Times RSS […]
From what I can tell from this side of the pond, there was a huge hue and cry when it was announced in 2005 that a sculpture of a naked, pregnant, disabled woman would be on display in Trafalgar Square for 18 months. I can’t imagine a statue like this in a public space in […]