February 20, 2010 Tribal Membership This week I received an email from someone I didn’t know, a wheelchair user. He’s a quad who became disabled after a diving accident over thirty-five years ago. How do I know all that from the first line of his email? He told me. It read, “I am a C5-6 […]
Category: disability
VSA Postcard Project
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. […]
New York Times Paying Attention
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 […]
Crippled Black Phoenix
Ah, I just found another interesting detritus uncovered by eBay. It’s the Crippled Black Phoenix. They’re a UK post-rock band. I’m not sure what post-rock is but their music on their MySpace page isn’t particularly offensive, although some of their imagery is. […]
Melody Gardot and her disability identity
Just got the latest Melody Gardot CD, “My One and Only Thrill.” She’s one of those smokey-sounding women songsters that seem to have a resurgence lately–Madeleine Peyroux, Amy Winehouse, etc. Not only do I like her music, but I’m also impressed with her disability identity. On her MySpace page she talks about the term disability. […]
Kids playing from Life Magazine archive
Discovered the sweetest picture of two braced and crutched kids have a good time on the playground. They’re at the FDR school in a Spanish-speaking country. There’s a few pictures from the Life Magazine archive that show disabled people. Two young boys in schoolyard […]
Sex, Drugs, & Rock ‘n’ roll
Here’s some good news from the UK disability arts newsletter, ETC. (To subscribe, silvie@disabilityarts.info) To my mind Ian Dury’s “Spasticus Autisticus” should be the disability community’s rockin’ anthem. If this movie is successful it should help bring the disabled Dury back into public consciousness. Here’s the news: Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll 104 […]
Wheelchairs as symbols
A friend and colleague has his antenna out for disability-related songs since we talked about our music explorations. (He’s fascinated by the use of anthems — both contemporary and historical — and how they connect.) He pointed me to an Alt-Country song, “We Can’t Make It Here Any More” by James McMurtry and a video […]
Whew! Disability masquerade
It’s something. I was checking out the Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968 CD compiled by Lenny Kaye. The CD pulls together bands that are just pre-psychedelic and are often called garage bands. It’s was influential in the punk era and beyond. Anyway, the Elastic Band has a song on the CD, […]