Started Posts

H/t to Maria @intueri for the idea.

My blogger dashboard has drafts of posts that I haven't yet completed. I have either not wanted to complete them or have not been able to finish them. At any rate, I am probably not going to finish them now. They have languished in the drafts section; I look at them every so often and I feel bad, but apparently not enough to get back to them.

Although I have been blogging since 2006, the remaining started and unfinished posts all date from 2008-2009. I have no idea why that is -- perhaps an increase in pain? That was the year in which things went really wild disability and hip wise. Anyway. I want a clean slate. And they are relatively interesting fragments. So, here you are.

Started 7/23/09 Just Another Body

The New York Times reports the decimation (well, not literally) of New York City Ballet's corps de ballet: "11 members of the company’s corps de ballet, some barely in their 20s, who have joined the swelling ranks of laid-off workers nationwide struggling to find new ways in the recession. They were told in February, shortly before the deadline for new contracts to be issued, that their employment would not be renewed, mainly for economic reasons."

What happens to dancers who have been laid off?

Started 3/12/09 A Few Of My Favourite Things

As a child, I wanted things because although I knew how much they cost, I also knew what they were worth: value as a human being.

Continued on 2/7/09 LIRR: A Disability Nightmare

[I think this is a continuation because the original NYT article is from 2008, but blogger has it marked as an 09 post.]

New York Times I grew up speaking of "railways" more than "railroads." Indeed, unless I am thinking specifically of "railroading" someone into something, I mark "railroad" as an American word, a sound, concept, and idea of the country I now live in.

Started 10/28/08 Punished With Art

(NOTE: this is designed to follow this post)

Art as punishment strikes me as just absurd.

I am so tired of the idea that people use art as a kind of wellness tool. Pregnant? Don't forget your vitamins or your baby Mozart CD. Not that you shouldn't play Mozart to your child; it's the idea that you can use art mechanically, as a tool -- a man-made device. Now, we have moved beyond the idea that colour and muzak can somehow be important in influencing civic behaviour into the realm where acknowledged works of art can be useful in maintaining public order. I acknowledge that art can have emotional effects, effects that raise and quell emotion. Art can stupify or enliven. I know that public art often seeks to play with such emotion, but the idea that we control our interactions with art or that one viewer of art can control how another sees the art defies me.

The idea of art as punishment also seems weird. No, let me put that more accurately. This is a softer, say a civilian version of music as torture (interesting papers thereon here, here, and here). To punish with art is an abomination. To torture in any manner is execrable.

At West Coast, we do a lot of school assemblies. It's a weird experience -- drive for an hour or so. Dance for 45 minutes, perhaps wait 30, perhaps dance another 45, and then leave for another hour or so. We get around the whole Bay Area: East Bay, South Bay, Peninsula, and City, and this has given me a lot of exposure to different schools and different school systems. We go to all types of schools. Wealthy schools ask the parents to pay for us -- diversity week -- poorer schools often bring us in under some kind of program. I'm not exactly sure how we get there. But I do know what I see once we arrive.

Society has generally agreed that "Art," or should that be "ART," is a good thing, so, as I toil away, on a canteen floor in a freezing dining hall, I often wonder about what the kids staring at us see. And, sadly, I have the suspicion that what they see correlates all too strongly with the geographical location of the school. And location correlates with money, race, and class. Sigh.

School #1 is located in an area with a median house price of over 3,000 000, and a mean household income is over $200,000. One middle school we visited had TWO, yes 2, count 'em two fully equipped proscenium theaters and a small tech crew on hand to support us. The environment was fake Gothic/Victorian Oxbridge college, and the students were surrounded by other prominent indicators of wealth.

The students at this middle school were obviously accustomed to seeing artistic performance, and we were there as "performer/entertainers." It was our job to win over the students. (Interestingly, I felt the teachers were in a similar position: tutors for the children over powerful people, but not necessarily their "social equals.") We were treated very well ... but we were essentially hired artistic "help." One of the students felt free to comment about the scratches on my chair and my smudged lipstick. When we were done, teachers escorted the students out -- and we left with no further ado. I don't actually know this, but my guess is that there wasn't any follow-up classroom work done to support our performance, either.

OK. So, not everyone has to swoon over us (though that is a preferred response). In this post, though, I am worried about what they saw. At an almost equally wealthy school in another town, we asked the students to define the word "quartet." Answer: 2 violins, a viola, and a cello. Well. I am not going to argue with that. But I do think that this answer connotes a particular relationship to the performing arts and perhaps the arts in general. Someone who in middle school gives that kind of answer will most likely have access to and continue to develop a relationship with the classical aesthetic and critical positions of the canonical Western curriculum.

This in itself would also not be a problem if it weren't for the fact that these students are more likely to inhabit worlds where they are exposed to (and adopt) certain thinking practices and educational values. Our culture values these practices; it values that education. And we reward those who have these credentials and who can do this work well. Very well.

School #2 is located in a district with a median condo value of $450,000 and salary of approximately 53,000. The difference is not just about the facilities. Yes, poorer schools don't have tech crew; we work on dirty canteen floors, in places with no heat, windows that won't close, buildings that look battered. The atmosphere is very different. Some of the teachers chivvy the students more; the students don't seem to notice. Others seem committed to being there for their students; these students respond to them with happiness. We are treated as a valuable resource; we are supported by classroom work and follow up in some cases. In others, we are a treat. There may be no heat, but a teacher volunteers to get us hot water.

As sad as all this is in comparison, I am still worried about what the students see. Overall, fewer of the students are able to give correct factual answers to the questions we ask. That's no big deal. Factual education can grow over time, and your life probably isn't ruined if, in middle school, you don't know what "choreography" and "improvisation" are, but not having had the exposure to the ideas behind the concepts. That bites.

It bites because these kids may never catch up.

Started 10/27/08 Another Me Meme?

Six random things:

1. I have perfect pitch -- I can tell you the pitch your car runs at; want to know what note your hoover is? I can do that, too. I used to have photographic memory -- pages and pages, location on the page, font used, numbers, numbers -- but it started to fade in my mid twenties and is now pretty unreliable.

Started 8/31/08 Cripple Poetics

Disclaimers:

I know Petra and Neil personally. I have been given a free copy of the book for this review.

Who would want to read these edited conversations between two people who love each other? Why would anyone publish this book? Seriously, what are possible interests and motivations in reading, writing, and publishing a book that charts the courting of two disabled people?

One approach to answering these questions involves considering the value of a book. A book. With pictures -- or, more accurately, photographs -- but very clearly a book. And, moreover, one that crosses boundaries. Kuppers is an associate professor in the English department at UMichigan (Ann Arbor); she will, most likely, count the book in her academic resume, and her colleagues will review it when she seeks promotion. In this context, the book might be seen as a BOOK: a contribution to the canon of knowledge and a work of art (Kuppers and Marcus include their poetry). The materiality of this book registers differently in the context of Marcus's significant body of artistic and activist production. The value that you/we/I assign a book shapes what we might expect of it and of ourselves.

And what of love? Why would I want to read the IMs and personal poetry of two lovers?

Started 7/21/07 Ganked (Almost) Wholly From Torontoist

Pity sex may have gotten some of us through university, but Loree Erickson, a York University PhD candidate and photographer/filmmaker, is determined that it’s not a phrase which should be associated with the disabled.

Concerned about the sexual stigmatization of people with disabilities, she’s put together an evening of film and live performance intended to open minds and shatter stereotypes about sex and disability.

Reclaiming the Gaze will feature two short films by Erickson, as well as performances by AJ Withers, Julie Devaney (My Leaky Body), and Peggy Munson (Origami Striptease).

The event is also a fundraiser for Acsexxable, being touted as Toronto’s first fully accessible sex party. Torontoist rarely gets invited to sex parties of any kind, so we’re rather intrigued by the concept.

Accessible sex party? Wow. I cannot imagine the access arrangements. Big SMILE.