[bksvol-discuss] Fwd: Fw: Story from NPR. Author turns blindness into humor.etc.
- From: Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 23:16:32 -0700 (PDT)
This might be an interesting book to have in the
collection. Thanks, Louise, for sending this.
Cindy
--- Louise <bookscanner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: "Louise" <bookscanner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Louise Gourdoux" <bookscanner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Fw: Story from NPR. Author turns blindness
> into humor.etc.
> Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 14:26:51 -0500
>
>
>
> NPR National Public Radio
> Wednesday, May 31, 2006
>
> "Cockeyed": An Unsentimental Take on Blindness
>
> Author Ryan Knighton
>
> Talk of the Nation, May 31, 2006 · On his 18th
> birthday, Ryan Knighton was
> diagnosed with a condition that would eventually
> leave him blind. Fifteen
> years later, with his sight almost completely gone,
> he's written a book of
> his observations.
>
> Cockeyed, which describes Knighton's adventures
> driving by Braille and his
> later diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic
> condition that steadily
> reduced his ability to see. The book is about
> denial, anger and fear, but
> it's also about slapstick, technology,
> embarrassment, about what people see
> and what they don't.
>
> Knighton talks about how he turned the loss of his
> sight into a moving and
> funny memoir.
>
> Excerpt from 'Cockeyed'
> by Ryan Knighton
>
> You might think an appetite for something called a
> night club would be a bad
> idea for someone called night blind. You would be
> right. Equally wise would
> be me joining a gun club. Nevertheless, to this day
> I owe a debt to punk
> rock. Its culture helped me become as blind as I
> was, but couldn't admit. My
> apprenticeship into the club scene had numerous
> dangers and disadvantages,
> although most were silly. In my time I have argued
> with empty bar stools,
> talked to pillars, knocked down waitresses, bounced
> off bouncers, pissed
> between urinals, drunk other people's beers and hit
> on shadows. Even though
> I routinely tumbled down stairs, and plummeted off
> stages, never, not once,
> did it convince me to perhaps take up a white cane.
> Bullshit, I thought. I'm
> not that night blind.
> I'm
> just drunk. When the colored strobes and spotlights
> did their job, pulsing
> and spinning with the music, then I was more or less
> able to see enough.
> Step
> off the dance floor into the murky bar, that was a
> bit of a problem. Slow
> songs, too. They always dropped the lights for slow
> songs, and left me
> paralyzed wherever I happened to be. For a moment,
> anyway. Then like a gimpy
> Sid Vicious I'd careen off the dance floor, knocking
> people over instead of
> scooting around them politely. Sure I was a poser,
> not nearly close to
> hardcore, but blindness gave an authenticity to my
> recklessness when I
> ignored every social propriety our eyes manage. That
> was the best thing
> about the scene. The culture camouflaged my
> inability to cooperate with
> bodies around me. In growing blindness I became,
> oddly enough, safer and
> more like the scenesters around me than I was like
> my peers out on the
> street or at school. Booze helped. Everybody was
> loaded, knackered, legless,
> gassed, goofed and every other word for blind drunk.
> Bumping into people was
> acceptable, even expected, and I was practiced at
> bashing into folks on a
> regular basis, whether I was in my cups or just
> spilling them. Confusion and
> disorientation ruled the room, too, and that pretty
> much described my sober
> state. Above all, though, I blended with ease and
> advantage on the dance
> floor. I loved to slam. What blind person doesn't?
>
>
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5442174
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
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>
>
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