That reminds me of something that happened when I was in rehab. There
was a woman who had been totally blind from birth there and I was
telling her something about how dissatisfied I was with television
because I couldn't see it. She said that she liked television and when
there was action they usually talked about it afterwards so she didn't
miss anything. She said that was as good as seeing it. I told her that
she literally did not know what she was missing. I, on the other hand,
never was much of a television buff. I just had too many things going on
in my life to spend very much time with it. However, I did find time to
watch it now and then and upon losing my eyesight I became acutely aware
of what I was missing when I listened to television. I can guarantee you
that I was missing a lot, an enormous lot, and no amount of description
can possibly make up for it. I don't even bother with dramas or other
television fiction fare anymore. I realize that even if I think I am
following it I am missing so much that I cannot be fully following it
and the proportion that I am following is a minor part of it. I confine
myself to news shows and documentaries and even then I am frustrated at
how much I am missing. I suppose that if I had never seen television I
might think that listening to characters talk about the action that had
just happened or listening to someone describe it while it was in
progress was as good as seeing it, but I did see television and I know
that that is not as good as seeing it at all. That awareness leaves me
unsatisfied every time I turn on the television.
___
Carl Sagan
“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind
and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says
everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the
fallibility of all the human beings involved?”
― Carl Sagan
On 12/5/2019 1:20 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I remember The Hit Parade, The 64 thousand dollar question, What's My Line,
This Is Your Life. But I really wasn't all that attached to TV after my early
teens. My time was taken up with college studies, an evening job in the
Lighthouse recreation program which took up 4 evenings and Saturday afternoons,
etc. When I was in social work school, I was living in a graduate co-op in Ann
Arbor and the only TV watching I remember was the Nixon Kennedy debates. I
moved back to New York after graduate school, had my own apartment, and had a
TV. My most important memory of that TV was that I had a vase filled with
artificial leaves on it and my cat kept trying to eat the artificial leaves.
The only TV watching I remember was when Kennedy was shot. I think I watched
the TV constantly for at least two days. But then Fred and I began living
together. He was seventeen years older than I and had been totally blind since
he was three years old. TV wasn't his thing. He introduced me to talking books
and to authors and fiction that I'd somehow remained ignorant about, even
though I had a college degree. And so from then on, it was books that engrossed
me and I just didn't watch TV at all. When we moved into our Westbury house,
the girls each had a small TV in their rooms. We had none downstairs. We
listened to a talking book together every night when we were at home alone. So
that was half of the sixties and all of the seventies, and the early eighties,
with no TV watching. I did watch some TV for brief periods of time, on and off
after Fred died in 1985. For a time, I watched some described movies on my VCR.
But by perhaps, 2012, I was hardly watching anything and the batteries in my
remote kept dhying from lack of use. At some point after that, I gave my TV to
Melanie to replace the small one that she owned. I haven't missed it at all.
But I've been surprised by a few things. When I was traveling and was on a tour
that took me to New Zealand, my roommate was a congenitally totally blind young
woman who, as soon as we entered our hotel room, turned on the TV. She had
thatthing on constantly, and seemed addicted to it. Because of my experience
with Fred and with blind people who were my age or older, I assumed that
totally blind people, who'd never had sight, would be disinterested in TV.
Turns out that, that isn't true. And then I remembered a discussion between two
people about TV that I overheard when I was on another trip. I knew one of the
people. He, also, had been blind since birth and he had a college education.
From what he said, I could tell that he was completely unaware that he was
missing a lot while watching TV. At the time that the conversation took place,
I don't think that audio description of TV was even available yet. And if it
was, it was available only for some PBS programs. The third experience is one I
may have recounted before on this list. The film, Twelve Years A Slave came out
and I wanted to see it, but knew I'd never get to a movie theater. I was able
to download the described soundtrack. In the past, I always watched, and could
see, to some extent, the described films. I'd enjoyed those experiences. But I
didn't have the equipment necessary to actually see a described version. So I
listened without seeing. It was one of the most frustrating experiences I've
ever had. The sound track with description, was not enough to provide the
information I needed to know what was happening throughout the film and to
completely understand it. I had to download and read the book instead. That
experience suggests to me that modern films, even if described, is completely
inaccessible to those of us without useable vision, whether or not we know it
or want to admit it. Thank goodness for books!
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx On Behalf Of Abby Vincent
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2019 10:12 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: my uncle's TV, one more thing
I don’t remember any high saving technology. As for the programs, those were
the days! There was Jackie Gleason, the Nat King Cole Trio, show many others I
can’t remember them all. I’m sure some of you can remind me.
Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 4, 2019, at 4:06 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It was a black and white, ten inch screen, in a TV consul, (famcy
piece of furniture. It had this greenish tinted clear glass or plastic
shield over the screen, in order to protect our eyes. Apparently, my
uncle thought people's eyes would be damaged by looking at the screen directly.
Miriam
