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Photo depicts Moe Curley, and Larry, otherwise known as “The Three Stooges”. Curley’s head is on a silver tray and Moe and Larry are pouring strange liquids over his scalp.

 

Blind graffiti is an art. I carry my invisible marker wherever I go. I write nothing you can see. That is a metaphysical statement of course, but trust me, the things you don’t see will affect you. That is another metaphysical statement. I hate the cliche, but the blind are loaded with post-visionary stuff How’s that for a figure? Post-visionary. Indeed. 

 

Yesterday I left an invisible graffito on an elevator. One in twenty sighted persons will pick it up. He or she will be thinking about stale tuna fish while riding to the third floor, when, voila, the graffito will pop into his or her consciousness like Athena in the head of Zeus. 

 

Here’s another metaphysical idea: blind graffiti isn’t public, like the scrawl on the side of a bridge, aimed at commuters, that says: Why do I do this everyday? Instead, its the atavistic twitch of a very old idea. 

 

Blind graffiti comes from the universal unconscious, that seed bed of all we try to forget, but with this difference: it upends superstition. 

 

So its metempsychosis, the blind graffito, a flash from a past life. It aint schadenfreude. For a flash to go on, life after life, it must be a good idea.

 

I left this thought in the elevator: everyone needs an animal guide. A horse, a pig, it doesn’t matter. The industrial rev taught us contempt for this need. And now look at you, you poor soul, trapped in a rising and falling box with nothing but tuna in your cerebellum and no loyal creature by your side.

 

 

Blind graffiti is an art. I carry my invisible marker wherever I go. I write nothing you can see. That is a metaphysical statement of course, but trust me, the things you don’t see will affect you. That is another metaphysical statement. I hate the cliche, but the blind are loaded with post-visionary stuff How’s that for a figure? Post-visionary. Indeed. 

 

Yesterday I left an invisible graffito on an elevator. One in twenty sighted persons will pick it up. He or she will be thinking about stale tuna fish while riding to the third floor, when, voila, the graffito will pop into his or her consciousness like Athena in the head of Zeus. 

 

Here’s another metaphysical idea: blind graffiti isn’t public, like the scrawl on the side of a bridge, aimed at commuters, that says: Why do I do this everyday? Instead, its the atavistic twitch of a very old idea. 

 

Blind graffiti comes from the universal unconscious, that seed bed of all we try to forget, but with this difference: it upends superstition. 

 

So its metempsychosis, the blind graffito, a flash from a past life. It aint schadenfreude. For a flash to go on, life after life, it must be a good idea.

 

I left this thought in the elevator: everyone needs an animal guide. A horse, a pig, it doesn’t matter. The industrial rev taught us contempt for this need. And now look at you, you poor soul, trapped in a rising and falling box with nothing but tuna in your cerebellum and no loyal creature by your side.

 

 

A crowded house; steam rising from dishes; neighbors who know each other casually; everyone dressed up and drinking cocktails; little hot dogs on sticks; obligatory shrimp with red sauce; a festivity; festive people; amusing; oddball conversations. I found myself talking about Nelson Rockefeller with the fellow who lives across the way. He worked for “Rocky” back in the 60’s as did my father. As a kid I even talked to the governor once. He looked me over and said, “Hiya Fella!” Apparently he said this to everybody. According to my neighbor, Rocky couldn’t remember names. Everyone was “Fella” and that was that. Those were the days when there were no women in government. I wondered what the feminine of “fella” might be…it occured to me it would be Jerry Lewis’ grating “Hey, Lady!” This made me think of Jerry Lewis as governor. Jerry Lewis as president of France. I ate a carrot with ranch dressing. I bumped into people because of course I can’t see. I resisted eating the deserts. I told an indecorous joke. I thought about telling a second joke but resisted. Ate an olive with a hot pepper stuffed inside. I wished the yule party was in Finland where people link hands and dance around the house. They don’t dance at American holiday gatherings. Outside there was a full moon in mist and a ring around the moon and deep cold. 

I’ve been trying unsuccessfully for years to imagine the kind of society that cultural theorist Lennard J. Davis envisions in his book The End of Normal. Briefly: we know race, gender, and disability are social constructions—which means in the widest sense “normality” might be, conceivably, on the ropes. A boxing analogy is appropriate. We’ve been punching Old Normal for a long time. The maddening thing is how “Normal” keeps smiling, taunting us, snarling through his tombstone perfect American teeth. And if you think his teeth are infuriating, well, his odor is worse. He smells like “Brut” and bacon.  

 

Joking aside, we’re now in an age of post-modern bio-politics. We know “normality” was designed by committee in London early in the reign of Victoria. “Normal” meant “factory ready labor” and everyone else became a commodity (slave labor) or a liability (cripples). I’m simplifying but I get to do this because after all, this is my blog, and to paraphrase Huck Finn, “I don’t take no stock in normal.”     

 

The Huck Finn joke is pretty good I think, because Normal of course doesn’t take any stock in me. He can’t help it. As a blind person I’m of dubious value to him. (Or to her—there’s feminine normal too.)

 

Let’s say you were blind in the 17th century. You could get a job currying horses. Or feeding them.

If you were deaf you could work in the blacksmith’s shop. The photo below depicts my wife’s horse “Luigi” who is an ex-racehorse. He’s a dark “bey” chestnut colored thoroughbred who has a very long neck. He’s eating grass on a summer’s day. In the old days, he’d have had a blind friend to braid his mane. He might have had a hunch backed girl to clean his hooves. 

 

Disability is a modern pejorative construction. We’ve known this for a long time now. I’m not talking about ableism; racism; misogyny, homophobia—these are with us still, and hauntingly so. But Lennard Davis has me thinking about the world we can insist on—one where the tyranny of industrial normal is over. One where everyone gets to curry the horse. 

 

Currying the horse is a metaphor and I won’t deny it. Proper accommodations change the world. 

As I write, people of color, predominantly young males, are being shot down in American streets. 

“Old Normal” sees them as having no value—just as he sees the disabled or transgendered people as having no value. But everyone can curry the horse. There’s a proper life and job for everyone in a culture that understands what a liability “normal” really is. 

 

Now I must go and shave. My chin wants to appear normal. He has different views than my upper noggin. But he won’t be getting any Brut. 

 

 

Been reading a biography of Queen Victoria. Hundreds of pages. What a supremely uninteresting and peevish human being she was!

And her favorite poet was Tennyson. Poor Swinburne. Poor Kipling.

How sad. No trips to Balmoral for seances for those guys.

 

 

I’m testing a new blogging app on my Mac called “Desk”. This is a little tricky, like boiling noodles in a rooming house. There are lots and lots of noodles. What should be simple becomes complicated. That’s how it is with boarding houses and programs for the computer. 

End of Day

 

And so it is, end of day, Mahler on the radio, rain falling in the gathering dark.

I remember a line by Robert Bly: “I mourn the consciousness I do not have.”

Winter coming and I want to be soulfully advanced. That’s how it is. 

End of day, crows walking under bare apple trees and I want to be unafraid.