Re:Generation Music Project

Cast and Crew

Starring:

Skrillex, DJ Premier, Members of The Doors, Pretty Lights, The Crystal Method, Mark Ronson, Nas Erykah Badu, Mos Def, The Dap Kings, Zigaboo Modeliste, Berklee Syphony Orchestra, LeAnn Rimes, Amir Bar-Lev, Trombone Shorty, Martha Reeves, The Funk Brothers

Directed by:

Amir Bar Lev

Related Posts:

• Disability in Once Upon a Time
• The Blind Film Critic: “GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO″ review
• Blind Film Critic: Blind Man vs. Paper Money

Image Credit:

Some rights reserved by dailybeatz

Josh Dueck, a member of the Canadian Para-alpine ski team, this month became the first athlete to complete a backflip on a sit ski. “In the powder, I’m just floating around,” he said. “It feels like I’ve got no weight in the world. I’m just literally skipping off a cloud. The sensation I got when I was flipping, it really brought me back to a life without barriers.” Dueck, who was paralyzed after a skiing fall in 2004, started the backflip project about three years ago, practicing first by flipping into foam pits at an indoor training facility in Copper Mountain, Colo., then moved to the slopes, landing on an airbag. His next goal? “I think something that would be pretty cool to start looking towards is big mountain skiing,” he said.

• Related: Disabled ski champ Jill Kinmont Boothe dies at 75

Tyler Summitt battling alongside his legendary mom

This great story comes from Yahoo! Sports, where columnist Pat Forde relates his experience as the son of an early-onset Alzheimer’s patient to the situation in front of Tyler Summitt, son of legendary Tennessee basketball coach Pat Summitt. “It took 18 years for Alzheimer’s to finish cruelly killing my mom,” Forde writes. “She was remarkably healthy physically, so her body kept going long after her mind had been robbed of almost everything. … Alzheimer’s is undefeated. Nobody beats it.” He finds inspiration in Tyler, who knew something was wrong with his mother when “maybe she could only do four things instead of seven. She just wasn’t ‘Wonder Woman’ for a while. We just knew something was amiss.” Although just a college sophomore, Tyler has an impressive outlook: “I don’t focus on what I can’t control,” he said. “We can control the memories we still make together. I’d rather focus on the new memories and the life at hand than worry about losing the past.”

Pat Summitt of Tennessee celebrates with her son Tyler in 1996. (Getty Images)

Paralyzed woman to walk London Marathon

Doctors told Claire Lomas she would never walk again after a 2007 horse-riding accident. On April 22, Lomas will attempt to walk 26.2 miles with the help of a special robotic suit. “The technology comprises a number of motors and gears strapped to the user’s lower body, while sensors attached to the upper body help to control the motion,” Digital Trends reports. “A computer, together with a rechargeable battery power source, is located in a backpack. Once mastered, a user can even use [the suit] to climb stairs.” “It is physically hard work and incredibly frustrating at times to get the technique right, but when I make progress, it gives me a fantastic feeling,” Lomas said.

• Related: London finishes new Paralympics venue

Every corner is blind for devoted French Formula One fan

Charaf-Eddine Ait Taleb travels on low-cost airlines and public transportation to Formula One races, usually taking a tent to camp within easy distance of the paddock. “I go to the corner where you need to brake because I love to hear the gearbox, pum, pum, pum. When you are near it is fantastic, you feel it in your body,” he says. Ait Taleb, 29, lost his vision a decade ago, and the Frenchman has been embraced by the Formula One community, with teams and drivers helping him gain access to the paddock and garages and giving him the inside track, Reuters reports.

More reading:

• Is continued lip-reading an early sign of autism?
• Study links sleep apnea and sudden deafness
• U.S. begins stem cell trial for hearing loss
• Drugmakers, others jointly battling tropical ills
• New advance in gene therapy for blindness

The first time I saw the guy in the Dairy Queen commercial hop on the subtitles and hilariously ride them as they chugged off the screen, I began searching for other examples in which characters showed an awareness of the subtitles. The examples I subsequently found, while not strictly accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers without the support of an additional caption track, nevertheless have the potential to increase awareness of subtitles and subtitling practices.

Subtitling practices occasionally break through to become a topic of discussion among mainstream audiences. For example, when the Papyrus typeface was used for the subtitles in Avatar, it was universally panned by designers and typophiles. Three quick examples:

• The title of an article on Gizmodo — “I Spent $300 Million on This Movie and All I Got Were These Lousy Papyrus Subtitles” — sums up the sentiment nicely.
• An open letter to James Cameron from Papyrus on the Pr*tty Sh*tty site satirically congratulated Cameron: “Kudos to you for not spending a single cent of your massive budget on an expensive, attractive font for the subtitles, and opting to put me to the task instead.”
• A contest on a design website asked designers to choose a new typeface to replace “possibly the least desirable typeface available to the design community for the subtitles of the film’s fictional species, the Na’vi.”

The Dairy Queen commercial is compelling to me for the way it similarly elevates subtitles to a topic of discussion. Subtitles become integral, meaningful elements of the text in their own right. They don’t support or translate the primary meaning of the text, or try to sit unobtrusively at the bottom of the screen. Instead, they make their own meaning. We are asked to look at them, not merely look through them.

The examples that follow elevate subtitles by breaking through the so-called fourth wall. The imaginary fourth wall separates the audience from the action on screen or stage. When the audience suspends its disbelief, the events are taken as real and believable. When fictional characters show an awareness of the medium (e.g. by talking directly into the camera, commenting on the soundtrack, bumping into or referring to the subtitles, etc.), they break through the fourth wall that enables the audience’s suspension of disbelief.

Put simply, fictional characters are not supposed to see subtitles. When they can, it’s usually in the service of a joke.

Loaded Weapon (1993)

Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

Warning: Content may be offensive.

The Man with Two Brains (1983)

Fatal Instinct (1993)

Bugsy Malone (1976)

Wayne’s World (1992)

Portlandia, “Baseball” (Season 1, Ep 6, 2011)

Warning: Content may be offensive.

Closed Captions, Setting the Site (Vimeo)

Subtitled Arab (YouTube)

Warning: Content may be offensive.

As you can see, medium awareness of subtitles is often channeled through comedy, especially the screwball variety. This isn’t surprising, since breaks in the fourth wall are often used for comedic effect. When a movie threatens the presumed sanctity of the fourth wall, viewers are moved out of the real and into the absurd.

Because subtitles in these examples share the same space on the screen with the closed captions, designers and captioners must strive to avoid conflict and overlap (e.g. see the Portlandia and Goldmember examples). It’s important to remember that some viewers will be trying to process two text streams at the same time: the on-screen subtitles and the closed captions.

What additional examples of medium awareness (involving subtitles) are you aware of?

[A note on method: A number of these examples were found on TVtropes.org, which is an excellent repository for all kinds of examples of medium awareness.]

[Fair use notice: The videos on this site are transformative works used in good faith, in keeping with Section 107 of U.S. copyright law, and as such constitute fair use of copyrighted material. Read this site's full fair use notice.]

And I kept thinking and thinking. I began writing multiple times only to hit the backspace and start over. One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about Dave’s blog is about how uniquely positive it is. The chance that I’ll click on the blog link in the morning and be likely to read a heartwarming story about children who just ‘get’ things is often far greater than the chance of reading a post that makes me want to rage against the world. His blog tends to make me feel as if I’m astoundingly negative about the world, and I’m afraid that this post won’t change that one bit.

My wheelchair makes me free

If I wanted to be positive I would write about how free my wheelchair makes me. But one, I’ve already written that post, and two, all I can think of at the moment is how absurdly difficult that process was. I’ve had so many people tell me I didn’t need a wheelchair that I’m often afraid to move my legs while in it. I cringe when I go shoe shopping because I’m afraid someone’s going to run up to me and yell ‘you don’t need that!’. I hate explaining that while I can walk assisted, I can’t actually go up certain steps.

My wheelchair makes me free. It doesn’t make the world accessible to me.

Things that make the world accessible to me

The things that make the world accessible to me are the most common disability modifications. I need ramps, elevators, and widened doorways or aisles. Should I love them? Should I love seeing a ramp next to the handicap parking? Should I love seeing an elevator when I need to go to the second or third floor? Should I love being able to get through aisles without a problem?

Part of me immediately says yes. That’s the part that is just so relieved that I can go somewhere, that I can go to the store or the school or the public office building. And it is wrong. The rest of me is screaming NO.

How many people love the fact that there is a flight of stairs to get to their second floor apartment? Do they greet the stairs with a happy and relieved smile? Do they have to make plans on what to do if there were no stairs to their apartment?

No.

So why should I love these things? Should I love them because they’re surprisingly rare? Should I love them because my favorite shop finally became accessible to me again? Should I love it when employees treat me like a human being instead of a prop or an exciting story? Should I love it when parking lots shovel the snow and move the snow somewhere that actually isn’t the handicap parking spaces?

No.

Should I be grateful?

No.

Will I love these things anyway? Sometimes. Will I be grateful anyway? Sometimes. Will this inconsistency drive me up the wall? You bet.

Right now, I refuse to love ramps, curb cuts, and elevators. They might make the world accessible to me but I refuse to love something that should be taken for granted.

Related Posts:

• Balancing Relationships
• Easy Living
• Who Needs It?

Originally published at: Gimp ‘Tude

Image Credit:

Some rights reserved by mélomane

Chris Fleizach, an accessibility engineer at Apple,  taught the class how to make their applications accessible in  December, 2010. This lecture should be required viewing for EVERY iOS developer. Fleizach clearly documents the various accessibility attributes and even creates an accessible bowling app during the lecture.

Unfortunately it is not possible to link directly to this video. Visit the 2010 Developing Apps for iOS course on iTunes. Look for lecture #18 Accessibility on iOS: Make an App for Everyone. You’ll need to download the video and watch it via iTunes.

Organizers of a cricket series between teams of disabled people hope to ignite a big future for the less conventional version of the game. Amiruddin Ansari, secretary of the Pakistan Disabled Cricket Association and himself a former first class cricketer, says he hopes the matches between England and Pakistan will be a “a landmark series and will be well received in the world, sending the message that no disability can stop human beings from shining.” Ansari’s goal for the movement is far from modest: “We want to stage a World Cup for disabled cricketers.” Pakistan is led by Salim Karim, whose right leg withered from polio and whose left leg was damaged in an accident, AFP reports.

Disabled Pakistani cricketers celebrate during a match in Karachi last year. (AFP photo)

‘Reality’ show: 2 men, a wheelchair, friendship

Sharon Cohen of the Associated Press wrote this great story about Mike Berkson, “a sharp-witted, movie-obsessed 22-year-old college student” who has cerebral palsy, and Tim Wambach, his aide, who brought their relationship to the stage in a 80-minute show. “They’ve dubbed themselves two men and a wheelchair, but their show is really about the journey of a disabled kid with enormous smarts who grows up — and the friend who has helped him navigate along the way,” Cohen writes. “Berkson compares himself to a blind person whose other senses become sharper. ‘My mental state is not better or stronger, but it just fires a little quicker or goes a little faster than the average person,’ he says. Or as he tells the audience: ‘My body is in a wheelchair, my mind is not.’”

• Related: ‘Wit’ playwright sees lessons in teaching cancer-themed work

Prison dilemma: Surging numbers of older inmates

In corrections systems nationwide, officials are grappling with decisions about geriatric units, hospices and medical parole as elderly inmates — with their high rates of illness and infirmity — make up an ever increasing share of the prison population, the Associated Press reports. “U.S. corrections officials now operate old age homes behind bars,” says Jamie Fellner, a Human Rights Watch special adviser. One corrections department director said officials confront such questions as whether to retrofit some cells with grab bars and handicap toilets, how to accommodate inmates’ wheelchairs, and how to deal with inmates who no longer understand instructions.

A nursing assistant helps an elderly inmate to his cell at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, Calif. (2008 AP photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

More reading:

• The Social Security Administration says it will resume mailing benefit statements to workers age 60 and older in February.
• Spirit Airlines has been fined $100,000 for allegedly failing to appropriately record and respond to complaints about the airline’s treatment of passengers with disabilities.
• A month after having embryonic stem cells injected into her eye, a legally blind 51-year-old woman could read the top five letters on an eye chart.
• Why an autism diagnosis can change as a young patient grows up
• Investigators are probing reports that disabled children at a public elementary school in Connecticut were locked in a room to control their behavior or as a punishment.
• A study finds the hospitality industry is not a friendly one for disabled workers.

Battle by Frank Allen

The Construction and Deconstruction of a Noise Curtain – Original Art and Music by Frank Allen

New abstract art from the hidden depths of Franks Subconscious.

What If People Were More Like Cats?

Sometimes, I wish people were a lot more like cats. No, I don’t want random strangers launching themselves into my lap. That would be weird. But cats seem to have this very calm acceptance about things. They don’t care if you’re up and walking one day and sitting the next.

Cats First Reaction to Crutches

When I first came home with crutches the cats were confused and curious. They sniffed. They watched. They ran away a couple times. But over time they adjusted just fine. Now, the only time my cat gives me a second glance is when she’s trying to figure out how to get into my arms or lap.

Cats vs. Wheelchair

There are times when we fight over my wheelchair as she finds it ridiculously comfy. I’ll be trying to move her from the seat and she’ll be clinging onto the cushion for dear life and the minute I sit back in it, she’ll be launching herself into my lap.

Cats Unconditional Love

Cats don’t ask questions. They don’t look at you in awkward ways. They don’t judge. Okay, that’s a lie. Cats are very judge-y creatures, but if you still pet them, pay attention to them, and treat them as royalty, they judge you worthy no matter your gimp level.

There’s no huff, puff, fuss, or mess with them. As long as they’re being treated properly, they just don’t care.

Why humans have difficulty accepting things I just don’t know.

But on the mornings when I start feeling awkward about using my chair, when I start worrying about what people will think regardless of the fact whether it’s their business or not, my cat’s more than willing to be thrilled that I’m using my chair so she can get more hugs.

And that helps. A lot.

Related Posts:

• Balancing Relationships
• Easy Living
• Who Needs It?

Image Credit

Some rights reserved by bichromephoto

Cast and Crew

Starring:

Katherine Heigl, Jason O’Mara, Daniel Sunjata, John Leguizamo, Sherri Shepherd, Debbie Reynolds, Debra Monk, Adam Paul (II), Fisher Stevens 

Directed by:

Julie Anne Robinson

Writers:

Stacy Sherman, Karen Ray, Liz Brixius, Janet Evanovich

Full Cast and Credits »

Related Posts:

• Disability in Once Upon a Time
• The Blind Film Critic: “GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO″ review
• Blind Film Critic: Blind Man vs. Paper Money

This review was originally posted on UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING review (no spoilers) – BLIND FILM CRITIC

Us and Them by Frank Allen

A Video inside Franks creative process. A world with no rules.

35 Minute of Improvised Art in 3 Minutes. Music and Art by Frank Allen