Have you ever....?

So I've seen this idea twice recently, in other contexts... a tire with text or art carved into the treads. Here it is at the blog Letterology, in a detail from an illustration from 19c. Paris. The rider has a tank of ink attached to the back of his three-wheeled cycle, to continuously coat the tires and print words on the pavement as he rides... Ink would probably make this an illegal device in a lot of cities; but that post also links to a vimeo video, called "Tricycle Calligraphy," where Nicholas Hanna is doing a very similar thing in China, but with water as his "ink"--the lettering is only visible until it dries.

I also saw some pretty carved tires on Pinterest--by this artist, though I see from google image search that there are several folks carving used automobile tires:

So maybe you're getting the idea of my question. Has anyone ever carved images or words into wheelchair tires, so as to leave a legible or at least artistic trail when the tires are wet (with water, with ink, with paint, etc.)? I don't imagine it would be an everyday thing--wheelchair tires have to be working tires, and these don't look like they'd be very functional or durable in the longterm. But maybe for an occasion? A protest? A celebration? Might need to be a more concise message than an automobile tire's, given the smaller surface. (Note, however, that the two tires in the upper image above have different slogans, to make a longer overall text.) Certainly folks have worn shoes with custom treads for various purposes (here are some flipflops with custom soles, for leaving sand imprints); I'm wondering if anyone has made or used a custom-treaded wheelchair tire, similar to the ideas above.

No, Amy. Just... no.

I miss the FWD blog for all kinds of reasons, but one of the features they did really well was "Dear Imprudence," reviewing advice columnists' advice on matters pertaining to disability. Now, I don't claim to have anything like their wealth of insight on the subject, but you don't need much insight to realize that today's Ask Amy advice is just wrong.

The question comes from a woman who uses a wheelchair (she explains that her mobility is affected by multiple sclerosis). Her son is getting married soon, and she wants to know how they can handle the mother-son dance at the reception. So far so good. Reasonable question, especially if she hasn't ever been in a dancing situation while using a wheelchair before. And a mother-son dance is already kind of an anxious-making situation--how many times in life are you dancing with your son, while a room full of all the people you love just watch?

Amy starts off okay--she asks a spokeswoman from the National MS Society to comment. That person just encourages the mother to have fun and enjoy the music:

"When we have events with dancing, people in wheelchairs treat the wheelchair as their legs. A wheelchair can easily move to and fro to the music. Your son can spin you about and you can even circle around him in your chair. Just think of your chair as your chariot. The key is to take this with a bit of grace and humor. The chair is the tool for you to enjoy the music and the key is to have fun."

Fine, for a soundbite--nice note of reassurance that there are plenty of times that people use wheelchairs on a dance floor. And Amy could have stopped there, and all would be okay, but she decided to add her own suggestion:

Your son might want to show his solidarity to his mom by borrowing a wheelchair for his own use during this special dance with you. He could appoint two ushers to wheel you both in a lightly-choreographed duet. You'd have to work this out ahead of time, practice a little, and make sure everyone involved was sober.

Uhhhhhhhhh....... this is a bad, bad idea, Amy, for a lot of reasons. First, the son wouldn't be showing "solidarity" by borrowing a wheelchair (and from whom, exactly?). The mother doesn't sound like she needs any gestures of "solidarity," anyway; what she needs is a dance partner. If she doesn't know how to dance in a wheelchair, and he doesn't know even how to use a wheelchair, then two wheelchairs digs them even further into confusion, no?

Appointing ushers to wheel you both... oh my. The mother of the groom may well wheel her own chair ordinarily--she doesn't say in the letter. If so, it's weird to suggest that she not do so for the dance. The idea of rounding up two random ushers to make a pas de quatre (?), well.....now they'd have four people on the dance floor who don't know what to do--and the whole mother-son dance aspect is out the window. Oh, but it will be "lightly choreographed." They'll "practice a little" and "make sure everyone is sober." Sure. Dancing gracefully together for an audience only requires a little planning and a blood alcohol level below .08. Right?

Grrrrr. I was at least happy to see that the very first comment called Amy's advice "tacky," "condescending," and "mocking." Right on, and then some.

"Polio" by Staff Benda Bilili

There's an article about a Congolese band in the LA Times today. The band is named Staff Benda Bilili, and they're the subject of a recent documentary, because most of the men in the band are physically disabled. (The print version of the article has more groaningly cliched headlines than the online version. You can probably imagine them.)

They were a street band in Kinshasa when they were discovered. Some of their songs are about disability, including this one, "Polio":




The visuals are of members of the band singing, playing music, and being assisted by groups of children to move their wheelchairs over dirt roads. It's clear that some of their chairs are built from parts of motorcycles, wagons, carts, and bicycles. Some of the scenes also include men using crutches. Some of the daylight scenes are filmed outside a disability assistance center, according to the signage. The notes say that the performance sections of the video were made at the zoo in Kinshasa.

The lyrics aren't in English, but there are English subtitles translating them:

I was born as a strong man but polio crippled me
Look at me today, I'm screwed into my tricycle
I have become the man with the canes
The hell with those crutches!

Parents, please go to the vaccination center
Get your babies vaccinated against polio
Please save them from that curse

My parents had the good idea to register me for school
Look at me now: I'm a well-educated person
which enables me to work and support my family

Parents please don't neglect your children
The one who is disabled is no different from the others
(why should he?)
Treat all your children without discrimination
(don't throw anyone on the side)
Who among them will help you when you're in need?
God only knows who

"Aunt Carol" by Mista Cookie Jar

I've got kids, so I've got kid CDs, and they're not really so bad as you might think--I came late to the game, never had Barney or Raffi, straight into Ralph's World and Laurie Berkner. And there are definitely songs that make me happy from a disability perspective. But this one just came across my desk, by a friend-of-friends, and it's not like anything else I've run into:



Visual description: Mista Cookie Jar, the singer, is a young Asian-American man with long hair and a mustache; he's wearing a hat and floral shirt. The video shows a birthday party for Carol Ware, an older white woman who uses a power chair. There are a lot of children and other older folks too, and there are scenes of the singer doing Carol's nails, marveling at her sunshine tattoo, and generally having a grand time.

The singer has posted all his lyrics online at his website (yeah!); find "Aunt Carol" in the lyrics menu (I can't seem to link to them directly, but they're there). (UPDATE: Katja put the direct link in comments.)

What I like here: Carol Ware is a real person, and the YouTube video label explains this. The singer has known her for years and this song is a genuine, specific tribute. He shares in the lyrics that she was a kindergarten teacher, that she likes Elvis, that she likes her coffee with Splenda, that she smokes (deal with it, she's an adult), that "we call her Aunt Carol, you can call her Ms. Ware," and that "she's a masterpiece from head to toe." All with a fun celebratory tone, and with Carol's participation and the participation of her fellow nursing-home residents. When so many kids live far from their older relatives and may not feel drawn to seniors, this song has a chance to change minds, and will definitely spark some smiles.

ETA: There's also a "making of the video" slideshow.

Flickr: Jack and Della Mae Smith in Front of the Beer Joint He Operates in Rhodell, West Virginia, near Beckley 06/1974

Jack and Della Mae Smith in Front of the Beer Joint He Operates in Rhodell, West Virginia, near Beckley 06/1974
Originally uploaded by The U.S. National Archives

The Flickr Commons project continues to include images from the history of disability. In this 1974 color photo from the US National Archives, we see Jack Smith with his wife, seated under an "RC" sign. Jack is in a wheelchair. The couple have their arms across each other's shoulders, and Jack seems to be smiling at something Della Mae is saying.

The US National Archives Flickr stream includes other photos of Jack Smith from 1974: alone, holding the family dog, with one of his young daughters, with three of his daughters, with two of his brothers, heading down the street, and working on a union poster. All the photos were taken by photojournalist Jack Corn as part of the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica project.

Jack Smith was a new coalminer in West Virginia when he lost both legs in a mine cave-in, years before these photos taken. He remained active in union work, and ran a "beer joint" with Della Mae in Rhodell, West Virginia. In the notes attached to one of the photos in the series, it says "During the Strike for Black Lung Benefits His Wife Wheeled Him in Front of a Train to Stop It."

Wheelchair imagery in Lost publicity

[Visual description: a retro-style poster with a bright green background, white stylized wheelchair with footprints leading away from it and a knife stuck into the adjacent surface. The slogan "Just don't tell him what he can't do" is in the upper right; the title "Terry O'Quinn is Locke" is in the lower right; the words "A deceitful father/a fateful accident/a mysterious island/a dangerous obsession/a powerful purpose/a terrible sacrifice/and/a suitcase full of knives" are in a box in the lower left.]

Heard about this poster this morning. The television show LOST has an eighteen-hour final season starting in January, so to keep fan interest stoked, ABC has returned to the show's elaborate online publicity/ARG universe with a series of sixteen commissioned posters. This one, by designer Olly Moss, is apparently already sold out (it was a small run of 300 original screenprints).

Interesting that the illustrator chose an empty wheelchair to represent Locke. The character Locke has only been seen using a wheelchair in two or three episodes, over five seasons. According to his backstory, he used a wheelchair for four years, after a dramatic fall injured his spine; his ability to walk is miraculously restored in the plane crash that starts the show's story. Only a few of the other characters know he ever used a wheelchair, and it's not a very frequent topic of dialogue. Locke has a wide array of experiences and traits that get more screentime, but it seems he's still "the former wheelchair user" above all, maybe because disability can be just that overwhelming an element of identity sometimes.

That said, I do kinda like the retro look of this poster. It presents Locke as an edgy Steve McQueen-ish film hero, with "a suitcase full of knives"--and the wheelchair as part of his "dangerous" and "mysterious" complicated backstory--well, at least it's not pitiful.

Mme Gardriol en chaise, Luchon, 9 juillet 1899

Mme Gardriol en chaise, Luchon, 9 juillet 1899
Originally uploaded by Bibliothèque de Toulouse

Another fin-de-siecle matron in a wheeled chair turned up in the Flickr Commons today, this time in the uploads from the Bibliotheque de Toulouse. Above, a black-and-white photograph shows a man standing behind a woman using a three-wheeled chair, in an outdoor setting we're told is Luchon, on 9 July 1899.

Luchon was a spa town in the French Pyrenees--still is. Who was Madame Gardriol? It's probably safe to assume she was a summer visitor to the springs. Was she someone who used a wheelchair ordinarily, or was this day in 1899 (perhaps like Mrs. Field's photo, in an earlier DS,TU post) a special occasion of touring, for which she chose wheels? Mme Gardriol's chair looks a bit sturdier than the wicker at the Bronx Zoo--hard to tell from this angle, though. The man is holding a parasol--is it for himself, or an additional accommodation for Mme. Gardriol's health and comfort? Anyone have more insight into the Luchon wheelchair accommodations in 1899?

More Flickr Finds: Wheelchairs at the Bronx Zoo, c1910

So, the photo above (from the Library of Congress uploads to Flickr Commons, from the Bain Collection of news photos taken 1910-1915) depicts Mrs. Field, obviously a well-to-do matron, in what appears to be a wicker wheeled chair, pushed along an outdoor path by an older African-American man in a suit and bowler hat.

Was Mrs. Field a wheelchair user?

Not so fast. Check out this other photo from the same collection:

The woman hurrying past the camera is Mrs. Charles Dana Gibson (of Gibson Girl fame), but look behind her, to the right--chairs like Mrs. Field's, two of them, unoccupied, lined up, with a uniformed attendant nearby. What does the sign say behind Mrs. Gibson? "New York Zoological ...Administrative Building No Admittance" and some smaller print. The Bronx Zoo was called the New York Zoological Park at this time. So, we're at the zoo, and those chairs are apparently available (as a courtesy? as a rental?) for zoo visitors. Much like some zoos and amusement parks have available today.

Hmmm! Were the pathways at the zoo made to accommodate these conveyances? Mrs. Field obviously didn't mind being photographed on wheels during her visit--no stigma? Or, no stigma if it's perceived as a luxury rather than a necessity? Did other zoos and parks have such provisions in the 1910s? When did this trend start? What happened to these chairs? Were any smooth paths reconfigured with steps after the chairs went into disuse--in other words, did a wheelable zoo become less accessible for a time?

Would love to know more about the Bronx Zoo wheelchairs of the 1910s. Anyone?

Disability, Blogging, and the DNC

Mark Siegel passes along news of his friend Kelsey Neumann, who will be blogging from the Convention next week as a delegate. Kelsey uses a wheelchair, and Mark's predicting "plenty of photo ops with party bigwigs." Many of you will have read Harriet McBryde Johnson's chapter on attending the DNC as a delegate in 1996; Kelsey Neumann's reports continue the genre, and we can only hope she'll find improvements in accessibility (and just basic comprehension).

July 3: Nancy Mairs (b. 1943)

[Image: Cover of Nancy Mairs' collection of essays titled Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled (Beacon Press 1996), featuring a close-up of a woman's belly with her hands clasped across it, a detail from Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus"]

"You know, if things are flashing by you, you don't have time to contemplate them and cherish them, you don't know that you're not doing it. And that's part of the reason why I refer to people that other people may refer to as able-bodied, as non-disabled. Because they lack disability. They have a whole element in their lives that they lack. And I have that element in my life. Because I wasn't born disabled, I also have grounds for comparison. I started my life as a non-disabled person, and I know my losses very sharply -- very painfully -- but I also know my gains."

--Nancy Mairs, from the 2005 PBS documentary project "& Thou Shalt Honor," about marriage, aging, and carework

RIP: Jim Hayes (1949-2008)

A whole generation of people who started disabled student services and campus wheelchair sports teams is passing away. I caught this obituary from over the weekend. Jim Hayes was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1949. He injured his spinal cord in a diving accident on his 18th birthday. Hayes went on to be student body president at his junior college, then president of the Handicapped Student Association at the University of Texas-Arlington. After his graduated in 1974, he took a job on the Arlington campus, launching the Office for Students with Disabilities. Later, he was the ADA compliance coordinator on campus.

Jim Hayes also had a lifelong passion for sports. He started wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis programs at UTA. In 2000 he became full-time coach of the Moving Mavs --who won seven National Wheelchair Basketball titles under Hayes' direction. Hayes was a wheelchair road racer himself; he won a gold medal at the 1984 Paralympics, and he volunteered at the National Veterans Wheelchair Games. In 2004, one of his former students, Randy Snow, became the first wheelchair athlete inducted into the Olympic Hall of Fame. UTA students or alumni have represented their home nations in every Paralympics Summer Games since 1984. As a result of Jim Hayes' work, the UTA sports program was one of the first in the US to give full athletic scholarships to physically-disabled students.

Hayes died Friday, at the age of 58.

May 11: Stanley Elkin (1930-1995)

[Image description: Stanley Elkin, head-and-shoulders view, he's wearing glasses and has a close-cropped white beard and curly hair; he's smiling slightly]

There is no way in the world I could ever take revenge on the disease that has disabled me. It just seems to me that disease, because it flirts with death, is a rather important subject to write about.

--Stanley Elkin

American writer Stanley Elkin was born on this date in 1930, in New York City. Elkin was a professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. In 1972, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS); from the mid-1970s, he used a wheelchair or a walker.

Elkin's experience as a disabled person was reflected in his critically-acclaimed fiction, which had long tended towards dark comic observations, inventive language, and complicated plots centered on deeply flawed characters. Ben Flesh, the main character in The Franchiser (1976), has MS too; in Magic Kingdom (1985), the plot follows a group of terminally ill children who are treated to a Disney World vacation by a wish-granting charity. The children resent being made into pitiful spectacles by the charity's publicity, and wish only to be left alone together to share as peers. The novella "Her Sense of Timing" (1993) is about Professor Schiff, a political geographer with MS, who uses a wheelchair, and must prepare and host a party without the expected help of his wife. In 1993, Harper's Magazine published "Out of One's Tree: My Bout with Temporary Insanity," in which Elkin describes a two-week, prednisone-induced psychosis he experienced from prescription medication for his MS.

Stanley Elkin died in 1995, from complications following heart surgery. His papers are at Washington University in St. Louis.

Wheelchair tipping?!?!

In not one, but two, countries, intentionally tipping someone's wheelchair has come up in the news lately. What's the deal? In the London Times in January, Rod Liddle suggested in an opinion piece that

"Next time you see a young person in a wheelchair, tip it over and drag the occupant to the nearest job centre, lecturing him or her all the while on the dignity of labour."

Because the only reason a young person would use a wheelchair is to avoid employment, right? (Liddle has a long record of horrid statements about disability, but this one explicitly incites violence against disabled people, an escalation on his part.)

Moving across the Atlantic, the idea is already being put into practice--by one deputy sheriff in Hillsborough Co., Florida. Brian Sterner, a quad, was stopped on a traffic violation on 29 January and taken to the station for booking. Deputy Charlotte Marshall Jones didn't believe he was really paralyzed, so she dumped his wheelchair forwards, and he (surprise!) fell to the ground. The incident was caught on the office surveillance camera (video here, but be warned--it's distressing to see), and she has been suspended without pay. Brian Sterner, it turns out, is the former director of the Florida Spinal Cord Injury Resource Center, based in Tampa. He plays wheelchair rugby with the Tampa Generals, and he's working on a PhD.

So, to recap, some young people use wheelchairs AND work AND drive. And throwing someone to the ground is a dangerously stupid way to prove anything.

February 11: Florynce Kennedy (1916-2000)

[Image description: older woman in a wheelchair, wearing a bright-orange head wrap, in front of a blue house and green bower, with her middle finger raised; found here.]

"I'm just a loud-mouthed middle-aged colored lady with a fused spine and three feet of intestines missing and a lot of people think I'm crazy. Maybe you do too, but I never stop to wonder why I'm not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren't like me."

Florynce Kennedy was born on this date in 1916, in Kansas City, Missouri. One of the first African-American women to graduate from Columbia Law School, Kennedy went on to help found the National Organization of Women, the Feminist Party, the Women's Political Caucus, and the National Black Feminist Organization.

She used a wheelchair for many years, after several strokes and two heart attacks.

The "Enabling Spaces" Curriculum, and "Access to Admissions"

Last summer I [Mike Dorn] had the pleasure of working with a group of Philadelphia high school students calling themselves Project Beta. They were participating in an afterschool enrichment program calls bITS, funded by the National Science Foundation and hosted by Temple University's Information Technology and Society Research Group. While exploring high end Web 2.0 applications, students were challenged to derive insights from the fields of science, technology and mathematics to solve problems that were familiar to them in their everyday lives. Carol Marfisi and I provided the topical introduction to the themes that students would be exploring during the week-long model, "Towards Enabling Spaces?" Project Beta's explorations of the Temple University campus from the perspective of a person using a wheelchair produced the hilarious film entitled "Access of Admissions," since posted to YouTube and Temple University's site on CampusVid.

I am so impressed by the work of Geography and Urban Studies graduate student Langston Clement and the entire Project Beta team.



I hope you enjoy it, and are inspired to undertake similar explorations of your university campus! Feel free to contact us through the email link to the left, and we will put you in touch with the right people. Of course, you won't be able to duplicate that irresistable Philly soul sound!

November 8: Happy 16th Birthday, Aaron Fotheringham!

I don’t think of it as practice, I think of it as a fun way to live my life.

YouTube sensation and extreme wheelchair sports star Aaron Fotheringham is turning 16 this Thursday--somehow. As a mom, I'm just glad to see him wearing his helmet in all his "Hardcore Sitting" videos, like this one from summer 2006, billed as his execution of the world's first wheelchair backflip:

Unnecessary Roughness

Do we really need this? At left, a print ad for the 2006 Canadian Wheelchair Rugby Championship. (Visual description: black lettering on the face of what appears to be a seriously play-worn wheelchair-rugby wheel, reading "TO PLAY WHEELCHAIR RUGBY YOU HAVE TO BE PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED AND MENTALLY INSANE.")

The other two ads in the campaign were okay, but this one plays into the cliched idea that being "mentally insane" is all about being heedless of danger, spectacularly self-destructive, and ... entertaining to watch? Busting cliches about one disability group by reinforcing cliches about another disability group just isn't helpful, in the bigger picture.

A Mother's Day image

Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs 1920-1990 is a new online archive of digitized newspaper photographs, maintained by UCLA Library Special Collections. It's a rich and searchable collection. The following photo stood out for me, as a fine image to share on Mother's Day in the US:
According to the caption at the website, this is Magdalena Wodke, a member of the Totally Confident Disabled Drill Team, with her son on her lap, on a track at Northridge in 1984. It's an LA Times photo from August 1984. What was that team again? The Totally Confident Drill Team was part of Operation Confidence, an independent-living and vocational training project begun in 1980 at Widney High School in Los Angeles. The TC Drill Team performed at the Summer Olympics in 1984, which is when this photo was taken. I can't find more about Magdalena Wodke, or her son (who would be about 23 now).

Congratulations to Tsuchida and Soejima!

The 111th Boston Marathon (the world's oldest annual marathon--they like to point that out) almost didn't run on Monday--Boston was in the path of a big nor'easter that dumped a lot of snow and rain on the whole region. But organizers decided at 4am race day that it should go forward, and it did.

The Wheelchair division winners were both Japanese: Masazumi Soejima for the men (pictured at left) and Wakako Tsuchida for the women. Both are past Paralympic medalists, and Tsuchida has competed not only in track-and-field events, but also in ice sledge speed racing at the Winter Paralympics. Oh, and she had a baby seven months ago....

But wait, there's more. The Boston Marathon has several divisions for disabled athletes. In the visually-impaired division, Americans Adrian Broca and Ivonne Mosquera had the top times. In the mobility-impaired division (in which competitors usually ambulate with prostheses, crutches, or braces), Paul Martin and Amy Palmiero-Winters (pictured at right, not at the Monday race) placed first and second.

Congratulations to all the athletes who participated!

Disability History Image: Newspaper vendor, 1896

Alice Austen (1866-1952) was a prolific amateur photographer of New York's Gilded Age. She made thousands of photographs, images of ships and automobiles, bootblacks and policemen, beachgoers and organ grinders, cyclists and postmen. The image above (click it to enlarge) is an Alice Austen photograph found in the New York Public Library's online galleries. It shows a woman selling newspapers on the streets of New York. She's bundled up, in a hat and coat and a long blanket covering her legs and feet; and she's in a wheelchair with very thin rear wheels, much like an old-style bicycle. Notice that the legs of the table in front of her have been raised up on bricks to fit her chair under it. In the background, there's a horse-drawn trolley, and behind that a bank building. Is she reading, or sleeping, with her cheek resting in her hand? According to the website, this photo was taken in 1896.

Much later in her life, photographer Alice Austen herself used a wheelchair, after arthritis affected her mobility. The image at right is Austen at the Staten Island Farm Colony, a public poorhouse where she lived, 1950-1951; the man in the photograph, Oliver Jensen (1914-2005), was a Life magazine staffer and small-press editor who helped rediscover Austen's glass-plate negatives in the Staten Island Historical Society. He published some of her photos and sold others to major magazines to raise money to get her out of the poorhouse and into a private nursing home for the last months of her life.