Category: Music

Perceived: Disrupting The Blind Stereotype * Radio Interview Embodied (WUNC)

I was delighted to join fellow blind culture creators, Lachi and James Tate Hill, for an important, fun, sexy, and a little bit punk discussion of how to have blind pride in an ocularcentric world. As writers and artists we need to think less about inclusion and more about shifting culture in our direction. I’m tired of saying: “Let me… Read more

The Brain-Smashing, Pity-Bashing Art of Blind Punks

“You must sing like an angel,” a woman said to me as I prepared to go onstage with my “Avant Accordion Brain Smash” act in a Brooklyn warehouse performance space. She either did not notice my hand-sewn black bustier, or decided that my white cane rendered all the badassery surrounding it null. When I began bellowing about some murderous renaissance… Read more

Tap. Tap. Tap. Joyce’s Blind Stripling in honor of White Cane Safety Day

*Parts of This introductory essay first appeared for White Cane Safety Day 2018 at Catapult* “God’s curse on you,” said the blind stripling sourly to the oblivious passerby who’d knocked his cane, “whoever you are! You’re blinder nor I am, you bitch’s bastard!” The blind stripling is one of the hundreds of Dublin characters who crisscross Ulysses. His unfortunate encounter… Read more

Machiavelli: From Grad School to the Stage to Bullying Trump, Essay 25 of #52essays2017

Sometimes I feel like I confuse friends and family with my chameleon approach to life, but in my own mind, grad school led me to the stage which led me back to the page, where I started so long ago before the eye disease. I’d like to think that my changeability stems from the need to adapt and adjust to… Read more

Origins of “Sludge” in Lady Mary Wroth and Life, Essay 13 of #52essays2017

Almost exactly ten years ago, I had an unfortunate lapse in judgement of the sexual variety, which had at least one terrible consequence and one pretty good one: The terrible shall remain my secret, but the good I happily claim, namely, a song called Sludge, destined for my band gutter & spine. At that time, playing drums and singing in… Read more

Helen Keller Quotes Explosion

You kneel on the floor with two loop pedals in front of you. Above you hangs a projected red curtain and an empty spotlight. you say, “Oh, fuck it,” and hit one of the pedals, which causes The Star of Happiness theme song instrumental interlude to play. “I was born with a degenerative eye disease called…” you hit the loop… Read more