Tag: Paris

Valentin Haüy’s Essai (1786) * On the Education of Blind Children * NYPL Rare books * Image + Description

I wrote about Valentin Haüy and his founding of the first school for blind children in 1785 in There Plant Eyes. My dear friend David Lowe, who is a photo specialist in the Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs at the New York Public Library, read my book (Thanks, David!), and because he did, when he saw Valentin Haüy’s… Read more

Bobst Library, the Education of the Blind, and The Buffoon of Saint-Ovide, Essay 21 of #52essays2017

When I started my grad degree at NYU, I was given, for my nearly exclusive use, a little padded cell in the basement of Bobst Library where, in the beginning, I read books on the history of the education of the blind alongside postmodern theorists. It was black, or I remember it as such because of the black acoustic foam… Read more

From Derrida to Diderot: The Philosophe’s Dream, Essay 20 of #52essays2017

Thinking back to where The Spectator & the Blind Man all started–and by all I mean dissertation, stage production, literary endeavor–it was probably with Diderot. And I believe I discovered Diderot in the pages of Derrida: “I write without seeing….. This is the first time I have ever written in the dark . . . not knowing whether I am… Read more

A Paris Wasting, Catherine’s story from Death of Godin

Catherine had been exalting in out of body bliss but the flesh sucked back. I must get up. She rolled onto her belly and lifted dizzily onto hands and knees. She executed a wobbly circle on the futon that lay on the floor and pointed herself towards the kitchen. A kitchen made for one in a studio apartment made for… Read more