Insight For The Blind Blog
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The mission of Insight for the Blind is to improve the quality of life for blind and visually impaired children and adults. It promotes their literacy and learning and aiding in the appreciation for reading through our production of audio books, magazines and articles.
Insight For The Blind Blog
1y ago
cartoon by Frank Gladstone
The time was 9:26 PM on a cold February Cleveland night. I was finishing up a perfunctory email when the smoke detector sounded. It wasn’t the small one up high on the apartment wall but a large one which rang out and echoed outside my 18th floor apartment window.
All of us have experienced numerous false fire alarms over our lifetime and have been consequently conditioned to ignore them. After about 3 minutes, we wish them away. I remember once taking the batteries out of the one in my Florida condo because it kept going off whenever I cooked fish.
I was in the fir ..read more
Insight For The Blind Blog
2y ago
cartoon by Frank Gladstone
The time was 9:26 PM on a cold February Cleveland night. I was finishing up a perfunctory email when the smoke detector sounded. It wasn’t the small one up high on the apartment wall but a large one which rang out and echoed outside my 18th floor apartment window.
All of us have experienced numerous false fire alarms over our lifetime and have been consequently conditioned to ignore them. After about 3 minutes, we wish them away. I remember once taking the batteries out of the one in my Florida condo because it kept going off whenever I cooked fish.
I was in the fir ..read more
Insight For The Blind Blog
3y ago
cartoon by Frank Gladstone
When you’re 17-years-old and told you’re going blind, you ignore it. That’s what I did when I was first diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP). And why not? I could see just fine at the time.
I’ve noticed that I’m not alone in waiting to the last minute to prepare for a storm. After all, I live in South Florida and have ridden on the backs of several hurricanes. Whenever a big one is approaching, I hear the buzz saws and the hammering, though everyone knows that is not the best time to install shutters. The best time to do that is before hurricane season begins. M ..read more
Insight For The Blind Blog
4y ago
cartoon by Frank Gladstone
I suppose we are all on high alert. I started rehearsal for “Antigone” at the Cleveland Play House on March 3rd and the show was cancelled ten days later on Friday the 13th. (Hark! Is that the sound of a Greek chorus I hear?) I boarded a flight back to Miami a day later and while taxiing to the runway, someone about 4 seats in front of me sneezed 3 times in a row and, without missing a beat, 20 collective voices rose in unison with a rousing “Oh no!” The tension in the air was palpable. This invisible, silent, odorless, tasteless menace was getting traction.
It was ..read more
Insight For The Blind Blog
4y ago
When I was a callow kid, I was drawn to some questionable activities. There was a tall pine tree growing in the center of a cement wall separating my house from the neighbors, the tree bifurcating the wall into two substantial segments. There were long sturdy vines hanging down from the pine and I would often grab hold of one and swing from one side of the wall to the other. Certainly, that vine might have snapped anytime during the 3-second sweeping arc as I flew, flinging me to the soft earth below or possibly impaling me on the sharp edge of the other wall section as I made my approach. But ..read more
Insight For The Blind Blog
5y ago
Zzzz….
When you can see for the first 34 years of your life and then become totally blind, your memories and imagination often kick in and serve up a visual landscape in your head.
Let’s be clear. I didn’t go to bed on April 9th and wake up on April 10th blind. When I was 17, I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a degenerative disease of the retina. And when you’re 17 and told you are going blind, you ignore it. I was told that I would slowly lose my sight and it was questionable whether I would retain any usable vision long t ..read more
Insight For The Blind Blog
5y ago
Photography by Aida Zuniga
Playbill for The Lion King
Broadway and the West End are the center of the theatrical universe. Theater lovers flock there to see premiers and the best talent on the planet.
Regional theaters, those venues outside the two big Rialtos that dot many of our cities, in order to continue to thrive amidst a plentiful backdrop of movie complexes and a booming industry of storytelling on our TVs, computers and smart phones, must constantly market th ..read more
Insight For The Blind Blog
5y ago
When you are blind and a professional actor, you always think your last gig is your last gig. Truth be told, most middle-class actors who are not blind generally feel the same way. We are delighted when we win a role, and always have our eye or ear out searching for the next audition and opportunity.
Since 99.58% of all scripted characters can see, most of the characters I’ve played over my career have been sighted.
The Miami New Drama production of Antigone reached approximately 10,000 students in Miami-Dade County ..read more
Insight For The Blind Blog
5y ago
Shortly after losing all my sight, I came across a story about how nausea was a common problem for astronauts in the Space Shuttle program. There was a theory circulating that it might have something to do with hand-eye coordination. I thought, hmmm…they should send a blind guy up on the shuttle as a control subject. If the sighted astronauts got queasy and the blind person didn’t, Voila! Evidence to support the theory.
I wrote the Kennedy Space Center with my idea and volunteered for NASA’s Space Shuttle program as a payload specialist. I was ready to be an astronaut and do my bit for the age ..read more