Outlook on Radio Western Outlook on Radio Western

In retirement, Paul Martz has discovered his love of writing science fiction and blogging about technology after a career in software development. Recently he's asking:

What role can fiction play in educating society about climate change?

Martz is doing all this by writing for the blind user's AppleVis website and now as co-editor of the "Without Brakes, Fingers Crossed" anthology. 
He's with us on Outlook this week to promote this project as we're all experiencing record-breaking high temps on the brink of summer.

Paul shares a bit of his own writing and reads an excerpt from the anthology featuring a river, about his interest in making the Rubik’s Cube accessible, and more on his reasons and experience as the first Rocky Mountain Books/Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers co-editor of an anthology (which they release every two years) who happens to be blind.

Science fiction author, technology blogger, and former punk rock drummer which co-host Brian ends the show asking about being that he also does his music show, Chin Music, every Friday on Radio Western - you can find out more about all these topics by going to Paul's own website along with how to order the "Without Brakes, Fingers Crossed" anthology:

https://paulmartz.com/blog/

I am blind!

Next month, July, is Disability Pride Month and our guest this week is Doris Belusic who is a poet, nonfiction writer, magazine editor, recent university graduate, and now children's book author.

We speak with Doris about meeting her through The Canadian Federation of the Blind, what it was like to go back to school as a mature student, and about the children's book she's written with plain language and for educational purposes to teach children that blindness is just another way of being in this world.

In an article she was featured in last year, she was described as "unstoppable”, but the point of this book is that she and we must speak it loud and proud:

"I Am Blind" - put out by Beech Street Books and Saunders Books for libraries and schools across the country.

Check out the article quoted above by going here:

https://www.seniorlivingmag.com/articles/unstoppable/

First show of June, and with it begins the next few months of “Pride,” such as for LGBTQAI+2S and next month, Disability.

This week on Outlook, we are missing our third co-host Barry and guide dog Oyster, but we begin the show Speaking with host of the show right before hours every Monday morning for the previous few years - From Bach To Rock host Bernie joins on the third Mike and we find out a bit more about his story, including his early experiences with radio, what brought him to CANADA from our neighbours to the south, And more on his love of music.

In the second half, just us two sibling co-hosts discuss our weekend away in the countryside and the soundscape of that environment. We all enjoyed, celebrating 40th birthdays, not to mention the futuristic possibilities and our first ride in a friend’s Tesla.

So as we look back on the annual, end of May National Accessibility Week (NAW), we look ahead to the second half of 2024 and we will hear more on travel when our third cohost joins us again this summer for some additional weeks.

"Love is sweet, have a treat."

This was the verse written on the wedding favours, pairs of homemade shortbread cookies by all our plates at a recent wedding we attended in the family and our third host, Barry, he made it into the photos and is back with us, for another mixed bag show, to share about the experience.

A wedding day or living with a disability, so many things in life are about learning to roll with it. We three share on Outlook this week about being blind in such a crowded, hectic social situation and how we already have some authority, being unable to see, when an unexpected part of the evening was when the power went out and all the guests were forced to find their way in the toilets in the dark.

We also discuss the tiresome infantilization of us by uneducated sighted people, including those running carnival rides, as Barry and Kerry once more discovered at a May 24 traveling amusement park when they were forbidden from going on a ride together on their own as a couple.

When do you speak up and advocate and when do you let it slide?

And in our second half, we revisit the early years of the life of Helen Keller along with Barry who knew very little about Keller's life. Brian and Kerry rewatched the 1962 film version of the meeting of Helen and her teacher and companion Anne Sullivan, while Barry experienced the story for the first time.

We and he give our thoughts on the title "The Miracle Worker" and its problematic connotations, about how films based on true events sometimes embellish and alter their true life timelines, and Barry gives his take as an Irishman on how well Anne Bancroft did with the accent her character would have had.

If you're like Barry and never really knew much about Helen Keller or her teacher, or even for a reminder of the lives the two lived beyond that one big, important year on which the movie was made, check out the Outlook episode we once put out on the full life of Helen Keller and stay tuned for a similar show on a fuller picture of Anne Sullivan's life story still to come.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2021-12-13-lights-camera-helen-keller/id1527876739?i=1000545091341

On June 1st, it will be three years since the initial release of the book "There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness" and its author and friend of the show Dr. M. Leona Godin is back with us, with us three live in studio. 

This   week on Outlook, we're catching up with Leona on what she's been up to in that time and more recently, along with Barry as our third co-host, as we three find out some of the latest projects and work Godin is focusing on including storytelling shows like "Sighted People Suck”. We discuss how she navigates a place like New York City where she lives, the responsibilities with having a guide dog at whatever age, and about the internal shame and ranking each other within the blindness community that goes on.

Leona shares about her experience with Daniel Kish who is well-known for his lifelong use of echo location, what he's famously recognized for, but how his work as a mobility instructor who knows the lived experience of being blind is much less understood and valued. Also, Godin tells us about what she's currently been reading on the broadening knowledge and awareness of something referred to as sensory studies, her "Scented Stories" performances, and a bit about the accessible tour of the Whitney Museum of American Art, along with the help of AI. 

Check out "There Plant Eyes" and more by going to her website:

https://drmlgodin.com

And if you missed her previous appearance on Outlook where she talks about her book, you can find it here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2021-10-11-there-plant-eyes-an-interview-with/id1527876739?i=1000538623498

Guide dog Oyster turned six on May 5th and we celebrate on this first episode of May with her and her guide dog teammate Barry, returning visitors and co-hosts as a part of our show.

This week, on the first half of Outlook and another mixed bag episode, speaking of oyster, Barry and co-host Kerry share about a recent guide dog refusal by a local cab driver in Kerry’s town.

On the second half we share three examples of different audio described versions, same scene, of the 1992 film “Scent of a Woman” about a character, who is depressed, and Celebrating one last hurrah in New York City, who was the first big representation of blindness for those of us living with the condition to see ourselves represented by on screen. We three discuss our feelings about the movie, its famous tango scene,and the different styles of audio description, UK vs North American.