Ebert’s number one fan

The show will go on at this year’s 15th Annual Ebertfest. Tilda Swinton, Shailene Woodley and Jack Black are among those expected to attend this year’s festival.

Hey, it’s Mike again–I promise I’ll fill you in on Montreal eventually, but the sad event  of yesterday — the death of Roger Ebert — changed my plans. My longtime and dear friend, Brand Fortner, was without question Roger Ebert’s biggest fan. FYI: I met Brand  back in 1990. He was a co-founder of Spyglass, a then tiny startup software company in Champaign, Ill., that was spun off from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. And he hired me. It remains the best and most fulfilling job I’ve ever had — it led to an unforgettable ride during the dot.com days, and the success of Spyglass changed my, Beth’s and our son Gus’s life for the better. Best of all,  Brand and I have remained friends.

I’m like a lot of people — I fully enjoyed Roger Ebert, even when I didn’t agree with him. But no one loved or respected Ebert more than Brand, who has also always attended and supported Ebertfest, a terrific film festival held in Champaign’s historic Virginia Theater each year.

After yesterday’s news, Brand was good enough to share a little essay his daughter Paula had written in college about what it was like to grow up with someone who worshipped at the altar of Roger. Paula—-now an accomplished adult (yikes) in her own right — was good enough to let me share it here on Beth’s blog. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

Roger and Dad

My dad idolizes Roger Ebert. He has Ebert posters hanging on his walls and Ebert movie yearbooks filling his bookcases. Every year, my dad attends Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival and comes back laden with souvenir hats, bags and t-shirts. Above my dad’s desk hangs a signed, framed photo of Roger Ebert shaking his hand. “To Brand, on the occasion of HAL 9000′s birthday,” Roger wrote, adding a quote from HAL’s demise in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey… “Daisy … daisy …”.

When we were younger, my brothers and I needed my dad’s approval before going to the movie theater. My dad never cared about a movie’s rating, violence or explicit content. Rather, he needed to discuss whether Roger would approve of our choice.”You want to see that movie?” he’d ask. “Well, you know what Roger said about it, don’t you?” My brothers and I would look at each other and sigh. My dad would pull up the review and read to us from the holy word of Roger. We almost never made it to the theater by showtime.

My dad has bought nearly every film that Roger liked, and as a result, he owns hundreds of movies. Although my dad has barely seen a quarter of the movies he owns, he knows what Roger thinks of each one. For the movies my dad has seen, his opinion is intertwined with Roger’s. I remember my dad once telling me that he hadn’t enjoyed a movie that Roger rated favorably. After some consideration, my dad decided to watch the movie again to better understand Roger’s opinion.

When I was in high school, my friends would drop by to borrow movies from our massive collection. This pleased my dad to no end. He even made his own video rental cards and checkout slips to facilitate the borrowing process. And he loved spreading the gospel of Roger. If a friend wanted to borrow a particular movie, my dad would sit him down and walk him through Roger’s review. Then my dad would jump up. ”Oh, and if you like this movie, I know at least six more that you’ll love.” My friends always left with their hands full. Even now, I still turn to my dad for movie advice. Whether I’m in the mood for a mindless action flick or a foreign drama, he knows exactly what to recommend. My dad really knows his movies. Or, rather, he really knows his Roger Ebert.

On the air again, and on the road again, too

Sound the trumpets! Here’s something I never dreamed would happen to me: I’ve been awarded a writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts! Mike, Whitney and I take off today for a couple days vacation in Canada, and on Sunday morning Mike will rent a car and drive Whitney and me from Montreal to Johnson, Vermont. Thanks to fellow writer Jeff Flodin, who encouraged me to apply for this fellowship, I’ll be spending the entire month of April with 50 other poets, visual artists and writers at the Vermont Studio Center, where I hope to make some progress on a manuscript I’ve been working on.

That manuscript is about all I’ve learned leading memoir-writing classes for senior citizens here in Chicago, and I got the perfect sendoff yesterday afternoon: Chicago Public Radio aired a piece on All Things Considered featuring the writers in my Wednesday class. WBEZ has been doing a special series on what was going on in people’s lives the year they turned 25: scientific studies have shown that the frontal cortex area—which governs judgment, decision-making and impulse control—doesn’t fully mature until around age 25, which can make that year a transitional one for many people. After hearing a few Chicago celebrities interviewed on WBEZ about their 25th year, I assigned “Being 25” as a topic for my own celebrities, the writers in my classes. From the WBEZ web site:

In this installment of the Year25 series, WBEZ Producer/Reporter Lauren Chooljian visits a memoir writing class for senior citizens at the Chicago Cultural Center.

Their assignment? To write 500 words about where they were at 25.

Lauren stopped by to hear their essays and talk to the students about their stories. She came to find out their teacher, writer Beth Finke, also had quite a story to tell about her 25th year. It was not only the year she was married, but it was the last year she could see. Finke has been completely blind since she was 26 years old.

Wedding day, July 28, 1984, photo by Rick Amodt

If you missed hearing the piece on the radio yesterday, never fear: you can still hear it online. Mike will fly home from Burlington this Sunday after dropping Whitney and me off in Vermont, and he has generously offered to keep up the Safe & Sound blog while I’m away. You’re in good hands.

All for now, folks: we gotta plane to catch!

What was this post supposed to be about again? Oh, yeah

Two of the memoir-writing classes I lead each week are sponsored by Lincoln Park Village, a non-profit organized by older adults who want to age at home. The Village boasts over 300 members, and its classes — everything from meditation to a “boot camp” that enhances memory  –  meet in people’s homes.

To kick off the new year, the Village Newsletter took an in-depth look at the human brain and perhaps it’s most valued — and vulnerable — aspect, memory. Hollis Hines, a writer in my Monday afternoon writing class, was asked to write an article for that newsletter about how blindness affects her writing teacher’s ability to remember things. Here’s an excerpt from that story:

The visual memories from the 26-year-old girl she was, understandably, are frozen in time. In some respects she will never age, nor will her family and friends; they and she are as they were in her perception long ago.

My sister Cheryl loves this about me, and just last weekend a friend from college happened to mention how she enjoys this aspect of my blindness as well. Both of them follow my blog, so I hope they aren’t too disappointed to read that Hollis also pointed out in her article that I am aware those perceptions may no longer be accurate! “But with no visual cues to replace them, the past is the present. Perhaps this partially explains the spunky, youthful energy that Beth exudes.” Ha! Maybe blindness does have its advantages after all!

This might be what Hollis means by spunky.

Hollis explained how I sing a song of the list of U.S. presidents my great-niece Anita learned in school in order to navigate the streets in the Loop — “Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson”  –  and how I do simple math in my head for banking in order to keep an edge with numbers.

She swims at least 20 laps in a pool, and the first lap she thinks about what she must do today, and with each subsequent lap she thinks of a day in the future. That way she exercises both body and brain.

Questions Hollis asked when she interviewed me for the article got me thinking about how blindness can serve to both enhance and foil my memory. The lack of visual cues really does help me remember things: I’m not bothered by visual distractions. On the other hand, without seeing words in print, I can have a hard time remembering the name of an item or of a celebrity, much less how to spell them.

My mention of celebrities during the interview left Hollis wondering if I get any enjoyment from movies or television. Not really. It’s too much work keeping up with the action and the characters. I told Hollis I’d rather listen to an audio book, and that’s when it dawned on me. “You know, with all the imagining and memorizing I do all day long,” I told her, “Living my life is like reading a book!”
Hollis agreed and added, “it’s your own book of non-fiction.”

Needless to say, she got an A+ in class the next Monday.

And now a word from a fellow University of Illinois alum”

If you follow this blog, you already know guest blogger Sandra Murillo. Sandra lost her sight when she was three years old. She has always attended regular public schools, and she’s known ever since she was in high school that she wants to be a writer. Her first guest post was about using assistive technology to vote in her first presidential election and was published here four years ago. A lot has happened in Sandra’s life the past four years, and she’s back with another guest post to give you the latest.

Networking to beat the startling odds

by Sandra Murillo

“How’s the job search going?” I’ve heard that question from family and friends many times during the last few months. I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in December with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and like any recent college graduate, I’m in the process of looking for a job, or, at the very least, an internship.

U of I graduate Sandra Murillo.

I, however, am not your average recent college graduate. I also happen to be blind. This means that finding a job can present some, shall we say, additional hardships. It’s not that I can’t get on the Internet to look for jobs or type resumés and personal statements independently. No, it’s much more complicated than that. Even though legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in the workplace, there are still many misconceptions that prevent many of us from being hired. Sadly, many employers believe that we are not capable of doing a job as efficiently as our sighted counterparts.

According to the American Foundation for the Blind, about 75 percent of blind and visually impaired adults are unemployed in the United States. I find this ironic, given that technology helps us be more productive and independent now more than ever before. I use my talking computer to send and receive Emails, type articles and blog posts and browse the web. The computer’s robotic voice announces each letter as I type and reads out loud what’s on the computer screen. I am bilingual, and my talking computer’s robotic voice even speaks Spanish for me when I want it to!

Journalism involves interviewing people, and I’ve learned to record the interviews with a digital recorder. That way I can make sure I won’t miss a good quote or bit of information. In some ways my blindness allows me to be a better listener during interviews. I can concentrate more on what’s being said rather than the visuals of the person or place. These and other tools have helped me in my job search.

Besides asking friends and family to keep an eye out for job leads, I also go online to sites like monster.com. I was also very fortunate to come across Career Connect, a website developed by the American Foundation for the Blind specifically for blind or visually impaired job seekers. It is full of helpful information on how to write resumés and personal statements, tips on how to make job interviews go smoothly and even information for employers.

I’ve known I wanted to be a journalist since I was a sophomore in high school. I think it’s a great career because I will get to do two of the things I enjoy the most: writing and informing and educating others. I have a particular interest in writing about people with disabilities — I feel we still need to educate the general public about our struggles and capabilities. Maybe that way employers will not be as skeptical about hiring blind and visually impaired people.

Meanwhile, I plan to continue on my job search, and I hope I will not be part of that startling 75 percent of blind and visually impaired people without a job for long.

Close your eyes and try to find the toilet paper

After our fun visit to Dewey Elementary School in Evanston, Ill. last month, six-and-a-half-year-Katya Karpeyev told her Papa she felt special. “It was really neat to be up front assisting Beth with the other kids’ questions.”

Katya’s big sister was at the assembly with her third-grade classmates, too, and Sasha agreed to write a guest post so my blog readers could see a school visit from a nine-year-old point of view.

That’s Katya (l) and Sasha helping out in class.

Things I learned from Beth and Whitney’s visit

by Sasha Karpeyev

When I got into the multi-purpose room it was really nice to see Beth, Papa, and Carli at school. I learned a lot about blind people and Beth from the stories and things that she told us. I learned that only blind people have white canes with red tips, that Beth went blind when she was 26 (half of her life), and that it can be challenging to be blind.

At home, I tried some experiments like trying to go to the bathroom with my eyes closed to see what it was like to be blind. It was really hard because first I tried to turn on the light and turned on the vent instead when I did not even need the light. Second it was hard to find the toilet. Third I could not find the toilet paper very quickly. Fourth it was hard to find the sink and when I felt the sink, it seemed like it was crooked.

I also tried to slide my finger across the numbers on the phone to make combinations of numbers. I got every single one right.

The day Beth came, after we left the multi-purpose room, all of my friends were talking about how interesting it was to see someone at school besides the teachers and students. Everybody also thought it was fun to see a dog in school since no animals were allowed in school except service dogs. They also said it was cool how Beth could be a writer even though she can’t see at all. I hope Beth can come to see us again!

Thanks, Sasha. Whitney and I had a ball with you and Katya at Dewey School. Hope we can come again, too!

Her book is going to be published by McSweeney’s

My friend Audrey Petty has spent years gathering stories from residents of Chicago’s Henry Horner Homes, Robert Taylor Homes, Stateway Gardens and Cabrini-Green — all publicly-funded buildings that no longer exist. Audrey collected oral histories from residents and gathered them in a new book called High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing, and I’m heading to the Chicago Humanities Festival this Sunday to hear her interviewed about the project. From the Chicago Humanities Festival web site:

Narcotics, violence, and the perpetuation of poverty—for many of us, these are the lingering images of the Chicago housing projects Cabrini-Green and Robert Taylor Homes. But what was life in the homes actually like? University of Illinois professor Audrey Petty interviewed former residents for their firsthand accounts of Chicago public housing. Her oral history, which also includes such housing complexes as Stateway Gardens and the Henry Horner Homes, offers a revealing collective story of community, displacement, removal, and relocation. Forthcoming in McSweeney’s Voice of Witness book series, High Rise Stories is both a crucial addition to Chicago’s social history and a portal to a meaningful conversation about poverty, housing reform, and urban renewal in the United States.

Audrey and I met more than a decade ago when we all still lived in Urbana, Ill. Audrey was born and raised in Chicago — she returned home to work on the High Rise Stories project, and now

That’s Audrey, in a shot taken by her daughter Ella.

Audrey, her husband Maurice Rabb, and their daughter Ella live in a third-floor walkup so close to the Obama family’s Hyde Park house that little Ella has seen the President coming and going on recent visits. A few weeks ago Ella asked Maurice, “Daddy, is Romney real? Ella’s dad assured her that yes, he is. “Well, if Romney is real,” she said, “how come we never see him?”

It’s been a joy having the “Prabbys” back in town, and I’m looking forward to being with Audrey and her family this Sunday. You can come too –
Audrey Petty’s presentation is this Sunday, October 21 from 2 to 3 pm at The University of Chicago Law School’s Glen A. Lloyd Auditorium, 1111 East 60th Street in Chicago, and you can purchase tickets online now.

From Halsted to Diversity

Every semester Janie Isackson shepherds the DePaul students enrolled in her Explore Chicago: From Halsted to Diversity class onto the Red line in Lincoln Park so they can all come visit me down here in Printers Row. Long Time, No See is required reading for the course, which involves trips to neighborhoods all over Chicago to witness diversity first-hand. Their visit here last Friday gave the students a glimpse of what it’s like to live in Chicago with a disability. They got a chance to ask about my memoir, too, and their questions were so thought-provoking I thought I’d share some with you blog readers:

• The decision to give away things that reminded you of your old life must have been an excruciatingly tough one, but what prompted you to do so besides the difficult task of remembering small details?
• What was it about Mike that didn’t make you second guess telling him about your diabetes? Was it something about what you saw in him, or was it just the fact that you were tired of avoiding the topic?
• You wrote about how during your first time in “Braille Jail” you resisted starting relationships with the other students. Why do you think this is so?
• Was it difficult parenting a child with disabilities who needed so much extra help with daily tasks, or do you think that it would have been the same if you had been able to see throughout his young life?
• Do you have any regrets? And if you do what are they?
• Your story is filled with supportive friends and family who offered you so much assistance, but were there any relationships you saw weaken after you became blind? Did any friends or family members become distanced or less than accommodating to your situation?
• You wrote about difficulties in your marriage, did you stay together because you felt like you needed someone to help you or because you still loved each other? Do you think things would have ended up different if you didn’t have Gus?
• You have written in so many different modalities and to so many different audiences. Which would be your favorite and why?
• Do you ever wish that you had continued to stay in “Braille Jail” after you had technically graduated? Why or why not?
• Did you ever feel a sense of guilt for Mike knowing that he had to work around your schedule/ completely change simple daily gestures due to your disability?
• Why do you refer to your mother by her first name?

Whew! Not exactly the sorts of questions I’m asked when visiting kids in elementary schools, huh? It was flattering to have 20+ students take enough interest in my life — and my book — to come up with such thoughtful questions and then give such quiet attention to my answers: not one single cell phone went off during our time together, and I didn’t hear a single tap on a keyboard all hour, either. We did have a few laughs, too, and That Last question on the list above came as somewhat of a relief — it was easy to answer! With a fabulous name like Flo, how could I refer to her as anything else?!

Developing character

Back in 2003, the commissioner of Chicago’s Department on Aging showed up at a bookstore event to have me sign a copy of Long Time, No See. Joyce Gallagher must have liked what

That’s my friend Carolyn Alessio.

she read – she phoned me later to invite me to lunch, and in-between bites of egg salad sandwiches at Maxim’s, she asked if I’d teach a writing class for seniors. “I have the application right here,” she said, her fingertips drumming what I guessed was a big brown envelope.

I was not a teacher. I had never taught a class in my life. I said no.

You’ll do great!” she said, passing the envelope across the table to me.

The form had been pretty much filled out already, all I needed to add was a title and syllabus for the course. For that I enlisted Carolyn Alessio to help.

Carolyn was a new friend in Chicago back then. She used to write and edit the Chicago Tribune Book Section, and she had won a Pushcart Prize — a prestigious literary award honoring the best work published in American small presses. Mike and I were still new to Chicago in 2004, and I was just starting to get used to this part of living in a city  –  you rub elbows with accomplished people like this all the time, and it’s thanks to people like Commissioner Gallagher, Carolyn Alessio and dozens of others that the “Me, Myself and I” memoir class I lead for Chicago senior citizens has been an overwhelming success. So successful, in fact, that this week I added a third memoir class to my schedule.

My friend Carolyn is a teacher with successful students, too  – she left her Tribune job to teach at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, a private school known nationally for its innovative ideas and emphasis on building student character. She is extremely generous about sharing teaching techniques and ideas with me and is perfectly willing to let me “steal” the creative topics she comes up with for writing assignments.

During the Chicago teachers strike last month Carolyn wrote an op-ed piece for the Chicago Tribune with an anecdote about how watching clips from the 1982 film “Gandhi” helped her students understand his influence on Martin Luther King Jr.:

Gandhi quiets the crowd in the famous scene and speaks calmly but forcefully. He persuades with logic, feeling and a strong sense of ethics. He skillfully handles the British army partly with humor but also a sincere pledge to avoid physical combat or retaliation. Neither side ends up rioting, at least not as a result of that meeting.

Carolyn and her husband Jeremy have two children who attend a Chicago Public School, and while she was eager to get them back in class last month, she also supported the striking teachers. From that op-ed piece :

It might seem like I was straddling two systems, but as a private school teacher and parent of two students at a strong Chicago public school, I saw shared areas of concern. Teacher evaluations based on student test scores constituted a key dispute between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union, and for good reason — defining teacher performance mainly through test scores could undermine teachers’ deeper mission of developing character.

The Chicago teacher’s strike is over. I’m guessing that “building character among students” was not a topic on the negotiating table, but it should have been. As Carolyn Alessio says, all true educators are on the same side of that mission.

Carolyn Alessio has taught high school in Chicago for the past 12 years. She is the prose editor of Crab Orchard Review, a recent guest editor of Fifth Wednesday, and the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. I am lucky — and honored — to have her as a friend.

If only

Hava Hegenbarth volunteers as a puppy-raiser for Leader Dogs, and she’s been following my Safe & Sound blog for years. Hava is retired after a career in the diplomatic service, and after reading a recent post here about a Holocaust survivor, she commented that she, too, had survived a genocide — it happened when she’d been assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda. “People are always telling me I should write a book about this, but I think it would be too painful,” she wrote. “The people I hid did not survive. A shame and sorrow I live with to this day.” Knowing firsthand how therapeutic and cathartic writing can be, I contacted Hava and asked if she’d be willing to write a guest post about her experience. She agreed.

Night comes dark and early to the land of a thousand hills – Rwanda

by Hava Hegenbarth

I was tucked up under my mosquito net and dead asleep when suddenly awakened by a loud explosion. It was the practice for Hutus and Tutsis to throw grenades onto each others homes in the night, but this night it was a much larger noise. My embassy radio crackled to life. It was the ambassador, informing us that the plane carrying the Rwandan president had crashed. It was unknown what this meant or what might be the consequences but that we were to remain in our homes and not attempt to go out. I went back to sleep.

Some time later I was again jarred awake by numerous smaller explosions, mortar and small-arms fire going off all over the town. The embassy radio again squawked to life and we were told to keep away from all windows. I grabbed the radio, a pillow, and took refuge in my hallway. I spent the rest of that night trembling in fear and definitely NOT sleeping.

The gunfire continued on and when dawn finally came there were knocks at my door. I crept cautiously to it and peeked out the window. Africans stood there. I cracked the door and

That’s Hava holding Whistle, a puppy she’s raising for Leader Dogs. The big dog in front is Bax, a gift she brought home with her from her last diplomatic post in Mauritius.

whispered “What?” The whispered reply came back. “Madam, hide us!”

Just the week before I’d read the book Schindler’s List. I was amazed at Mr. Schindler’s bravery and wondered how I would react if ever I was in that sort of situation. Now I found myself in that very sort of situation. I took them in.

Four days and three nights we hid together in my house. Outside was hell. There was a high wall surrounding my house, I could not see what was happening but I could hear the horror. There was a pattern to it. There would be screams, then shots, then silence. Over and over again, coming closer and getting louder. I thought that when they got to my house and saw me hiding my refugees, the consequences would be very bad. I just hoped it would be over quickly.

They went past my house. My house was spared. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps at the time they were respecting diplomats’ residences. For whatever reason, we were not invaded.

The ambassador came on the radio and told us to prepare for evacuation. He had negotiated a cease-fire long enough for us to get out. I think they were happy to have us leave so that they could carry on their sinister work without outside eyes seeing it. We were to pack one bag and drive to a predetermined location, there to form up convoys and get out as best we could.

My car was still in customs — I was so new in the country, it had only just arrived in Rwanda. My closest American neighbors offered to pick me up in their car. When they arrived, I dragged my one bag out to the car, followed by my refugees. My friends said, “Hurry up, get in!” I motioned to the refugees. “What about them?”

My friends looked at me in disbelief. “Are you crazy?! No way are they coming!”

I turned to my refugees and feeling the most helpless I have ever in my life told them they could not come with me. They took my hands and pleaded. “Madam, please! You know what will happen to us.”

I knew. I also knew that I would not be allowed to stay with them. The ambassador would never have allowed me to stay nor would he leave until the last American was out of the country. I got into the car. The eyes of the Africans followed the car as it pulled away and out of sight. I still see those eyes. I learned later that they had all been killed.

I’ve relived this many times, wondering if only I had had my own car. If only this. If only that. If only. It all comes out the same. I couldn’t save them.

Something even non-believers can believe in

Groovy picture of my sisters and me in front of Cheryl’s lime green 1967 Mustang.

After publishing that post about 1968 last week, I have to make a confession: I was a square in the 1960s. While the hippies and peaceniks of that generation were worshipping Jim Morrison and grooving to Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company, I was busy at the piano figuring out the arpeggio in Herb Alpert’s hit “This Guy’s in Love with You.”

By then I’d already been mesmerized by the woman in the whipped cream dress on the Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass album cover. Now Herb was setting down his trumpet for a tune, and in 1968 he was singing those lyrics to me, an awkward pre-teen in the Chicago suburbs. And so, along with so many other pop music fans from that generation, I was sad to hear that Hal David, the man who wrote the lyrics to that song and oh so many others, had died last week.

On Friday, National Public Radio’s Fresh Air re-broadcast a 1997 interview with Hal David, and when Terry Gross asked which of his lyrics were his personal favorite, he didn’t even pause to think. “Alfie,” he said.

Alfie? For real? “Alfie”? Not “The Look of Love”? “Walk On By?” “I Say a Little Prayer”? Of course I had to leave the radio to look up the lyrics right away.

You know what? If you take the silly name “Alfie” out of that song, the words are beautiful. Downright insightful. I’ll leave you with the lyrics sans the word “Alfie” here — you can judge for yourself. And hey, if you want to admit to enjoying an easy listening tune from time to time back in the day, by all means leave a comment and fess up. I’d be particularly interested in hearing what your favorite Bacharach/David tune is.

What’s it all about?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about?
When you sort it out, are we meant to take more than we give?
or are we meant to be kind?And if only fools are kind, then I guess it’s wise to be cruel.
And if life belongs only to the strong, what will you lend on an old golden rule?

As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above, I know there’s something much more.
Something even non-believers can believe in.

I believe in love.
Without true love we just exist.
Until you find the love you’ve missed you’re nothing.
When you walk let your heart lead the way,
And you’ll find love any day.