Eating Ants

The other day my daughter came over for a visit. I was in my den when I heard her calling out to me from the kitchen: “Hey dad, there are ants all over your chocolate candy.”

Yikes! I had a flash memory from the night before, eating a couple of pieces from my box of Valentine chocolates which I had been rationing and now was almost empty…except for the ants.

I quickly got to thinking about any weird science I might have swallowed in the past and recalled how I thought the sliced ham I had for lunch earlier tasted a little tangy. When you’re a blind dude, bad strawberries and sour milk are simple to detect, but ant-covered chocolates, not so easy.

I started wondering why I was still alive.

I suppose at their most basic level, ants are protein.

Then I remembered Steve McQueen’s character in the film Papillon, mashing up and eating insects while detained in a French Guiana prison. It didn’t kill him but rather helped sustain him for two years while being held in solitary confinement. I was starting to feel better.

Certainly in some parts of the world, local cuisine includes beetles, grasshoppers and other insects which are dried, fried and covered with seasonings. Desserts include tasty tidbits like Chocolate Covered Scorpion and Chile-Lime Crickets.

According to one source: “…80% of the world views insects as normal food; it's only nations in Europe, Canada and the USA who balk at the idea.”

Was I ahead of the curve?

A quick surf on Google will bring you to organizations that promote the eating of those creepy little critters. One such association boasts: “Eat Bugs, Save the Planet.” There are ‘Bug Festivals’ dedicated to educating us about the nutritional benefits of edible insects.

Notwithstanding the challenges of world hunger, the rising demand for meat, overfishing, current farming practices damaging the environment, polluting the water and air and contributing to the rise in infectious diseases, it may be time to change the way we view food.

Back to what we eat.

I thought about a nice steak – cooked cow, really? Who’d want to eat such an odd looking animal? And sushi…? Hmm, raw fish. Then it hit me: maybe as long as what we eat is dead, it works. Or at least is more appetizing.

We don’t eat living stuff. But lots of other creatures do. Snakes eat live rats, lions eat zebra, lizards eat flies, cats eat lizards, and blind dudes eat ants. No big whoop, eh?

Good thing those big bug movies like “Them!” (a nest of gigantic irradiated ants storming L.A.) and “The Fly” (a scientist mutating into a human fly) are just Sci-Fi. Otherwise, we might also be on the menu.

Dead or alive, food is necessary for survival. And eating responsibly is a worthwhile consideration.

Perhaps someday we’ll hear public service announcements like: “Promote healthy eating and sustainable farming with tasty & edible insects. Eat a bug!”

Until then, I won’t be dusting my chocolates with little ants anytime soon, but won’t freak out if I munch a few along the way.

Steve Gladstone The Blind Dude

Blind Man Goes to the Ballet

Photos by Aida Zuniga

Perhaps the last form of theatrical entertainment to attract a blind person would be the ballet: no speaking, no singing, just dancing.

However, thanks to technology, I can now understand the fascination with sugar plum fairies dancing in your head.

Like so many Baby Boomers, I was first introduced to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, a truncated orchestral version of his Nutcracker ballet music, while watching Disney’s Fantasia. Of course, Tchaikovsky crafted the Suite as a purely symphonic piece where the ballet is a feast for both the eyes and ears.

inside a toy box

The first characters most Boomers actually tied to The Nutcracker were the animated fairies, fish, flowers, mushrooms, and leaves from Fantasia (1940). The Nutcracker ballet didn’t really become a popular annual tradition in this country until the 1960s, the result of George Balanchine's staging, adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's tale, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.”

The animated images from Fantasia probably remained with me longer than most people, since I actually saw the film but was totally blind by the time I first attended the ballet.

Those fluid, colorful and quirky animated characters from the movie morphed back to their original forms in the ballet: the dancing mushrooms in the “Chinese Dance” routine (credit the Three Stooges as the model for the animation) became a nimble Chinese danseur leaping out of a box 3 feet into the air; the mesmerizing goldfish who used her flowing tail as a veil became one beautiful barefoot Arabian babe in a gossamer skirt and cascading veil, using her sensuous and controlled movements – arching her back, turning around on one foot and moving in serpentine  patterns – to touch her head with one foot and stretch out like a cat; a plant with its stem body and leaves for arms and legs became an acrobatic Cossack who jumped through a red, white and green striped hula hoop.

So how does a blind man know all these details? Elementary, my dear Watson: audio description.

With a FM receiver around my neck and an earpiece in my ear, a live narrator at the Arsht Center’s Ziff Ballet Opera House in Miami described the action on stage, transmitting it to me in real time as the music played and the dancers danced.

It was also helpful to have a “touch tour” before the show, giving size and shape to many of the stage props and costumes. I did enjoy communing with the Mouse King’s head and body armor.

holding the Mouse King's tail off suit of armor

I never knew it was snowing at the top of the ballet and that several guests arrived with their children at Dr. Stahlbaum’s home. I didn’t know that a father picked up his little daughter to admire the Christmas tree lights or that the grandfather clock lit up when it struck eight.

I learned that the mysterious Drosselmeyer was dressed in a black cape and top hat, and brought with him several large toy boxes; his first gift being two wind-up dolls, Harlequin and Columbine, who soon performed a sprightly arabesque, which enlightened me as to why the audience was applauding.

I had a serious ‘duh’ moment when I found out that Drosselmeyer was cracking nuts with a wooden nutcracker and passing out the nuts to everyone. My inner voice clarified it for me: “It’s The Nutcracker ballet after all, you knucklehead!”

Marie’s brother Fritz grabbing and stomping on the nutcracker was another important piece of otherwise missing info. Drosselmeyer sneaking in as Marie slept, repairing the nutcracker with a magic tool which he “twisted this way and that,” placing it back gently in Marie’s arms, continued to add layers of dimension to Tchaikovsky’s wonderful music.

Subtle descriptions like “the guests hand their coats and wraps to the maid” and “Frau Stahlbaum kisses Marie on the forehead and takes her candle” and “the Prince places the Mouse King’s crown on Marie’s head” added nuance I would otherwise have missed.

Steve arghs with full face Mouse King

Of course, as the music swelled and a large group of mice surrounded Marie “while the lights flashed wildly on the Christmas tree as it started to grow and grow towards the ceiling,” I got the distinct impression the plot was thickening.

Yup, the Calvary came over the hill – the now full-sized Nutcracker rallied the troops of toy soldiers against the rat pack. Kudos to Marie for throwing her slipper at the Mouse King to distract him long enough for the Nutcracker to run him through…and it’s a good thing I found out that the Nutcracker turned into a Prince after the battle.

The only thing better than a snowflake dancing en pointe is sixteen snowflakes dancing en pointe “leaping, swirling and twirling across the stage, forming various patterns on the floor, then taking delicate steps with graceful arm movements and pirouetting into a V-shape.”

How else would I know that The Sugar Plum Fairy found out about the “terrible fight with the mice and their King and the Prince’s transformation from Nutcracker to Prince” if he didn’t “act it out to Sugar Plum with gestures?”

Certainly the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" was a delight, “her movements exquisitely timed to the mysterious fairy music, imbued with a celesta, twirling upstage” before summoning all the sweets and friends to dance in celebration for Marie and the Prince. The festivities included ten foot tall Mother Ginger, in her enormous purple, green and scarlet costume, with her seven children, the Polichinelles, emerging from under her hoop skirt to dance for our heroine.

A highlight was the "Waltz of the Flowers" where, along with the corps de ballet, Dewdrop danced the extravagant waltz and, according to my narrator, “The large flowing movements and leaps were graceful, even though the music was robust.”

The Grand Pas de Deux between Sugar Plum and her Cavalier, Prince Coqueluche, with its divinely romantic underscore, apparently galvanized the audience. I now know that the Prince helped his “beautiful companion” spin en pointe and then she “leaped and he spun her around and sat her on his shoulder, lifted and held her by the waist straight into the air, and then held her straight on an angle with her feet barely touching the floor.”

After the grand finale, full of abundant color and activity, Marie and the Prince “appear in a sleigh, heading off to the land where the sun meets the moon.”

And I too was over the moon after knowing what the heck was going on.

If you would like to learn more about the audio descriptive service at the Arsht, go to: http://www.arshtcenter.org/

full-sized Nutcracker head

Insight for the Blind was thrilled to produce recorded audio description for the first time in 2015!  In collaboration with the Miami City Ballet, Lighthouse of Broward, and the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Insight recorded and produced audio description which was made available each night that live audio description was not possible.  Through the partnership of these agencies, 100% of these Nutcracker performances were made accessible, through audio description, to the blind and visually impaired.  We look forward to many more such collaborations in 2016, and beyond!   -Matt Corey

I am Orange

Here’s how a certain color, orange in particular, manifests itself in the brain of the blind dude…as a poem. I Am Orange

I am orange. Not an orange, though I like the way it tastes.

I am the blossom of clouds on the horizon at sunset and the first beam of sunlight blessing the morning.

I am the sun passing from portal to portal, dividing the sky and defining time.

I pull the best from the colors that flank me: the romance out of red and the risk out of yellow.

I am the complexion of fire, warming as much as possible, burning when I need to burn.

I am the thoughts of a newborn child who has yet to know language, with little to mediate his surroundings, longing to know his world.

Halloween runs through my veins and keeps me in a nice dark place where I can get a thrill, a chill and a shrill, reminding me that dark isn't deadly.

On those rare days when all’s well – the weather is a breezy 72 degrees, everyone is helpful and friendly, two old problems are solved and the bills are paid – orange is what I am.