After our conversation with today’s guest, check out our thoughts on how theatre and performance spaces can work to be more inclusive and can work towards a greater focus on meeting the access needs of intersecting humans in artistic spaces. As Brian shares about his really missing out on being in those spaces, Kerry shares about others who are out there, if you know where to look as reflections following this week’s guest joins us, live on location:

“The broader systems and structures of our work in theatre - is now realising, in catching up essentially with the rest of us that have always had to exist in spaces as disabled humans, that actually this can allow us to think more deeply, consider things in a deeper more innovative way. And it’s actually an exciting frontier, the disruption and the dismantling that access and disability causes in spaces is actually a really an exciting and innovative thing to think about artistically. I think ultimately that shift, we’re at the precipice of that shift right now in the community. We’re just at the beginning and it’s gonna be a long journey and a long thing and many conversations from a space of listening. We’re just at the start, let’s put it that way,” our guest laughs.

This week on Outlook we’re hearing from accessibility coordinator Mandy E. MacLean, who has worked as an access practitioner in artistic and theatre settings since moving to Toronto in 2012:

“We’re far behind the UK and overseas in many ways, here in Toronto and in Canada…and in Ontario as a whole - it’s an exciting place to be sitting in currently.”

Mandy joins us from outside a deaf-led performance, in the shade on a boiling summer afternoon, to discuss how she started work as a producer focusing on access in artistic spaces, about working with young/first-time low vision and blind/disabled and trans performers, both in arts and theatre in Ontario and Manitoba including what she learned about herself and her job facilitating and producing inclusive theatre with students at the W. Ross McDonald School for the Blind. She describes what she learned from first-time performers in a drama class at the school and how she heard from them what they wanted to see in a performance of their creation and making.

We talk things like integrated audio description and lighting design for theatre when considering full inclusion or sensory sensitivity as MacLean shares a bit about her own non-visible disabilities which include concussion and associated mental health (identifying as part of the Mad community) and sensory sensitivity symptoms. Mandy shares how first, as a performer, and now as facilitator of accessibility in the arts and theatre with less obvious disabilities of her own, she can be a bit under the radar in performance spaces and still approach her work from a lived experience perspective and to learn from the lived experiences others have as intersections. Also, how she invites others in such spaces to be open about their differences, both visible or non-visible, if they so choose which can diminish stigma.

We also find out about her great love of dogs and the story behind naming her own (emotional support animal) cocker spaniel Mulder. *Cue X-Files music*

We also learn a new word on this one, which we do every few years on this show, with the introducing of the term “dramaturg” to our ears. As dramaturg, MacLean asks: “How do we shape and hold this piece that eventually is going to be experienced by an audience?”

She’s sharing about her own personal curiosities exploring her own disabilities in theatrical settings and on a project she herself has in the works. Then she goes on to tell us about the Summer in the Park Festival with Crossroads Theatre she is working on as an artistic and access producer taking place over the span of three days (from August 22 to the 24th) with an opening night of free food (a community meal) and weekend brimming with performances and storytelling spaces across the three days for all ages and abilities and backgrounds - a welcoming cultural, creative, community driven event that offers a family friendly experience.

“I encourage everyone to check out the Summerworks Performance Festival:

https://summerworks.ca

I was one of the accessibility coordinators there. If you’re not able to make it out this year, I encourage you to check it out for the future. It’s an awesome festival, downtown Toronto, and I also encourage you to check out the organisation I work for, Crossroads Theatre. We are excited to connect with folks at Crossroads. We wanna meet people and artists in the community that are interested in access and theatre and live performance of any shape and form and how those two things intersect.”

Reach out on Insagram @crossroadstheatreto

For more information on the Summer in the Park series and specifically Crossroads Theatre go here:

https://www.crossroadstheatre.org

She’s just a girl and she’s on fire

She’s living in a world and it’s on fire.

—Alicia Keys

It’s a slow burn summer, burn as in the wildfires ravaging communities and landscapes across Canada while 18-year-old Canadian competitive swimmer Summer McIntosh is on fire, winning multiple medals at the World Championships, and this is another mixed bag episode in mid summer on the August long weekend as we’re recording it. And one of us is getting over a summer cold as we acknowledge July’s Pride celebrations as the anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act (35 years) arrived this summer season.

This week on Outlook we’re starting off sharing what brother/co-host Brian learned when he researched what exactly the August 1st holiday is here in Canada are represented by, either British Columbia Day, Terry Fox Day in Manitoba (the province he was born in), Heritage Day for one province while ours (Ontario) has municipality celebrations for places like Ottawa or Guelph.

After this one, we won’t be live for a few weeks with an upcoming Monday where sister/co-host Kerry has a specialist appointment at a connective tissue clinic with a rheumatologist to see if there’s anything new they might be able to offer to manage her changing symptoms and Brian will be recording with his band at London’s local Sugar Shack Studio. We then briefly mention the serious and controversial subject matter (content warning worthy) we’ve got coming up on an Outlook show planned for later in the month, current scarcity mindsets with Alberta’s continuing going ahead with clawbacks for anyone there applying for the new Canadian Disability Benefit, and how that compares to the province we’re in, speaking of different provinces on this August Long Weekend edition of our show.

Our mixed bag of topics for this Mid Summer Mixed Bag also includes our friendly sibling competitions even when it comes to why Brian doesn’t get as many colds as Kerry (even though we’re both immunosuppressed as transplant patients) or why Kerry’s creatinine has always remained safely below 100 while Brian’s has steadily remained dozens of points above it.

Speaking of clinic, with Brian’s recent transplant clinic visit and dispatches from the waiting room we’re considering a story from CBC about piping in calming bird song sounds into hospital and clinic waiting rooms rather than the less relaxing news television programs.

Then, (speaking of content warnings) we recently viewed the first episode of Season 27 of South Park “Sermon On The Mount,” and we’re discussing what we miss without audio description which led us to use a Wiki Fandom site and AI chatbot for more information, the design of the characters Kerry has seen at one time and now must imagine, and the type of satire its creators harness for trolling (passing the sensors by putting little eyes on 45/47’s penis and comparing him to a certain deceased Iraqi so-called “leader” South Park featured in one of Brian’s most favourite earlier season episodes.

Reflecting on seeing the value of spending more time with family now that he’s older, (shoutout to Nefertiti Matos Olivares for gifting our family with game Herd Mentality) making for a wonderfully entertaining and enlightening family game afternoon last month - Brian also shares about a sweet and special moment recently where our niece wanted to include him by writing her name tactilely so he could feel it, by writing it on the device we have called the BrailleDoodle (a teaching tool for educators and new braille learners).

And speaking of the BrailleDoodle, we’re still looking for somewhere to donate one and Kerry shares about introducing our educational assistant/braille transcriber from our school days to BF Barry and guide dog Oyster a few weeks back.

BTW: If you hear this episode and know of anyone/anywhere that could use it, please do reach out by emailing us - [email protected]

You can learn more about the Braille Doodle here:

https://www.touchpadprofoundation.org

Girl On Fire by Alicia Keys:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J91ti_MpdHA

Bumbleberry and BF Barry back with us again.

It’s not all roses on Outlook this week, though it’s another Disability Pride Month episode (celebrating brother/co-host Brian’s July transplant anniversary) and we’re talking poutine and pickle fries to mark the occasion.

Actually, we discuss an evening out for the three of us at a family wedding as sister/co-host Kerry shares about her blind/female fashion concerns while the boys discuss how it is choosing their own wedding guest wardrobe.

Then we cover the ways we utilise our remaining senses to take part in and enjoy festivities such as listening for the evening’s playlist of songs (for dancing to or not) along with all the visual elements we miss, tasting the food truck flavours, and all the tactile elements of how weddings get decorated, like the tactile roses on the tables.

Summer continues coasting along, for this Mixed Bag episode, as some of us try not to melt in our shades while others continue to bask in the sizzle of the season.

One of us wears their Wayne’s World hat while the other two sport some summer shades as we talk party favours with a dress code of beach formal from the weekend that was.

K: “Community is so important. To knowing you’re not alone and then showing up for each other.

H: 100 percent.

K: even when a situation is scary and people are thinking about their own situations of course but also thinking about their loved ones and their neighbours.

H: We will only survive this with community. We will only survive this together. We will only survive this by showing up for each other. That is our only way out.

This is an exchange between sister/co-host Kerry and friend and returning guest Professor H Mayhem May on this week’s show.

We’re continuing the celebrating of PRIDE on Outlook this week, as we did almost exactly to the day (three years ago) when May was on with us that first time to share about their short film, “Finding Tiresias”, an inclusively designed experimental piece about identity and diversity and change.

Ozzy Osbourne, legendary rock performer died since having H May on this time. In his band’s song “Changes” he sings: “I’m going through changes”.

This is the theme of our second discussion, live in studio, with H from just across the border in The Finger Lakes region of New York State.

Canada and the States both celebrate birthdays during the month of July along with Pride and Disability Pride, just within a few days of one another, as we’re right next to each other. We’re illustrating the need to recognise that closeness and connection and that need to keep connections between us strong in the face of so much chaos and adversity, both as neighbouring countries and in overlapping communities.

So we’re talking interconnection, intersectionality, and interdependence along with examples of loss and grief and accepting of changes as H considers a guide dog for continued outdoor adventures, keeping up blindness skills in an ocularcentric world since being in community with us and others at a Drama Club Camp week in Maine, and in the expanding possibilities developing the ideas from last year’s Maine gathering into a future inclusive and representative theatrical statement with Dr. May’s growing lived experience and directing stage knowledge and expertise at its heart.

For more on our friend and ally Professor H May, visit their website and learn more about “Finding Tiresias” and other projects and perspectives:

https://www.drheathermay.com

Check out last summer’s Maine experience on the two-parter episode we put together featuring our week in community with H and others:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2024-10-14-our-week-in-maine-well-figure-it-out-pt-1/id1527876739?i=1000673780980

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2024-10-21-our-week-in-maine-well-figure-it-out-pt-2/id1527876739?i=1000675516532

And go back 3 years to hear H’s first appearance on the show:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2022-07-11-awaiting-tiresias-with-professor/id1527876739?i=1000569782476

“We will carve our place into time and space.”

—Wild Things, Alessia Cara

It’s powerful outcry, a protest and empowerment song by Alessia, as sister/co-host Kerry loves music that’s unapologetic - Things are heating up during July’s Disability Pride Month (DPM).

This week on Outlook we’re continuing the Pride talk on another mixed bag with brother/co-host Brian’s baseball adventures, reading image descriptions of the stadium, and then Kerry shares about her memories of seeing the Toronto Bluejay’s Sky Dome (roof open and sky exposed or closed).

Accessibility - how he and BF Barry asked at Guest Services for accessible ways to follow the game and a giant company like Rogers doing very little even with all their resources.

Advocacy - summer being a time people love to attend festivals and a recent CBC London Morning segment speaking with an accessibility consultant in a wheelchair about how to make something like London’s Sunfest more inclusive.

And equality - describing the colours of the Disability Pride Flag as July’s DPM continues.

While Kerry and guide dog Oyster recently had a girl’s day, watching Friends, sleeping on the couch, and going out in the back yard for which Kerry is writing an essay about in a July writing class: Oyster’s Secret Garden, Brian and Barry had a good time out socialising in London and spending a lot of time on patios and at local spots across town. He shares about transportation issues and talking with Uber drivers, and. Kerry shares, while describing the need for colours and vivid imagery on a flag like that of DPM along with the grief she’s now receiving peer support for when she misses seeing the colours she has always loved and once could make out.

When Kerry was in Ireland and went forest bathing, she was encouraged to take her power back and she finds that works better through song lyrics than through cursing. It’s a summer of Pride, a lifetime of advocacy, and demanding equality along the way with cross-community support so be one of the Wild Ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5vUBQBykJ4

As we cross over from June’s Pride Month into July’s Disability Pride, let’s just say it is a summer of PRIDe with us here.

This week on Outlook we’re talking about the connections, the intersectionalities between those celebrating LGBTQIA2S+ and celebrating living with disability. Yes, we know that the idea of “feeling proud” of living with disability (in this society which stigmatises anything not able-bodied) sounds strange to some, but here we’re trying to destigmatize the whole thing by refusing to let circumstances out of our control dominate our lives.

We’re sharing first about our Friday night excursion out in London and to the home of the host who did a music show (first before us Monday mornings and then directly after). Bernie Koenig (of From Bach to Rock and then Bernie’s Jazz and Blues) is a musician himself, from way back, and hosts jams (out of his basement) where he invites anyone to come to watch some jazz/rock/blues playing. So we went, though Oyster the guide dog didn’t take to the loud drums, guitars, and trumpet so co-host Kerry and BF Barry sat with her just outside on the patio. It turned out it was a nice evening for everyone that way and Brian (who played trumpet briefly from back in high school) enjoyed seeing Bernie in his element. Bernie’s wife, supporting him from the back row, waving and smiling to him was described to us.

We then go on to discuss some of the local music shows co-host Brian has been out to lately, some of the navigational issues he dealt with to travel to said shows, as well as the benefits of supporting his community and getting to hear some of the music he so enjoys.

And sister/co-host Kerry has what she’s coined a soft announcement on the audio description collaborative team she’s a member of, Picture This, and she shares about the two recent PBS American Masters documentaries they’ve produced extended AD for. She explains more about the docs which includes one on political theorist and scholar Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny, as she also explains more about what extended audio description is.

It’s another mixed bag show where we look back on our guests for June including Linsay Lusyne of Vision Loss Travel, friend Zoe Rae Espinoza on blind gaming, and Marie Elise who travels as Beyond My Blur. Plus some podcast recs as we head toward our 300’s episode sometime in the weeks ahead.

Here’s a link to the Arendt documentary, though we do talk on this one about how a VPN was needed to view it here in Canada by the person who did the quality control )QC) on it:

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/hannah-arendt-documentary/36135/

Bf Barry says of summer starting, revving up, especially for co-host Kerry:

Barry says “hanging out and hanging in”

But as we greet the summer season, we’re hanging out with someone Kerry came across through Steph McCoy of the fashion, style, and inclusion platform "Bold Blind Beauty".

Of course, it’s about the representation which I think is very important, also for the generations that are younger than me, but also because I think we should celebrate these different perspectives.

And I also hope to show other travelers with low vision, that it’s us who get to share this perspective with the sighted travelers and I think there’s a cool aspect in that.

Marie Elise joins us on Outlook this week to talk travel, the value of experiencing the loveliness and power of the planet by making use of all our available senses, and adapting to the shifting sands of genetic vision degeneration.

Whether it’s chickens, hummingbirds, or horses, Elise wanted to be a veterinarian growing up and now wants to share her message of experiencing the sound of a hummingbird and not just seeing it, and joins us from South America with the sound of those chickens outside the door. She describes her special connection to horses and the trust it takes to ride with fading sight, but the benefits of emotional regulation for a deeper connection and something she could apply to life going forward were helpful for coping with all of it.

She says of her life travels, as she’s worked to befriend the anxieties that developed in her 20s as the realities of her Stargardt's blindness became clearer: “I feel like that if you live in another country, that culture and that country becomes a part of you. It really has helped me develop as a human.”

So whether it’s growing up amongst the bicycles in the Netherlands, studying Spanish in Spain after high school, or her time in Argentina, Marie has a dream going forward: Of course, it’s about the representation which I think is very important, also for the generations that are younger than me, but also because I think we should celebrate these different perspectives.

And I also hope to show other travelers with low vision, that it’s us who get to share this perspective with the sighted travelers and I think there’s a cool aspect in that.

Marie has a blog “Beyond My Blur” where she shares her own perspective on the places she’s been lucky to get to experience and how to do this, with the full spectrum of senses, more fully:

https://beyondmyblur.com

Our guest says: “Let me tell you, nothing…nothing in the world is as satisfying as fighting a salty gamer bro online in Mortal Combat, winning a match, and then telling them - hey you just got beat by a blind, trans girl. Have a good one. No rematch!”

We featured a sibling pair, Zoe and Jessica (both born with the same blindness condition as us, LcA) on our Siblings episode four years ago and Zoe returns as we here celebrate Pride Month throughout June.

This week on Outlook we’re speaking with Zoe Espinoza about gaming while blind, a pastime many would assume isn’t accessible for anyone unable to see the screen and the visuals found there, but Zoe and regular co-host/boyfriend Barry geek out on this subject on this week’s episode.

With vast knowledge of the gaming universe, our guest shares early memories of adaptations made to play, a love of narrative based games, and a childhood dream to write the stories for these games. She also shares some of the techniques she and her partner (not blind but with other disability such as hearing trouble/brain fog/fatigue) have now come up with to play as a team, co-piloting and coordinating using the skills they both bring to the table to support the other. Barry offering a gaming term, “You’re each other’s augment.” And according to Zoe, “The couple that plays together stays together.”

Here at Outlook On Radio Western we start every show by saying - Accessibility, Advocacy, and Equality. So we discuss deliberately accessible vs accidentally accessible and why it’s worth it for companies to make their games inclusive. Zoe Espinoza and Barry advocate by playing and showing the world that there’s an interest and a desire to escape into the gaming world.

Sibling co-hosts Kerry and Brian didn’t grow up with video games at home, and blindness is a spectrum of course, but we do encourage geeking out, in all kinds of ways, on this program whether it’s AI or gaming or anything else. Barry and Zoe share resources and tips if you, too, are blind and want to play. Or maybe you aren’t blind yourself, you have other disabilities or work in the gaming world, may simply be interested in the topic, making sure it’s an accessible and inclusive activity for everyone.

Check out Zoe’s previous appearance on our show with her sibling Jessica:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2021-04-12-siblings-series-part-2-jessica-zoe/id1527876739?i=1000516853367

It all started with a trip to Cuba.

Our guest on Outlook this week explains: At one moment in life you don’t really know what you’re doing and then, all of a sudden, you get this opportunity and a huge passion just grew out of it.

From Belgium to Canada, Linsay Lusyne has a love of travel, opening it up to everyone along the way starting with a previous experience training blind people on navigating and guide dogs for blind travel before travel coaching in a different way.

Lusyne shares about growing up on the coast of a small European country and her early memories of saving up for eye surgery at age five,, about her family’s reaction when she left for an island trip, and the empowering feeling she had from that first big solo adventure.

We discuss her entry into training guide dogs and their companions which started with a love of dogs and an internship, the move she made to Canada with a desire for long-term travel, and her eventually stepping into becoming a travel coach who helps plan and book travel including recently creating group trips and trips of all kinds, as she helps blind travellers in particular to break down their travel and adventure dreams into manageable actionable steps.

As a sighted lover of travel and with her knowledge of orientation and mobility and guide dogs, she runs the Vision Loss Travel group on Facebook and hosts meet-up calls to discuss the group trips she organises with both sighted and blind people, showcasing her love of experiencing the world as independently as one possibly can for everyone.

Lindsay says: Travel is not about ticking destinations off a list. I believe in the transformative power of exploration, and I'm passionate about making travel accessible and life changing for those with vision loss.”

Check out more about Linsay Lusyne, Travel Coach, by visiting her website:

https://www.visuallyimpairedtravel.com

Find her Vision Loss Travel Community on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/617168270274903/

LOOK OUT - Goose crossing ahead!

Not all take kindly to the following of directions. Communication takes practice. Patience is needed to get where you’d like to be.

Last week was National Accessibility Week (beginning on the final Sunday of May) and this time on Outlook (where “accessibility” is a given) we discuss the unhelpful helpers, how we orient ourselves, plus goose crossings and fermented mushrooms.

This first Mixed Bag of June we’re talking what’s in store for these warmer months ahead including Pride celebrations, as we examine our gratitude toward those, in other marginalised communities, who come before us in all this disability community’s diverse group and anticipating a new show reboot of the animated King of the Hill with the importance of understanding modern relevance vs a snapshot from a previous generation. Also, we touch on and go over the eager waiting for this month’s announced applications to open up to qualify for the new Canada Disability Benefit and speaking of federal government, with Canada’s new federal cabinet (and Mark Carney at the helm) doing the “Cabinet Shuffle” by eliminating the Minister of Diversity, Inclusion, and Persons With Disabilities.

Happy Indigenous History Month and Pride Month to our First Nations, Metis, and Inuit and 2SLGBTQIA+ friends and listeners - from May mixed bags to June, toward the strawberry moon, and celebrating kidney transplant anniversaries during this summer season.