>> Hi, everybody.
I'm Cathy Kudlick
and I'm director
of the Paul K. Longmore
Institute on Disability
and I'm a professor of
history at San Francisco State.
[Cheering] [Laughter]
This is Kim Nielsen--
>> History--
>> Yeah, history.
I'm not sure what we're
cheering there but that's--
there's lots to cheer
and lots to celebrate
and that's why we're here.
I am so pleased that everybody
has come to this event
which I organized and
that I'm delighted
that my fellow panelists
agreed to serve on this.
You'll see why as we
start talking and I'd
like to welcome everybody.
A couple of housekeeping things.
There's a sign in
book over there.
You don't have to sign it if
you're already on our list
but if you'd like
to learn about--
more about us and our future
events and get future mailings,
there's a place to sign
up over to my right--
right by the door
where you came in.
And let's see.
I'd like to give some thanks
to, some major, major thanks,
first of all to Barbara
Loomis and the history--
my colleagues in the
history department
at San Francisco State.
I'd like to also thank the DPRC
which is our disability
service system in our campus
for providing captioning.
I'd like to thank the Academic
Technology services people,
Molly and Maggie, and a number--
and Gary that have
been working very hard
to make sure this event is
accessible in a lot of ways.
And I'd also like to thank our
interns and student assistants
that have volunteers--
and volunteers from the
Longmore Institute and also
from the history department
that will be helping out.
You probably saw some of the
greeters when you came in
and it's just been great.
We'd be able to do
nothing without them.
I also want to thank
Corbett O'Toole
who has provided these
really amazing sort
of installation art
pieces around the room.
There's a brochure about them.
It describes them.
She will describe them.
Corbett, where are you?
>> In the back.
>> In the back, so seek
out Corbett or let's--
as many know that Corbett,
everybody knows who Corbett is
if they know who Corbett is
and then other people
can ask where Corbett is.
But she will probably
explain to you the exhibit,
it's a commemoration and
shows art and activism
and history coming
together thanks in some ways
to Paul Longmore's influence.
All right.
Above all, I'd like to
thank Emily Beitiks,
our assistant director.
Emily, where are you?
[Inaudible Remark] Yeah.
[Applause] It wouldn't happen
without you, so thank you Emily.
And we want to thank his husband
and her son Carver [phonetic]
for letting her [inaudible]
today.
[Laughter] And she-- she meant
all these people spent hours
make up this event
look effortless.
So, thank you.
This event is bittersweet
for me.
Paul was my friend and my
mentor and my colleague
and since turning as director
of the Longmore Institute back
in August, I found myself trying
to channel him all the time,
you know trying to get
his words out there
but also I've been
constantly carrying on a lot
of conversations, internal
and external with him
and about him and it's tough.
And we will be in a situation
where we'll all get to,
you know, sort of share
about these things.
Sometimes, it's been very heavy
and exciting and engaging.
In others, it's just been
heartbreaking and just moments
that it's unbelievable.
The institute, just a brief
word about it, for those of you
that don't know anything,
it was established in 1996
by Paul Longmore and its
mission was basically
to promote San Francisco State
University Social Justice
mission, applying it to
disability and disabled people
as a category worthy of thinking
and engaging in scholarship
and activism and community.
When Paul passed away
unexpectedly back
in August 2010, the university
and generous donors decided
to honor his memory basically
by raising the profile
of the institute and
naming it for him
and that is why I'm
sitting here today.
Our aim now, under my
directorship, I'm trying to kind
of to get in some new
directions and we really want
to showcase disability
as a creative force,
a generative force for
everyone and the ideas
to introduce conversations
among unlikely groups
and in surprising contexts.
And doing this through
a series of projects
so I'll just mention a couple
here now and you can go online
and there's a literature
about the institute and ways
that you can help
support the institute
and for sure some
things over by the vault
to the right where you came in.
One of our biggest projects is
commemoration of the Americans
with Disabilities Act which is
turning 25 years old in 2015
and we're doing a big exhibit
at the Ed Roberts Campus.
The second event that's kind
of captivating us right now
is we've just recently taken
over the Disability Film
Festival known as Superfest,
the longest-running world--
world's disability
film festival.
We're co-hosting it with
the San Francisco Lighthouse
for the Blind and
it's going to bring
up all these really
great conversations
and meetings about cinema.
So, we're very excited
about that.
There'll be a big
event in October
and we will get publicity
out about that very soon.
And third event is
an academic event.
It's a conference, the history
of eugenics and disability
that will be at San Francisco
State in November and stay tuned
for details about that.
Again, you can learn more
about that and support us
and friend us and
tweet us and, you know,
all of that by going
to our website.
Now, today's panel is another
way to honor our beloved friend.
Before turning to our
panelists, I want to update you
on a few things related
to Paul's legacy to those
that know him and know
[inaudible] about.
On Tuesday, just
a couple days ago,
I hired a professionally
trained archivist
who will start cataloguing
all of the 46 boxes
of his papers and things.
They're going to be housed
in special collections
at San Francisco State
University as a real,
legitimate, bona fide part
of their archival holdings
and that should take about
four to six months I think
to process these boxes.
And it's very exciting.
We got somebody that's amazingly
qualified so I'm very excited.
The other big news is Paul's
Telephone Book is done.
>> Yehey.
>> He was [inaudible], I'm--
you know, it's very exciting.
It's been completed.
It's been reviewed at
a university press.
We should be getting some
news in the next few months.
Academic presses don't
rush, rush, rush, so.
[Laughter] But it's-- will
be worth the wait I think.
And I want to begin the panel
by reading in the bridge version
of what I wrote on the practice
because that will explain all--
it will explain the book
and it will explain
some of our process.
And then each person
on the panel will briefly
introduce themselves.
And we have a particular order
so I don't know if I'd have
to deal with that,
[inaudible] maybe
when I'm done I'll
read off the order.
Somebody mention to me
and remind me that I need
to read the order that
Carol [inaudible].
And then we'll open up for
discussion with the audience.
Afterwards, there will be a
reception in the same room
and you'll notice the
caterers at some point coming
through with all the cool
treats and then-- so.
Anyway, let me read the-- a
bridge version of the practice.
You know this probably.
Paul Longmore's awareness
of his public relationship
to telethons might be
traced back 50 years
to escorting his older
sister Ellen O'Toole
at his memorial service at San
Francisco State in October 2010.
Seeing the March of
Dimes collection jar
at the cash register where
their mother was about to pay
for their week's
groceries, young Paul,
whose unusual body clearly
showed the traces of polio,
snatched up the container
and announced
to the mortified clerk, "I
might as well take it now
because I'm going to get
it eventually anyway."
[Laughter] Before Longmore
unexpectedly passed away,
he had drafted much of his--
much of this manuscript
which he considered
to be his crowning
academic achievement.
For him, the telethon symbolized
the convergence of experience
and historical forces that
lays a root of what he saw
as most Americans only
encountered with disabled people
and a counter which left a
lasting impression on them.
Employing his skills as a
historian and his powers
of observation as
a social critic,
he wanted to question prevailing
reactions of pity that he
so seamlessly into
stereotyping and stigma
by showing readers how
the yearly spectacles were
in fact the product of a large--
of larger economic, political
and social forces of which
most people remained unaware.
He hoped to clear the
way for more complex
and realistic portrayal
of a group
that today may accept nearly 20
percent of the US population.
He knew he was fighting
an uphill battle
since these ideas are so
pervasive the challenge
in something like--
something cherished
and seemingly uncontroversial
like generosity
and good intentions
provokes defensiveness
and sometimes even hostility.
He knew that these were problems
for people to challenge them.
But he persevered believing
that with a certain
grudging optimism,
that rigorous scholarship
could begin
to change hearts and minds.
Longmore had began studying
Telethons during the 1980s
but took time to launch his
teaching career as a historian
at San Francisco
State University
and turned his PhD dissertation
into a book, the Invention
of George Washington which
was published in 1998.
As well as to publish his
numerous pieces on academics
and advocacy which ultimately
ended up in his collection,
Why I Burned My Book and
Other Essays in Disability,
and that was published in 2003.
He also posted with Professor
Rosemarie-Garland Thomson the
first National Endowment
to the Humanities Institute
for university and college
teachers on the theme
of disability studies in the
humanities and that was in 2000
and co-edited with Professor
Lauri Umansky the path
breaking collection,
The New Disability History:
American Perspectives
which was published in 2001.
Somewhere in the midst of this--
all this academic
work that launched
and profoundly shaped an
entire field of scholarship,
he carried on his formal and
informal advocacy on behalf
of people with disabilities
through numerous
speaking engagements
and spending countless hours
offering advice to students
and colleagues from
around the world.
Somewhere, too, he found
time to watch old movies,
go to jazz concerts, read daily
newspapers cover to cover,
meet the rounds of San Francisco
State journeying across campus
in his motorized chair,
searching out everyone,
be it the university president,
his history department
colleagues or his coterie
of adoring students
to gossip, to debate,
to flirt to influence.
And somewhere, somehow, Longmore
produced enough of his work
that a team of colleagues
and friends could complete
it for publication.
At the time of his death,
he left a full draft
of the book's 14 chapters
but some parts were more
complete than others.
And I go on and explain
some of that in more detail.
Several history graduate
students cleaned up
and fact checked his references,
we then solicited feedback
and some editorial work
from a team of historians
and disability study scholars
who had worked closely
with Longmore in the past.
The book ends somewhat abruptly.
Rather than try to fill in the
conclusions, we decided it best
to leave it as he left us his
various communities and those
who loved him too soon yet with
much to ponder and more to do.
Thank you
[ Applause ]
>> It's really great to see
somebody [inaudible] Paul
and they are interested in
acknowledging his amazing work
and to look to the
future and see what kind
of impact what he did can
have as time goes forward
but before I actually-- as we
go into my fair remarks I wanted
to say I know he
would be [inaudible]
to see eight million out here.
[Laughter] I had a
tremendous kinship with Paul.
He and I came of age
in the early days
of the disability
rights movement
and he really drew
strength and pride
from the infrastructure
that it created.
Our strongest bond though root
from having polio as kids.
This shared experience
and identity gave us
really a unique knowledge
or at least so we thought.
Like a secret handshake
when the conversation turned
to some [inaudible] detail about
how our bodies worked, you know,
the thumb thing for example,
we raise our eyebrows and kind
of a knowing way, nod
to each other and say
with great confidence
in response to any kind
of curious questioning
of other people.
It's a polio thing, you
wouldn't understand.
[Laughter] He really
had an ability
to transcend the world that's
really important to him.
He was an academic and
an activist obviously.
The personal was absolutely,
certainly political for him.
As some of you, probably
almost everyone
in this room might remember,
if you had received your
colleague's emails from him,
you knew he was going to be
on a tear about something
and it was always
something important,
something with deep implications
for the disability community.
It was always a treat
to get those.
But let's also be honest,
he loved the spotlight.
And he was an adept performer.
The hallmark really
of a fabulous exceptionally
extraordinary teacher,
he understood that his
responsibility extended beyond
the classroom though.
I think which accounts
to some extent
for why he took his mentoring
role so seriously and I have
to say I really miss his voice,
not the physical one as much
as the-- his take on things.
I wonder how he would
respond to some
of the current issues
of the day.
And I have-- as Cathy said, I
hear his voice and I would--
I'd like to have the
conversations with him
about what's going on now.
What would his reaction
have been to this
that the Senate failed
to ratify, if you mention
on the right to people
with disabilities,
that would have launched
a dear colleague email
for sure [laughter] despite the
fact that 300 disability rights
in veteran's organization
supported it.
Of course, the US Senate
failed to ratify the convention
with the final vote of 61
in support and 38 opposed.
There was another news article
which just due to Paul's image
to my mind when I read it since
a lot of you may have seen this,
the death of identical twins
were euthanized in Belgium
after learning they
would go blind
and not see each other again.
NBC news reported that
unable to bear the thought,
the 45 year old died
by lethal injection
at the Brussels University
Hospital
after having a cup of coffee.
They were very happy
said Dr. Dufuor.
It was a relief to see the
end of their suffering,
their last moments
went well, he said
and included a rich
conversation,
then the separation
from their parents
and brother was very
serene and beautiful.
He added, at the last there was
a little weight in their hands
and then they were gone.
Can you just imagine Paul
Longmore [laughter] thinking,
reacting, responding,
being indignant,
bringing his formidable
intellectual prowess to bear
on all the complications
of this story.
And I'm hoping that one of
the legacies of the institute
of this day-to-day is that we
give him speak on his behalf
on these kinds of
issues in the future.
He was really a fierce
opponent of assisted suicide.
I love the great quote that
he included in the article
that was published
in the late '90s.
He said according
to the definitions
of terminal illness used in the
model statutes proposed by right
to die advocates and applied in
several court rulings upholding
that right, "I am
terminally ill and I had been
for the past 43 years."
You know, he was-- have some
pretty interesting insights
on this.
For some of you who were
involved in the ADA anniversary
in 19-- in-- I'm sorry, 2010,
you may have heard
his really eloquent
and spectacular short speech at
an event here in San Francisco.
He basically said
a number of things.
I want to just summarize
a couple of them
which I think were
really memorable.
He said, "We did this.
It wasn't handed to us.
It is not an act of charity.
We made this happen."
This was also in concert
with the announcement
of the Ed Robert's Day by the
State of California and he went
on to say that, "Though Ed
Robert's Day is a good thing,
we honor and value him,
this movement was not
created by one person.
Great leaders do not create
great movement, movements,
great movements give
rise to great leaders.
We're here to celebrate what
we have accomplished, what is
yet to come and what
we have done together."
Thanks.
[Applause]
>> We just go down
to row, is that okay?
Whoever is next, 'cause
the captioner is giving
permission [inaudible].
[Inaudible Remark] Okay.
So, say your name to us and
say a little bit something
about you.
>> Okay. My name is Vicky Lewis.
I'm a professor of Theater in
Southern California but I lived
up here for a long time
and then I worked with Paul
for many years and then
he talked about that.
I really love the
title of this panel
which is the Mischievous
Entanglements:
The Embodied Histories of Paul.
So, I'm going to use that word
mischievous which I've learned
to kind of pronounce
[inaudible].
It's not mischievous,
it's mischievous.
Okay. It's Paul in the
theater and-- so, here we go.
Paul was fond of quoting
a story about the visit
after Orson Welles paid to the
White House during World War II
when reportedly Roosevelt
said to Welles,
"You and I are the two
finest actors in America."
One of the earliest
books Paul guided me
to before the historical
research
that would become central
to his theatrical entanglements
was The Unexpected Minority:
Handicapped Children in
America by Gliedman and Roth.
From this unlikely source
came pivotal concepts
in the enmeshing of
disability and performance
that have stayed
with me till today.
Here, I was introduced to terms
such as social choreography,
shrew sociologist and
stigma management.
I learned that disabled
children lead a double life,
one with their family and
one outside the home, thus,
disabled children,
myself included,
were actors from an early age.
Years later Paul shared,
"When I was a teenager,
I very deliberately
developed a strategy.
In the first three minutes,
I've got to prove to them
that I'm not mentally defective,
I am not emotionally screwed up,
I am smarter than they are,
I am finer than they are.
I'm more together
emotionally than they are.
So, after three minutes
if anybody is going
to be feeling sorry
for anybody else,
I'm going to be feeling
sorry for them."
[Laughter] This social
choreography seemed to explain
so much to me about growing
up with the disability
and my inclination towards
the chameleon nature
of the actor's trade.
Before, I have described
a relationship
between the disabilities
civil rights movement
and disabled performance as that
of camp followers
to a mass struggle.
Given that actors are often
judged as frivolous people.
And we are.
Or I could describe
the entanglement
between theater artists
and Paul as one of pirates
or parasites jumping off
from Paul's brilliant stream
the pioneering publications
that explored screen stereo
types, disability history,
the league of the
physically handicapped,
telethons and Randolph Bourne.
We artists are as
hungry for material whip
from the headlines
as law and order.
But I choose to describe
Paul's mischievous entanglement
with theater artist
like me as one of muse.
Though I'm so glad he isn't
here to shoot down that analogy.
[Laughter] I once called him
and Doug Martin gentlemen
and scholars and I have
never heard the end of it.
[Laughter] It all started
for me in the early 1980s
when Paul saw the musical
documentary tell them I'm a
mermaid developed in the
other voice's workshop.
Paul responded, "These seven
disabled women are showing my
life and it's the first
time I've ever seen it
on a stage or on a screen.
And then I saw a mermaid
on TV and Peggy talks
about coming to Los Angeles.
And every time I see that I weep
because that's my life too."
Paul was a guy and a multi
degreed one at that and
yet somehow Peggy
told his story.
I knew we were doing
something worthwhile.
Some years later,
Paul collaborated
with the other voices
disability history project
on the play P.H.reaks:
The Hidden history
of People with Disabilities.
After two days of lectures
and readings with Paul,
the writers were faced
with [inaudible] challenge.
How to theatricalize Paul's
cold arms "when devaluation
and discrimination happened
to one person it is biography,
but when similar
experiences happen
to millions it is
social history."
We came up with the
documentaries/histories/comic
review/poetic collage
that owed everything
to his scholarship ambition.
Then started in 1995,
Paul Longmore
and young disabled playwright
John Belluso began to talk
about Randolph Bourne.
How could John theatricalize
Paul's incisive critique
of previous biographies
of Bourne's?
The biographer's
"fundamental misunderstanding
of Bourne's experience
as a disabled man
in a society had
intensively stigmatized him."
Belluso's historical epic,
The Body of Bourne,
premiered in 2001.
But part of Paul's mousiness
was his ability to amuse,
to move its lightning speed
between the sublime
and the ridiculous.
In one of his mischievous
moments, Paul claimed
that his favorite term for
disability was "[inaudible]."
[Laughter] This is the
same man that thrilled us
with his majestic oratory, "Deaf
and disabled people declare
that they price not
self-sufficiency
but self-determination.
Not independence
but interdependence.
Not functional separateness--
[ Pause ]
Not functional separateness
but personal connection.
Not physical autonomy
but human community."
And the book burning, what
a consummate performance
that was transforming
a lowly Weber grill
from Vince Pinto's
East LA backyard
into a cosmic sacrificial
buyer on which to burn
through centuries of
discrimination and devaluation
of the work of disabled people.
So, may I suggest in that tip--
an addition to the
title of this.
Paul Longmore: Scholar, Teacher,
Activist, and Theater Artist.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> My name is Laura Garrett.
I'm a proud graduate of the
Master's in History Program
at San Francisco State and
I currently teach history
in high school in
[inaudible] Valley, California.
It's an honor to talk about Paul
and as Cathy said,
bittersweet as well.
It's an honor to be here also
to see some of the other mentors
of mine, Mary Felstiner,
Cathy, and among others here.
It was really an honor to
be one of Paul's students.
He was a great teacher,
mentor and a friend to me
and I was felt like
you don't have to work
with him throughout my
entire graduate training.
That's one of his [inaudible].
I-- actually his class was
the very first class I first
introduced to program in
and it was an early
American history class and at
that point I was brought in
to all of his other classes.
I love his passion for teaching
and I even was lucky enough
to do an independent study in
disability history with him
as my own thinking involved
in disability history.
I also was lucky
enough to work with him
as a graduate assistant.
I helped in institute
of disability
and helped him coordinate
the disability settings
and consortium meetings that
we used to hold at UC Berkley.
And I worked as a TA for
his American Revolution
undergraduate pro seminar class.
All of these experiences
shaped me personally
and professionally.
As a high school history teacher
today, I used what I learned
from Paul in some
capacity every day.
He influenced my teaching
in two profound ways,
in what I teach and
how I teach it.
He had an important impact
on my education while I was
at San Francisco State.
He shaped my thinking about
early American history,
about disability
rights advocacy,
as well as the disability
of rights movement
and also using disability as a
lens with which to understand
and analyze American culture.
I was particularly influenced
by him by his teaching
and this watching him teach
particularly influenced my
decision to go in to teaching as
a result of watching him teach
and interact with the students.
To be a student of Paul's was
a great thrill and it meant
that you are also always
in conversation with him.
He was-- Everybody knew he
was a brilliant scholar,
a brilliant teacher
and eloquent speaker
and an entertaining
performer in class.
He had an encyclopedic mind,
an ability to quote with ease
from pretty much any
source whether it was a film
or a TV show he had watched 20
years prior or to academic texts
and he would be able
within class
to transition pretty
seamlessly among all
of these different genres.
But what really impressed
me and made a huge impact
on me was the way he was able
to make connections
with his students.
He gave incredible personal
attention to every student
and every person really, he
talked to making you feel
like you were the only person
in the room and he cared
about your academic
success but he also cared
about you as a person.
He had incredibly
high expectations.
I actually reread a paper
I've wrote for him this week
and of all the 20 pages
of my own writing,
four of them were his notes
recommending suggestions
and that was just
the first draft.
But he also used his wit to help
diffuse difficult situations.
In particular, students
were nervous in class,
he would be sometimes
self-deprecating
or sometimes using
it as a way to gossip
about George Washington or
whoever we were talking about at
that time and settling the
nerves of people around him.
That intense level of personal
engagement that he shared
with his students is something
I tried to emulate with mine
that love-- sharing that
love of process of inquiry
and conversation; I'm just
communicating a passion
for history and for social
justice in particular.
Paul taught me that the active
teaching is an active civic
engagement and one that born an
important responsibility and one
that I take very seriously.
Paul helped me-- make me
the teacher and mentor
to my students that I am
today and for that in all
of his guidance and brilliance
and humor, I'm very grateful.
[ Applause ]
>> Hi. My name is Mary
Felstiner and I was a colleague
for many years a co-teacher of
Paul in the history department
at San Francisco State and it's
really an honor to be among all
of the people on this
panel really [inaudible].
All my years of teaching at
state I really do get good
at hiding disability and then my
department hires Paul Longmore
about whom all I knew was he
had publicly burned his book
as people have said.
He did that for anyone
of you who don't know
to publicly protest the fact
that his disability payments
were reduced by the amount
of his royalties and that public
protest was so unusual to me
that I would've wondered
[inaudible].
When he first walks in to
the history department,
his voice fills the entire
room and for those of you
who couldn't or didn't
ever hear Paul's voice,
you need to imagine a bodily
presence that sort of reach,
radiate it through the molecules
in space in extraordinary ways.
I-- the minute I heard his voice
and saw the minute I-- he was--
the minute he is present, my
mind kind of tricks over itself
because I already understood
that my body had a few
little hidden wrongs
like for instance fact
that I was in constant pain
and the fact that my legs don't
work that I can't use my hands
that my arms are locked, that
my eyes have a lot of problems,
I'm already [inaudible], that my
voice doesn't work unless it's
mic'ed blah, blah,
blah but Paul,
I began to notice
his body has rights.
And I want to know
where he gets that from.
So, my curiosity was
[inaudible] on Paul
but for myself I was
going to stay in that.
After we make friends I find
out that all the
years I'm using hide
in my handicaps he
doesn't have that choice.
Someone once told him, "If
I were you, I kill myself"
which I think he did not
agree was good advice.
So, I come to the asking
him for better advice
like how do you write if
you can't use your hands
and here's what Paul told me,
he says, "I lie on the bed
with a pen in my
mouth and a ventilator
for my lungs" and
then he laughs.
He laughs and he says-- and
the laugh was what gets me
of course, he says that the
bodies problems needs solutions
mainly access.
So, first I insist that
my problem is an absence
of health is not an
absence of access.
Well, yes it's true, lots
of semesters I have to--
in fact, every semester I
have to cut back on workload
and therefore on wages and yes I
guess I've read that 50 percent
of people with my disease with
rheumatoid arthritis also have
to give up jobs or cut them down
and Paul laughs again
and I get it.
In other words a disease
alone can't make half of us
or something else is obviously
at work just knowing
someone who demands rights.
Well, that's starts
changing my life.
I find that whenever we
had the department meeting,
I try to shoulder my way and
so I could sit beside him,
I know there's a
lot of competition
for that space [Laughter]
but I make my way
because in particular,
I love feeding him
what's ever on the table.
Paul adores food and so-- and I
adore the look and satisfaction
that comes in Paul's
face when he's eating
so we make a good team there
at various meetings and parties
and I also find that I'm putting
my T square arms on the table
and then I'm not
all that ashamed.
A big change for me.
If it wasn't for Paul, I never
have asked the simple question
that drove me to write
a book about arthritis.
The question being what use
over the centuries could
possibly be attributed
to a condition very common
condition of terrible,
intractable pain
and degeneration surely
this world would be better
if there were no
diseases or fewer diseases
and disabilities in it.
So, just tell me what's
the use of having it.
Ten years of research later,
I'm pretty sure I know what's
the use of it and I don't need
to tell you but for me it was
a question of documentation
and Paul and I and many
others here are historians
that we need very-- we need the
quote unquote unfit in order
to increase human variants.
I know for sure we need
intractable problems in order
to reach for brilliant
solutions.
In the case of rheumatoid
arthritis among the brilliant
solutions was the world's most
useful drug particularly made
for, discovered for rheumatoid
arthritis and that is cortisone,
a great contribution
to human history.
I know we need-- as Cathy
was saying, I know and I love
that direction, we need
a disability and disease
for breakthroughs in creativity.
I-- it turned out that I was
brought to do a lot of research
on the [inaudible], whose
rheumatoid arthritis brought him
in to avoid painting that
it never been tried before
and we even need pain
because it's pain
that is telling us how
human neurons really work
and you need to know that.
If it wasn't for Paul, I
certainly wouldn't know--
really know that we need all
this in order to demand rights
and keep our democracy vital.
It's also true that if it wasn't
for Paul I would never have gone
to Washington DC to address a
Smithsonian conference shaping a
permanent historical exhibit on
disability and my job was sort
of to make feminism
user friendly.
And I was there also to
march for disability rights.
So, there on the Supreme Court
steps we're all chanting no
barriers, no boundaries
no bullshit.
Some threw [inaudible],
some threw ventilators
and here it really seems to me
that feisty people are proving
disability is not a disease,
it doesn't invite quarantine,
it doesn't require cure.
Here, it also seems to
me that the disease--
that people with
diseases and people
with disabilities might
fear each other's stigmas
and stay apart and they
might argue quite fiercely
over the beginnings
and the ends of life.
Not Paul who never distinguished
illness from disability
of a personal and
historical and social reasons.
But there was one place
I didn't go with him
because I just was fearful or
cowardly about sacrificing the--
where the [inaudible]
where I keep it.
Where [inaudible]-- you
remember that Laurie,
I mean just-he was a hugger.
As a feminist I did support
and do support the widest
possible interpretation
of abortion rights and
as a person who has lived
with intractable pain, I do
support assisted suicide,
of course understanding
everything that Marylou said
about the dangers
which Paul pointed out
but I still do support that.
Then I didn't want to go there
with Paul because I didn't--
I really didn't-- I wasn't opt
to the argument or to the power
of his arguments which I
wasn't sure I could quite face.
We all know why it
is that many people
with disabilities
have good reason
to question seriously
both the innocent life
as a matter of choice.
Paul did me the really
great honor
of saying on various occasions.
Well, in a movement
about empowerment you sure
do remind us about pain.
[Laughter] So, I guess
that was my rule, anyway.
And he did-- also
did me the honor--
always acting immediately
if I came up with something
like I was saying
to, "I don't know
where your students,"
[inaudible].
"I don't know where students in
your courses are supposed to go
after this unless they're
at San Francisco State."
I mean, don't we
need institutions
and graduate programs all over
the country in this field?
Not that Paul hasn't thought
of that but I was, you know,
on a high horse at that moment.
And Paul of course
immediately called the Dean.
I mean he was on it.
Paul always acted and in
our minds always act--
acts immediately.
I think the institute
in this name
at San Francisco State
does him the honor
of acting the way
he always acted
and it's a wonderful thing,
what you're doing there,
you and all your
colleagues, Cathy.
And I also think it
continues the work that went
under the radar, but which
was a constant for Paul
and that was changing lives.
[ Applause ]
>> I'm Kim Nielsen.
I'm may be the token
who is storing up here.
>> No.
>> No? No, no.
Okay. Good, good.
So, I will, yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> I am subbing for Laurie
Umanski whom I won't be
channeling with.
But I'm a historian of
disability and I'd like to start
by bringing greetings to the--
and congratulations to
the Longmore Institute
from the Disability
Studies Program
at the University of Toledo.
Paul and I had a phone
relationship in which I think
that I rarely saw him in-- we
were rarely together in person
and it wasn't phone relationship
and thus it was a relationship
that I always think of with a
certain rhythm and sound to it
because whenever Paul and
I were on the telephone,
there was the rhythm and
sound of his ventilator.
And I always think of our
conversations as very slow
and slowly revealing and
unrolling conversations.
And I don't think I have
anyone else in my life
that whom I had the same kind of
rhythm to a phone conversation.
I miss that sometimes.
I'm trained as a historian
of women and politics.
I had not intended to become
a historian of disability.
I had no dreams of becoming
a historian of disability.
I have-- with my training
in women and politics,
I became interested
in Helen Keller.
And Paul took a tremendous
risk when he took me
on as a mentee in
the late 1990s.
We had not met in person.
He had read about a
10 page paper of mine.
I think that you-- can I-- I can
blame Cathy Kudlick for this.
Brought to him and
he phoned me up
and becoming his mentee was not
something I had a choice about.
[Laughter] It was
something foisted on me
and I did not know
what I was doing.
I think I have sort of
broached the relationship
with great naivity just
as I approached my
relationship with Helen Keller.
But I jumped into this project
and Paul insisted I work on this
in conversation with him.
And as I look back at this, I'm
incredibly thankful for that
because it prompted a great
intellectual shift for me.
It prompted a great
professional shift for me.
But I think more profoundly, it
prompted a great personal shift
for me in ways that I did not
know were going to happen.
Paul is a bossy mentor
and that was always--
actually, having a
phone relationship
with a bossy mentor is a good
thing because you cannot answer.
[Laughter] And you
can be unavailable.
But he made my book much,
much better that it ever
would have been without him.
I also think when I think
about him in our long late--
they tended to be a late
night phone conversations
because I was in a
different time zone.
So, when I think about our late
night phone conversations they
were also-- they
became personal.
Mary Lou, you talk about
a shared polio thing.
Paul and I discovered
that we had a shared--
I guess a shared impediment.
We had a shared PK
thing including none
of you know what that means.
We were both pastor's
kids [laughter]
and we spent many
hours actually talking
about our shared
condition of PKhood.
And what that meant to us as
historians and what that meant
to us as people who grew up,
and what that meant to us
as we thought about
the charity model.
And quite honestly, I think
I enjoyed my theological
conversations with
Paul more than any
of my other conversations
with Paul.
It was great fun
and I enjoyed it.
I think about Paul in the way
he gave me a career I love
and ideas that I
love and challenges
and questions that I love.
I also think about the
way in which he roped me
into disability history
and disability studies,
and that I had no idea what's
going to happen in that regards
and what that was
going to mean to me.
That's been a wonderful time.
I also think about
Paul I think in ways
that I wish he could know.
Some of you may know so
I jumped into this thing.
I mean, you know, I have this
phone relationship with Paul,
I became a disability historian.
And it was actually about
the same time Paul died,
my then 16 year old daughter
became a disabled young woman
and in very dramatic form.
And how-- I often think about
how I would have handled
that had I not been immersed
in this activity without Paul.
And had he not been the bossy
mentor and person that he was
and how that changed
my experienced
of that very profoundly.
And I'm very, very
grateful to him for all
of those things in
those many layers.
[ Applause ]
>> I'm Sue [inaudible],
I teach at UC Berkeley,
like so many people
in this room.
I know I had Paul as a
good friend and as a mentor
and I had the pleasure
of co-teaching with him
and of being manipulated
by him to do various things
for disability [inaudible].
[Laughter] And I love the
title of this talk too.
And I was thinking that
it's so tempting to go
to the George Washington place
with Paul and think of him as,
you know, the father
of our country and--
[laughter] I just want to say,
"Hailed in mischief, Paul."
[Laughter] So, Paul
died in August of 2010
and very shortly before he
died only a few days I spent
basically in an entire day
with Jeff Braun, the historian.
How I really wish
he was here today.
Basically, the whole day
talking with the two of them
at Paul's apartment about
disability history and I swear
to God I can't remember
one thing we talked about.
And that got me thinking as a--
as I just [inaudible] my grin
for what exactly-- what were
we talking about that day.
I got on this little tear
rag went through my email
and I looked to see what
the last emails were
that Paul had written to me
and what the last written
communications I have from Paul.
And so, I'm going to focus today
on just those particular
communications
because I'm sure any ones
I found would have been
so characteristic of him 'cause
he had such a distinctive voice
in being in style
and on character,
but this one certainly
spoke to me.
So, a few weeks in mid
July, Paul sent me an email
with a course description
for his upcoming fall graduate
course on the modern history
of disability and it just--
since we're at the History
Conference I thought I just read
a little bit of that
description.
This course has three
objectives.
First, it seeks to reconstruct
the historical process
by which disability
became a major category
of societal organization
in the modern era.
Second, it explores the inner
penetration of modern ideologies
of disability as expressed in
various institutions and spheres
of society for instance
public policy, medicine,
social welfare, education,
rehabilitation and
popular culture.
Third, the course examines
organized efforts throughout the
modern era on behalf of and
by various disability groups
to address and ameliorate the
socioeconomic disadvantages
endured by those groups.
Accomplishment of these
three objectives will support
achievement of the central goal
of the course, a modest goal,
formulation of a
comprehensive unified history
of disability in the modern era.
[Laughter] You know, I really
think Paul did actually achieve
that goal.
From what I read of
the telephone book,
I haven't read the whole thing.
Of course I did get to read.
I think that book gives us a
comprehensive unified history
of modern disability, but
the thing is that he did it
on the ground to struggling
to make a comprehensive
and unified disability movement.
The day before he sent me
that description we've meet
up at the Disability
Occupation Protest
at ArnieVille in Berkeley.
ArnieVille was a tent
camp on a strip of land
where people were camping
for many weeks in the middle
of a very busy street
in Berkeley.
And Paul's power
chair didn't work.
The wheels didn't
work on that terrain
of that space where
ArnieVille was.
So, he stayed across the
street that day and for often
for a long chance
of it by himself
in very steady solidarity as
various activities happened
on that strip, Paul
was just over there
on the side walk
across the street.
And then at various times
various people went over
and hang out with him, and
he never looked pissed.
He just stayed there
in solidarity.
Paul never let the
complexities of the world bugged
down the things he
stood for intellectually
and politically,
and as a friend.
But he also never failed
to honor those complexities
and sometimes when those
incredibly sharp aphoristic
things that he said are quoted.
What I think about was how being
with him for a stretch of time,
being with his thinking
was actually to be
in a much more intricate
and complicated place
than those amazing 50 moments.
The last e-mail that I saved
from him before the one
with the course description
was back in February of 2010
and it wasn't to me personally.
It was a short e-mail response
on the DS [inaudible] list
to an e-mail that the poet
Laurie Lambert had sent
to that list or-- and only
had written was, "Laurie,
thank you for these thoughts.
I find them extraordinarily
helpful, Paul."
And you know, when Paul threw
his weight behind something
and said he thought it was
extraordinarily helpful.
You know, you listened.
And as I read through Laurie's
comment that had produced
that praise from him which
I don't think was typical.
I don't think he spend a lot
of time responding
to things like that.
I think Paul's backing of it was
absolutely characteristic of him
and that the principles she
was articulating were once
that he share and
that he taught us.
So, Laurie had written
one thing in particular.
She is talking about a poem
by a poet name Tim
Dlugos, D-L-U-G-O-S.
And she quoted a line in
the poem and the line was,
"Absolute fidelity to the
truth of what I felt."
And then she talked about
that line and she said,
"That was in reference to what
brought him or the speaker
to a late point in
his life with AIDS."
But it's a fantastic proxy.
That line, "Absolutely fidelity
to the truth of what I felt."
It's a fantastic proxy for
the sensibilities, instincts,
and flashes in our minds
that bring us to the poem--
that and writing the
poem to actually figure
out why we were brought there.
I would hope that some
point to be seen as part
of the disability
movement our fraction of it
that not it center and it's
not a monolithic movement moved
instead by absolute
fidelity to the quirks
and obsessions of
my imagination.
I think it might have been
those lines in particular
in Laurie's long e-mail
that Paul found extraordinarily
helpful.
At least I find them
extraordinarily helpful
in thinking about him.
What Lambert describes as the
work of the poet Paul enacted
as the work of a historian
and as a leader in a movement.
He always insisted
was never monolithic.
He was-- he had absolute
fidelity to the truth
of what he felt and I
really want to put emphasis
on that word felt
because he thought was
such stunning clarity and the
telephone book really is he
managed to achieved these birds
eye thinking as a historian
about our contemporary
disability movement
and that's astonishing to me to
be able to achieve that clarity
of thinking, but also
his work was governed
by absolute fidelity
to what he felt.
He was a feeling
man and every bit
of his scholarship was
in peace with that.
Every bit of his teaching
has contacted people
and his fidelity of that
truth with all it's quirks
and all it's obsessions,
his fidelity that truth
as a historian and as
a man give us the truth
of what we had felt, and he
wrote the books that figured
out why we were brought up,
why we are brought here.
I think disability
history is thriving
and it certainly
thriving in the institute.
He's doing such a good job
of caring out his legacy
as it maintains absolute
fidelity in the principles
of Paul along were lived by.
[ Applause ]
>> Good afternoon,
I'm [inaudible].
I probably known Paul the
shortest amount of time of any
of the people here on the panel.
Cathy [inaudible] asking me to
come and talk a bit about Paul
as a colonial historian.
So, in some ways its kind of odd
ending because we have a feeling
about Paul and all
these other dimensions
and Paul's professional life
began as a colonial historian
and not as a historian
of disability partly
because that was a field
that he helped invent.
I'm going to start with a
story and then weave back
through to Paul's scholarship.
So, the story is that I was at
the Students Center on campus
at San Francisco
State when Paul came
in in his wheelchair
very relieved
to see me eating my lunch
and standing in line
to get some Mexican food
and he was really mad
because the helper, the
assistant that was supposed
to made his sandwich
and wrapped it up just
so on the counter left
them on the counter
so that Paul could eat it,
had not wrapped it correctly.
When he try to eat it,
it fell and he was hungry
and he was mad, and he was
really relieved to see me
because he knew he could ask me
for help, that he could ask me
to get money from
the back of his chair
and buy him lunch
and help him eat it.
And the reward that I got
for that lunch was getting
to hear some of Paul
Longmore's stories and I learned
over that conversation that
Paul's mom didn't want him
to live alone when he went on--
I don't remember
whether it was college
or after her grad school.
He got an apartment by himself
and just wanting-- want to.
She was worried about
whether he'd be okay
and he did it anyway.
And that fit right in with
everything else I knew
about Paul including that
he took on George Washington
at a dissertation after his
adviser told him not to.
[Laughter] And not
some foot spa,
[inaudible] Paul had
foot spa, is that okay?
No, he's a pastor's kid.
>> Foot spa.
Okay.
>> And-- [Inaudible
Remark] [Laughs]
And when I would speaking
about how Paul's life
and Paul's scholarship
on early America
and on George Washington
fit together it occur to me
that there were several
overlapping themes
and that perhaps it was
the creativity that came
out of his own experience
of disability
that helped him think creatively
about George Washington.
So, to be more specific, Paul's
dissertation which finish
in 1984 became a book
only four years later
which is really impressive,
the invention
of George Washington first
published in 1988 in hard back
and then '99 by the University
of Virginia in paperback.
In it, Paul tracks George
Washington's life as a young man
up until the point when he took
the man of the continental Army.
And it ends there
with Paul and then
with George taking [inaudible].
With George taking command
of the continental army it
doesn't get into later stuff
because the book is about the
invention of George Washington.
How it was that Washington
created himself in the mode
of a republican statesmen
and military leader
and fashioned his person in
such a way as to appear to be
and therefore actually to be the
epitome of the republican leader
who was virtuous and put his
community ahead of himself.
The book made an important
contribution to the scholarship.
It was really well
reviewed when it came out.
A couple of people noted
that Longmore head compared
Washington to an actor.
And one of them thought that
it was inappropriate metaphor
because Washington wasn't acting
and that he was really
trying to be this thing.
But I think it's a review and
use of words on Paul's part
that Washington was an
actor because I think Paul
and what people is telling
me when he was telling me
that story about how he
was going to live alone,
even though his mother
didn't want to.
Paul knew about inventing
oneself.
Paul had to and we're saying
earlier invent himself every
time he met somebody in
the first three minutes.
The first time he met me, he
showed that he had read my work
and this wasn't a job interview.
He asked me some tough
questions about it,
he was a serious scholar
and I was going to know
that that he was tough
and a serious scholar.
He knew what it was to have
to present oneself in front
of others and create
an image and I really--
I wish I could ask him but I'm
going to offer as an argument
as a thesis that Paul's reading
of George Washington came
out of the-- what the creative
part of Paul's own stability.
He was-- it gave him that view
of Washington because it came
out of some part of himself.
There is a second-- oh,
I'm going to read to you--
no, I'll do that [inaudible].
A second main theme in Paul's
scholarship on early America
which came after a pretty long
break in which he focused mostly
on disability history
and that theme was
on language and nationalism.
Paul and I actually disagreed
but like Mary Felstiner,
I never disagreed
too loudly with him.
I-- because I didn't want
to get into a big fight
with Paul 'cause I, you know,
I knew that he is faster
and sharper with it and
I've just didn't want
to expose myself to that.
Paul thought that at the time
of founding the United States
truly wasn't a nation not 13
separate states, not a
collection of regions
but really a nation united
as he saw it by language
and he wrote two papers
both published as articles.
One is Paul to speak better
English than the English do,
colonialism and origins
of national linguistic
standardization in America
which he published in the early
American literature in 2005.
And then another
one that he was--
I remember him being so
mad when it was rejected
from one journal and-- or that
the reviewers did not understand
what he was trying to do.
And conventionally he got
it published good English
without idiom or tone
the Colonial Origins
of American Speech which
he published in the Journal
of Interdisciplinary
History in 2007.
And both of those
articles are about the way
in which English was
made in the colonies
into a more standard
form than it was--
than it existed in England.
People on south of England
necessarily understand people
in the north of England
but people
in Boston could understand
people
from Virginia a lot different
than culture might been.
His argument about
nationalism about nationhood
and about community seems to
me to resonate very strongly
with his argument about
community in general.
He was a fierce advocate for
not only particular communities
but the whole concept
of community.
And maybe this was part
of being a pastors kid too
that he took it as a duty
and made other people feel
that all should be their duty
to create community to act
with attention to community
and to the well-being
of other people.
So, those are my thoughts
on the relationships
between the scholarship
and his person.
I'm going to close
with two thoughts.
I'm going to read you the first
sentence after the prefix.
So, the first sentence of
chapter one of his book.
Throughout his life,
the ambition
for distinction spawn
inside George Washington
like a dynamo generating
the astounding energy
with which he produced
his greatest historical
achievement himself.
[Laughter]
And I wonder if-- we could
replace George Washington
with Carl [inaudible]
in that sentence
and have a true statement.
And then when Paul said
great movements give rise
to great leaders he was of
course at some level thinking
of himself, he was at some level
modeling himself immodestly
after George Washington.
And his own ego which we all
know he had was actually part
of his gift because he
used it to help build,
create, strengthen community.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you.
This wasn't scripted even
though it sounded like that
and these papers or this remarks
all went so well together.
And before opening it up to the
audience I want to mention it
when I was writing about
disability history I mentioned
in the footnote of
the graph and article
in my article the
American historical review
about disability of history
why we need another other.
I mentioned in there
that Paul was the father
of disability history.
He went on a tear.
He was like no, no, no
that can't be a narrative.
And it might be they'll protest
us too much I don't know.
But anyway, I want to thank
the panelist for some.
I want to give a
round of applause
for the whole [inaudible].
[ Applause ]
And what I'd like
to do is open it
up for reflections or comments.
And what I'll first do is,
is there anybody in the panel
that would like to deliv--
directly respond anything that
was said here and then I want
to bring it up to the audience.
And the audience and anybody you
have to sort of shout it out.
I guess we have a roving
mic, is that right?
Do we have a cordless
mic somewhere
or somebody can go
around with the mic.
So, oh okay.
So, put your hands up in the air
or have somebody put something
up in the air for you.
And so, if you want to talk but
is there anybody in the panel
that you say any things
first or any responses
or otherwise we'll open it up.
So, could somebody carry that?
>> Hello everyone.
My name is Mike Hodes [phonetic]
and I'm an independent scholar.
82 days ago, the disability
rights community lost one
of its heroes pretty
much unnoticed.
Laurie [phonetic] [inaudible]
who founded the access advisers
for the de Young Museum died
or was euthanized
at Davis Hospital.
I want to bring to the
attention to this audience
and the panel something
that is going on.
And I hate to do this since it's
been a sort of a celebration.
But the attorney's
insurance repayment have to do
with people returning
to hospitals
with the same disability over
and over again and the ways
that they are getting
around that is
that they are euthanizing
some of their people.
Laurie had NS for 25 years.
She went to the hospital
and they didn't feed her
the seven days she was there
and they used the
term comfort care.
Comfort care is a
terminology used by hospice.
They turned it around meaning
that they don't want her
to leave this institution alive.
So, I want to bring this
to everybody's attention.
Also on a positive
side in November,
the de Young is having a day
in honor of Laurie [inaudible]
and they will also
print the other--
a scholarship from
someone who is disabled
to use any university to
study museum management.
I want to thank you all
for giving me the
time to mention this.
Thank you.
[ Pause ]
>> Hi. My name is Alice Wong
[phonetic] and I just want
to thank you al for sharing such
a wonderful story that we need
to reflect many of
my memories of Paul.
And I think that many other
students he really played a role
and the way we think but also
just are like circumstance.
I was a scared young under
graduate from Indiana,
one of my professors named Paul
and when I told her I was
thinking about flying,
study at UC school,
she said, "Go on Paul."
And I know that I told her call
Paul, I told him he said, "Hey,
you know, I have a really--
I'm a wheelchair user,
I need personal care."
And he says, "You have
to get to California.
You have to travel
to San Francisco."
I would never regret it and
I was so scared and worried.
I was like do you
think I can do it?
I mean it's just
a lot of changes
that you will never regret it.
And I really bring
his confidence
without even knowing me really
played a role in my decision
and he was right and of
course he loves being right.
[Laughter] But, you know,
and that's something that's
I didn't use to thousands
of students and people
would like that.
So, I just wanted to say I
also agree that he's a treasure
and we are all again
continuing his legacy just
by being who we are.
Thanks.
[ Pause ]
>> Hello everybody.
My name is Philip
Prince [phonetic].
I'm in the Department
of Special Education
at San Francisco State.
And I've been there a long time
and I knew Paul for
many, many years.
And just about every semester
Paul would come and talk to one
or more of my classes.
And I miss his wit,
I miss his insights
and I think some people
touched a little bit on this
within anything else I
miss his irreverence.
[Laughter] Paul, forgive me
for telling this in
the public forum.
[Laughter]
Every semester to those
of you who know education,
special education, we have a
very high percentage of females.
And Paul would ask me every
semester, are you going
to invite me to come
to one of your classes.
I said of course you're-- maybe
I'm just standing in the case.
And he will always ask me,
"Tell me about your
new female students."
And I said, "Paul is that the
reason you want to come to talk
to special education students or
you're really interested to talk
about disability rights
and disability studies?"
He said, "I'm interested
in that too."
[Laughter].
Thank you.
[ Pause ]
>> Hi. My name is [inaudible].
One of the gifts that I feel
very strongly with Paul getting
to the disability activist
community is respect.
He looked at the activist
and didn't need us
to become academics in order for
him to feel like little things
that we could contribute.
And I feel like for a lot
of us it gave us a doorway
into academia that we would
never have found without him.
And I certainly had many,
many, many fights with him
about many, many things.
Hhe was my, you know, white
disabled straight strong man
and I was his, you know, radical
wheelchair lesbian activist
and we played those roles with
each other to push each other
to think harder about the
complexities that existed
within disability communities
and how those complexities
necessitated us to think deeper
in order to do better work.
And it's a very rare skill that
Paul brought to us to be able
to be so thoroughly
grounded academically and
yet through modeling
both like his work
on deconstructing the disability
images in films he could bring
that academic work to
communities of people
that would never set foot
necessarily in a classroom.
And I feel like those gifts he
brought us made the whole field
of disability studies
and particularly
disability history much,
much deeper than it would
have been without him.
[ Pause ]
>> This is a really
great and then I wanted
to say [inaudible] number
of people on this panel
who could speak with, you
know, precisely [inaudible]
and deaf really about national
[inaudible] and do everything
in [inaudible] in this
room that should be
about with themselves
is a little too much.
But here in [inaudible] where
a session of Washington,
I just wanted to say that
[inaudible] Paul guided me
to the unexpected mind
[inaudible] on disabled children
and that means I can
have [inaudible].
So, really long ago,
but the last time I was
with Paul he's still
was the best [inaudible]
and you know why but it's
really [inaudible] story
within the chapter
that's underlined
from the [inaudible] is looking
at a disabled man he interviewed
by a young couple coming
journalist and it's the story
from the young journalist able
[inaudible] case point of view
and the disabled business
man [inaudible] died.
And it's in that one I did
first saw the very complexity
of his difference and how
he see each other how the--
how each moment
of the interactions the
disabled man can be [inaudible]
and I was going to do the
same thing but for me that
understanding Paul is the
foremost and [inaudible]
that creating yourself through
every interaction was the
[inaudible] so I just wanted
to explain that where that came
from and that the idea is
still the management has a way
of us being a structure but Paul
returns it into an art form.
So, the-- and detail and I
feel but I also [inaudible].
Does anybody remember to
talk about the long war
and long, long [inaudible]?
Anybody who would remember that
and out there is [inaudible].
[Laughter]
[ Pause ]
[Inaudible Remark]
>> [Laughter] Okay it's so--
I feel like I'm [inaudible]
with this jokes and then
because it came to
me [inaudible]
but I must have heard Paul tell
it 8,000 times and I love it.
And Vicky [phonetic] will
know the actual story
if it actually truly happen
because it was about one
of the other voices workshops.
But it's just my
favorite Paul joke.
So, he would tell it a lot
or at least I remember
him telling it a lot.
So, once that he goes to one
of the other voices workshops
and he is going to call in
on drafts of plays or a draft
of a play, I don't know.
And the play is something to
do with a [inaudible] seizure.
And he's in a car on a date--
this is how the joke is
translated, it's up to me.
He's on a date with a woman,
he has a seizure-- no--
yeah, I think that's right.
He drives a car off the bridge,
but no, he kills the woman
in the midst of a seizure
and then somehow the car goes
over the bridge and
it goes underwater.
And, you know, various
stuff happens.
And so, the play is
performed read aloud to Paul
that the stage reading
and then at the end
of it Paul would tell the story.
He said so I said.
So, you're on a date with a
woman, you have a seizure,
you kill her, the car goes
over the bridge, et cetera,
you go into the water,
et cetera, et cetera
and then one last
thing that he said,
"I hate it when that happens."
[ Laughter ]
[Inaudible Remark]
>> Is this working?
Well, I actually-- I remember
the joke but I'm not sure.
I just saw us-- searching
for Sugarman [phonetic],
I think we could seen it.
It's all about this
wonderful Rodriguez--
Rodrigo [phonetic], right?
Anyhow, there's all these
myths about the fact
that you commit suicide on
the stage and killed himself
and these myths have been
going on for 20, 30 years.
I feel a little bit that way
and he's not dead
he's never been dead.
So, I feel a little bit
that way about the story.
But there was we would--
I think there were--
we brought in a play
about a really--
yeah, it was a play
by non disabled writer
using the most [inaudible]
of Vietnam better
something like that.
So, I [inaudible].
Lawn Mower.
[ Pause ]
[Inaudible Remark]
>> Good comment it was
exactly [inaudible],
but I didn't know what do in
disability rights law and policy
for forever it seems like
20, 30 some on years.
And I so distinctly remember
then in very really '80s
when we first involved in
working on disability rights law
and policy work in
Washington trying
to preserve the section
[inaudible] for regulations.
And we were looking
around trying to figure
out who was writing about
facility at the time
that the bodies some
ballast for the [inaudible].
And there wasn't anything.
[Inaudible] had been--
had written brilliant stuff 30
years earlier whatever it was
there was-- that there was
very, very little work out;
nobody was writing a lot of
what was going on was coming
out of the [inaudible] area
but variable scholarship.
And then all of a sudden
there were these articles
that were started to come out.
And they-- what--
who's this person?
And that was really my very
early introduction to Paul has
to do with realizing that
he was really thinking
about this issues at--
in the deepest way that anybody
had been thinking about them
in the-- from our perspective
but it was marrying the
disability rights perspective
with some social analysis.
And it was really a
revelation to have some--
an academic be available
in thinking
about the issues you can
figure him to the dialogue
but he was really in the
vanguard at that point.
>> He was-- he was
very influenced,
and I don't remember he wrote
about this or I heard him say it
but he was very influenced
by Leonard Kriegel's article
that came out and-- yeah, uncle
Tom and tiny Tim reflection
on the [inaudible] negro.
They came out-- what was
that 50-- 1958 I think it's--
[Inaudible Remark]
-- in the '60s?
Yeah, it's interesting
piece I mean in a lot
of ways that's dated now for
lots of reasons but still,
you know, Paul, I
have this clear image
and again I remember I think
from his writing or from talking
to him but he described
pulling this volume down being
in the steps the library and
opening it up and reading
and just weeping over this
connection and we just said,
"Wow, you know, there it is."
And it clicked for him,
so that's really, very--
why don't we have one or
two more comments that there
and we can now-- we can-- yeah?
>> I'm Louise Caster [phonetic]
and my beloved husband
was a colleague of Paul's
and my comment has to do only
it's a bit of a footnote.
A quite subtlety of
Paul in the midst of all
that mischievous bombastic,
you know, analytical.
We have a son, Charlie,
who's now 29 who was born
with this crushingly
rare brain anomaly
and a horrific seizure disorder.
And whenever we'd be
together with Paul
and amazingly subtle ways Paul
would give commentary to us
about his views on something
we shared about Charlie's life
or some quiet little
thing that was hammering
at our hearts about Charlie.
And it hit me today as
I'm sitting with you all
that for me Paul brought my
Charlie who was living either
in Pennsylvania or Santa Cruz
so deeply into that moment
at that dinner table
into our lives
when he seemed so
far way for us.
And I just want to
thank him in this moment
for bringing my son home to me.
Thanks.
>> I just want to say that
I think it's so wonderful
that so many people
have memories
which involve laughter
about Paul.
And I think the other
thing that's come out
and we just comment other
people is how many--
how much weeping also was there.
Not just because Paul died
too soon but while he was
with us he would bring things
to us that made us weak,
really weak sometimes very
privately but really weak.
And the quality being able to do
that even while he himself
would often joke was I think a
phenomenal quality
which we won't forget.
And for those of us who didn't
know him personally I think
in some ways the best way of
knowing what that is is thinking
of the things that can
make you love and weep.
[ Pause ]
>> Well, on that wonderful
note I think we should allow
ourselves to go forth and laugh
and weep and eat and drink
and get to know people
and take some little thing
that you got today and carry
a couple of steps further,
that's what he would want.
Thank you very much.