Black Lamb

April 2015 in Black Lamb

Volume 13, Number 4 — April 2015

April 1st, 2015

In April’s issue, Lane Browning profiles Laura Bridgman, a handicapped woman who preceded Helen Keller by fifty years but was even more exceptional. In Not the sharpest tool in the box, Elizabeth Fournier recalls one of her many horrible blind dates. Toby Tompkins documents his own contact with Scientology in Unclear. In Out of my mouth, Terry Ross laments the disappearance of genuinely shocking foul language. John M. Daniel reflects on role reversals in Are you comfortable? A selection of perceptive book reviews follows.

And, as always, our regular departments: our Honorary Black Lambs from the world of literature, our delicious lamb recipe, our incomparable bridge columnist Trixie Barkis, and our word puzzle master, Dr. Khan.

Posted by: The Editors
Category: Month summaries | Link to this Entry

Most exceptional of all

Laura Bridgman preceded Hellen Keller

April 1st, 2015

BY LANE BROWNING

Helen Keller came second.

For all her fame, achievements and iconic role modeling, the redoubtable Ms. Keller ascended on the very frail shoulders of her predecessor.

Yes, she did have a predecessor; in fact, Helen Keller was selected specifically as the “next” deaf/blind/mute poster child when the first one sidelined. Keller took up the mantle and carried it with spectacular virtuosity for eighty years. Yet even Keller and her gifted mentor Anne Sullivan suggested that the girl who “came before” was the truly exceptional one.

Most of us know that Miss Sullivan taught Helen to communicate, but who taught Anne? Laura Bridgman did. Laura Bridgman, who was the first deaf/blind/mute child in the U.S. to learn to communicate, both with finger signing and with writing (quite beautifully and very legibly). Laura Bridgman, who lost four of her senses when she was a toddler, yet went on to study philosophy, history, mathematics, geography, Latin, and religion.

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Posted by: The Editors
Category: Browning | Link to this Entry

Car Man is not pleased.

Not the sharpest tool in the box

April 1st, 2015

BY ELIZABETH FOURNIER

Rod the mechanic was late for our “let’s just kick down a beer and bullshit” date. Those were his exact words during our brief, introductory phone call.
However, I was still planning to move forward because I had heard from our mutual friend who’d given him my number that he was Erik Estrada cute and loved to talk cars.

Our go-between was sort of correct, but Rod had a dirty appearance. He looked clean, but grungy. He’d most likely showered, but he was wearing men’s Red Kap indigo blue work jeans. Now, I know my blue-collar uniforms, and, in fact, I am a fan of coveralls and all things Carhartt. But something about wearing work pants to a first meeting in public looked like he either thought he should dress the part, or maybe he just lived in denim and cargo pants. Or maybe he was just clean, but grungy.

“Chicks just don’t know crap about cars,” he grunts about ten minutes into our fifteen-minute-late linkage, he being the late-comer. Whoa, a double red flag in one sentence! “Chicks” and he’s a potty mouth on the first date. Let’s make it a triple red flag for his blatantly sexist-generalized statement, too. Schmuck!

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Posted by: The Editors
Category: Fournier | Link to this Entry