What I Did in Atlanta
I went to Atlanta this past weekend in order to give a paper on the use of metaphor in the representation of autism and……. Okay, I’ll just cut to the quick.
I was one foot away from Jenny McCarthy as she interviewed parents about vaccines and autism at the National Autism Association conference. A camera man and a microphone were at hand; parents were listening closely and later gathered in a group and held up photos of their children.
No, I didn’t plan this.
I was in Atlanta to give my paper and chair a panel on non-fiction writing about autism for the annual meeting of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association. I had noted a few weeks ago that the NAA was also having its convention in Atlanta during the same weekend. It was gray, cold and raining when my plane left New Jersey early Saturday morning and then sunny and milder in Atlanta, and I took MARTA into the city and walked down Peachtree Boulevard to the hotel for the SAMLA. The NAA hotel was on my way.
I walked down one level and first saw signs about an organization called the Bacchus Network that led me briefly to wonder about what new autism treatment this might be that would be named after a certain Greek god; I then realized that I was looking at an exhibit for a conference on teenagers’ health. The NAA was located on the floor below and down again I went, to where I saw some people standing and talking; I leaned against a wall and looked up at the back of a woman’s head. Her hair was very blond and bobbed and not a strand moved out of place while she nodded to a man, a doctor, who was explaining something about vaccines, and then I realized here was Jenny McCarthy.
I only listened as I needed to be at a panel at 2.15pm (as it turned out, I got lost trying to find the SAMLA hotel). I spent the rest of the day listening more, and talking and thinking about a number of autism books and texts and the questions and issues they raise: The narratives, often formulaic, of recovery in a number of parent memoirs; the interplay of humans and animals in Temple Grandin’s work and Dawn Prince-Hughes’s Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism; the rhetoric used in popular descriptions of autism; the use of Lacan’s stages (especially the mirror stage) in describing the development of an autistic child; representation and autistic self-advocacy. (My own paper was on the rhetorics of blame in theories of autism causation, a topic I tend to write about here.) A panel featuring readings of non-fiction about autism by a sister of an autistic brother and by two parents raised questions authenticity and honesty: How does one convey—represent—disability and, too, impairment, while never losing sight of an autistic person’s dignity? “What is autism and what is the movies“—how do we avoid remaking Rain Man?
We talked about relationships and—remember, this was a convention of literature professors and graduate students—about we’ve often had to think of communication in other means than language to relate to our autistic children. I thought very much about how, more and more, my interaction with Charlie often involves the interplay of not only him and me, or of him an Jim—of two,of a dyad—but of him and me and someone, or someones, else. It’s Charlie and me and his teacher; it’s Charlie and me and a therapist, the three of us striving to work in concert (sometimes with outbursts of disharmony; we work through it). We talked about what the experience of autism is as described in literature and other texts and of what this can teach us. We talked about narrative, about what it is like to live the day in and day out with an autistic person.
These were not conversations about how autism came to be and we did not come to any answers: These aren’t questions like others that I had heard elsewhere on Peachtree Boulevard, such as “so do you think a vaccine did it?”. We didn’t have answers and sometimes when a bit of a silence came, someone mentioned another book, another movie (”Has anyone seen The Ringer?”), another essay about the social construction of disability. Literature does not promise remedies like the hyperbaric oxygen chambers and the nutraceuticals I saw claim to do. In my ten-plus years with Charlie and with autism, literature has offered solace, insight, and something more: Maybe this sounds farfetched, but being able to read a poem has been one of my most important tools in understanding Charlie’s limited speech and non-verbal communication.
Just imagine this as the headline for the latest fad autism treatment:
Mother Says That Knowing How to Read Poetry Led to a Breakthrough in Understanding Her Autistic Son.
Or:
Not Louder then Words but “Every Single Word or Bit of a Syllable, However Softly Said, Matters”.
Poetry to help understand autism?—-well, poetry is certainly basically safe and non-toxic, and interpretation is not chelation.
There was a lot to learn about in Atlanta this weekend.
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POSTED IN: Autism Organizations, Literature, Metaphor, Movies, Poetry, Treatment, Vaccines
24 opinions for What I Did in Atlanta
Cliff
Nov 12, 2007 at 4:14 am
I don’t know why reading a piece of toxic poetry appeals so much, but I’d like to give that a try some time.
It sounded like it was interesting, I’m jealous.
Hmm… it seems you have a patent on a new kind of “treatment”, so why not max it out? You can simply ignore the actual condition of your child and go on to say poetry was alone responsible for all things good about your kid. Try “Poetry Saved my Autistic Son”, and claim he’s now cured to boot. Start selling “autism poems” for 10$ a shot, and if you can do it without words all the better (details left for you). You’d have a fortune in no time.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Cliff
Cliff
Nov 12, 2007 at 4:28 am
On a generally more serious note, interesting that you saw McCarthy. Funny how celebrity power works. It’d be an interesting turn of events if McCarthy one day said “Oh, hey, that’s Kristina Chew!” Of course, I seriously doubt that McCarthy reads a particular number of autism blogs, making the theoretical nature of that difficult celebrity factor aside.
Then again, I’m guilty of not buying McCarthy’s book, only reading whatever extracts you can get online, but that’s more because I’m stuck in an area without a mainstream bookstore in walking distance and I’ve never been inclined to hijack cars. But I will get it when I’m back in Reno. Still, hard to be critical for that.
And returning to the poetry, it might actually not be as far fetched as I made it sound (ok, perhaps that was more for the “saving” part, or for trying to sell them for severe overpricing). Have you tried your hand at poetry? I’d be interested to hear some pieces, particularly about Charlie.
Anyway, back to the world of quick several page papers.
Cliff
M
Nov 12, 2007 at 7:14 am
Poetry can work. Painting. I ususally tell people about pointillism, to look at the the works of Seurat.
Most people are standing back, seeing the image that the dots form. But some people are standing too close. For them, the dots are so large that they have difficulty forming a sense of the overall image.
The way intense sensory input can magnify things, make it difficult to integrate the data, it reminds me of that. To socialize effectively, you have to concentrate on the large dots and try to guess what the painting looks like from a distance. You have to constantly form social gestalts and hope they’re somewhat accurate.
I ramble. This ends my round-about, overly-simplistic metaphor.
M
Nov 12, 2007 at 9:01 am
You should have tackled McCarthy, messed up her perfect hair. If she complained, you could tell her that, this one time, your hair was imperfect…but you cured the problem by going on an insane radish diet.
I wonder if McCarthy calls her stylist the “Hair Whisperer”.
Niksmom
Nov 12, 2007 at 9:23 am
Oh I think what you discussed this weekend is SO vitally important. Words and imagery is what helps us make sense out of things that might not otherwise be sensible/logical; it’s how we can establish the illusion of control over the things which we truly cannot. If I think of the petry of rhyming books and children’s lyrics —the things which I use daily to connect with my son —well, it all makes so much more sense to me than blaming vaccines or even genetics. Assigning blam and finding “cures” don’t do anything to help me make a better life for and with my child. Words —the ones I use to talk about Nik, to think about Nik, to talk TO Nik? So. Much. Power.
Another Voice
Nov 12, 2007 at 9:23 am
Your conference sounded very worthwhile. Sessions on literature usually don’t attract the press, but I hope you enjoyed it.
Niksmom
Nov 12, 2007 at 10:17 am
Oops, that should read “poetry” not “petry” and “blame” instead of “blam.” “Blam” it on sleep deprivation! Heh heh heh
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 12, 2007 at 10:23 am
One thing I did was to go to sleep, or just to fall asleep, by midnight—–only to be up at 5.45. Guess I’m not used to too much sleep anymore.
As I was listening to McCarthy interviewing parents, I have to say, echoes of MTV-VJ-scene came into my head…….
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 12, 2007 at 10:31 am
Cliff, I’m liking your idea——think what it would do for the market in poetry books, too!
Autismville
Nov 12, 2007 at 10:41 am
Fascinating experience. Thank you for sharing it.
Karen
Nov 12, 2007 at 11:40 am
How interesting! Thank you for telling us about it.
I, personally, would have had to resist my urge to mess up that blonde bob, M. Thank you for writing down my fantasy.
Special Needs Mama
Nov 12, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Bravo. Just, BRAVO.
ASDmomNC
Nov 12, 2007 at 12:33 pm
I am LMAO at the “radish diet” and “Hair Whisperer” comment.
I don’t think I could have been that close to JMcC without flicking my gum in her hair.
Kudos to you for behaving like a grownup and having grace. :)
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 12, 2007 at 1:03 pm
One tries……. I should of course say I was quite outnumbered by others with views different than my own!
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 12, 2007 at 1:09 pm
My hair, if I may say so, is quite imperfect (also keeping in mind that I had just gotten off of a plane, had gone to bed at 3am, and initially went the wrong way on Peachtree Blvd), and has always been the same color (not that anyone wanted to know). My main observation about HBOT “devices” is that they look like those nylon tunnels (made of parachute like material) that you can get to crawl through.
gack
Nov 12, 2007 at 3:19 pm
I wonder the chemical content of McCarthy’s deathly-stiff blonde bob? Talk about Toxic….
Rochelle
Nov 12, 2007 at 4:47 pm
It was very nice meeting you this weekend, Kristina, and I enjoyed the conference, too. Actually, there were times that I couldn’t keep up with the thoughts in my head as they related to the dissertation. And, I think the conference actually gave me some pretty good ideas about narrowing my research focus of my dissertation in regard to how rhetorical theory can contribute to our understanding of autism studies and how autism studies can contribute to our understanding of rhetorical theory.
I’m actually quite mentally drained today, but I’m ready to start writing again. Lots of sources to read now…
I wish my paper had been more fleshed out–I’m still working on it and I see that I have lots of work to do if I’m going to contribute something to the great scholarship that’s going on. And, all of the papers were so different and so good.
Again, it was great finally getting to meet you face-to-face this weekend.
Skov
Nov 12, 2007 at 5:00 pm
@Cliff: Toxic poetry? Try Charles Bukowski :P
Cliff
Nov 12, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Ah, well noted.
Cliff
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 12, 2007 at 5:35 pm
I did make a reference to “Howl” during my paper….
Rochelle, it was amazing to get to meet you and I’m much looking forward to reading more of your work. It was rather odd to step back into the usual routine of things at work; I’ve wonderful colleagues, but disability studies is not anyone’s specialty here, and getting to speak to you and so many others was inspiring and educating. And then some!
speechgrrl
Nov 13, 2007 at 12:10 am
What a totally gorgeous post! Thanks for sharing.
Justthisguy
Nov 15, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Wow, my home town! Well, Decatur, actually, and it’s all squished together now inside I-285.
So, is Jenny still hawt? (Surely you could have tipped her some Suetonious, in Latin, which would gobsmacked her, had she only understood.)
Snork!
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