Memo 16: Helen Keller
I was considering making a year-in-review or some reflection on this below-average… traumatizing… depressing… year. But then since I realized this year was so weird I don’t have to listen to any norms and can do a stupid little post as the last few hours of the year approaches!
In my minimal reflection on this year, I thought about some of the weird signs of life that sprung up among the oddness. One of the novelty ideas that grew out of this year was GenZ’s conspiracy theory on Helen Keller being fake. Of course, a lot of the world is falling apart on us so it makes sense to cast doubt on everything. But Helen as a victim of a conspiracy theory?
I remember the basics about Helen from school: she was blind and deaf and accomplished a lot in spite, and because, and without these qualities. This prompted me to look up all Helen’s accomplishments and before long I was down the rabbit hole of her entire life story, as one does.
As far as targets go for a celebrity who could have been faked, Helen was low-hanging fruit because some of this is ridiculously incredible:
Helen got a degree from Harvard, she traveled to 39 countries around the globe advocating for those with vision loss and wrote 14 books. She was also a political radical and leftist as she campaigned for many social causes, was a Socialist and an original member of the ACLU. Oh, and she was friends with Mark Twain, Alexander Graham Bell and brought some of the first Akita dogs to the US?
I don’t have any deep take on this besides the fact that people like Helen existed (hopefully), do exist today and continue to exist during hard times! Catch y’all in the new year.
And because there is always more to consume, here are some LINKS from this past week:
Apocalypse Then and Now, a real tour-de-force about Indigenous journalism in current times.
A Journalist's Murder in Malta. More journalism!
Rachel Rabbit White Finds Perspective in Cemetery Nudes and False Lashes. Her book is on my Christmas wish list, now my birthday list.
Was It The Big Bounce, Not The Big Bang? More science news!
Guston, Whiteness, and the Unfinished Business of the Vile World, about artist Philip Guston. I never heard of him before this article and now maybe you will too.