with the eyes you had
detail, Record of Ambulatory Visit, routine evaluation, 13 August 2001
—
Brakhage: ...When I threw away the glasses I literally could not see to cross the street safely. That meant I had accepted other persons’ sense of sight — it didn’t mean I couldn’t see. I mean the ways I was seeing weren’t acceptable, and therefore they weren’t acceptable to me....
Why I couldn’t cross the street safely, was that no on[e] had given me the idea that there were ways in which I could make myself safe in crossing the street, just as surely as that shared, ‘acceptable’ form of making yourself safe.
Frampton: That you could see with the eyes you had?
Brakhage: Yes, perfectly well.
—
ex “Stan and Jane Brakhage (and Hollis Frampton) Talking. Tape One.”
in Robert A. Haller, ed., Stan Brakhage : Brakhage Scrapbook, Collected Writings 1964-1980 (1982)
tags: eyes; glasses; sight; youth; Stan Brakhage; Hollis Frampton