Blind Guy Travels

Transcript for Prologue - Meet Your Guide

MATTHEW SHIFRIN: Let me tell you about a sound that you'll be hearing a lot during this show.

[A light click.]

As I'm speaking, you'll hear a little click… [click] …usually in the middle of a sentence, or between thoughts, like this: [click].

That's because I'm reading this narration off of a Braille computer. [Click.] It's an amazing little device that can browse the web, send emails, and even read books. [Click.] But the catch is that the Braille display on it can only show 32 letters at a time. [Click.] That won't even cover the average Tweet, let alone a whole paragraph. [Click.]

For example, the sentence I'm reading right now has 204 characters in it [click], so, to read you the rest of it, I have to push a button [click] that moves the Braille display forward, and that's what you're hearing.

[Jaunty accordion music begins.]

MATTHEW (CONT’D): That clicking sound is just one tiny peek into what it's like to be blind. It's something that most sighted people have probably never heard or considered before. And that's what this show is about.

From Radiotopia, this is Blind Guy Travels.

My name is Matthew Shifrin. I'm a 23-year-old composer, accordionist, rock climber, entrepreneur, and comic book fan. And I created this show to share what the world is like from my perspective — to take experiences that you think you know, like going to the movies, using a dating app, or building a LEGO set, and to make you say, "Huh, I'd never thought of it that way before.”

The series spans six episodes, and you can hear the first one right now. In it, I'll tell you about how I learned to use body language, without ever having seen a single hand gesture or facial expression.

So strap in, and enjoy the ride. Here comes Blind Guy Travels.

[Accordion music ends.] [Click.] END OF EPISODE.

Transcript for Episode One - Noodle Arms No More

MATTHEW SHIFRIN: I can't knit my eyebrows. Seriously, no matter how hard I focus on the muscles in my forehead and try to squeeze them together, my eyebrows just don't move. Something so simple, so natural, is impossible for me. I guess that muscle right between the eyebrows — the one that makes them come together into a look of concern — that muscle just never developed.

[Smooth piano music begins.]

I was born blind, so the only facial expressions I can make are the instinctive ones, the ones we are biologically programmed to make — like smiling, pouting, yawning, crying… I never learned the rest.

I probably have the smoothest forehead ever, since I never actually wrinkle it. And I can only smile for about 10 seconds before my facial muscles start spasming, since they're not used to working so hard. I don't know how people can keep a polite smile on all day — it sounds incredibly painful.

MATTHEW (CONT’D): As a kid, my parents did their best to teach me how to blend in with the sighted world. They would constantly remind me to smile when talking to people, since talking with a blank expression was kind of creepy. They also taught me to turn my head to face people when I talked to them. Inevitably, I'd ask why I had to learn all this, and I can still remember my dad's answer: “Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they can't see you.”

When I was in third grade, my parents were helping me rehearse for a school play. The story was called The Little Red Hen, and it involved something being stolen on a farm. As the farmer in the play, I had to go around and interrogate the animals one by one. And what my parents realized during these rehearsals was that I didn't know how to point. The pointing motion, with the clenched hand and straightened index finger, had no significance for me. It was something I'd only read about in books. And so I ran my lines diligently, over and over, but as far as I can remember, when I delivered those lines on stage, I stood rooted to the spot, with my arms at my side.

[Piano music ends with a flourish.]

My name is Matthew Shifrin, and this is Blind Guy Travels, from Radiotopia. I'm a composer, accordionist, rock climber, entrepreneur, and comic book fan. And I created this show to share what the world is like from my perspective, to take experiences that you think you know — like going to the movies, using a dating app, or building a LEGO set — and hopefully make you say, "Huh, I'd never thought of it that way before."

For this first episode, I want to tell you about my first real attempt at learning body language. It began when I met a woman named Rachel Cossar.

[We hear warm-ups with Rachel]

RACHEL COSSAR: OK, so let’s do what we usually do and start with a little bit of, um, physicality exercise, just to get you…

[Rachel’s warm-ups fade underneath narration. She dips in and out throughout.]

MATTHEW: Two years ago, I was asked to do a TED Talk about a nerdy project of mine.

RACHEL: … shake everything out…

MATTHEW: This would not be my first time getting up in front of a crowd, but all of my previous stage experiences had been more or less tailored to my blindness. For example, I played a mischievous troll who the villain captured and physically dragged to center-stage. Once, I even played FDR, which meant I could be pushed on-stage in a wheelchair, rather than walking around with a cane. If I was singing in a recital, I'd just stand up straight and sing — no one cared whether I moved my arms or not.

RACHEL: Um, make sure you’re shaking out your legs, too. You know, just one at a time…

MATTHEW: But this was different: it was a talk, and people expect much more from a talk, than just talking.

[Rachel’s warm-ups end.]

I had to figure out how to deliver the information in a visually engaging way. So, a friend introduced me to Rachel.

RACHEL: And then I watched your rehearsal, and I was like, “This guy has such a cool story, and he just gave a whole ten-minute talk and did not move a muscle.”

MATTHEW: It's true — I stood there still as a statue.

RACHEL: And I was like, “If you're interested, I do, like, non-verbal communication body language training.”

MATTHEW: Needless to say, I was interested. I knew that gesture was something I needed to learn, but I just wasn’t sure how to learn it.

MATTHEW (as interviewer): Was there a moment for you when you realized the power of gesture?

RACHEL: Probably when I was like 3 years old, and I went to the ballet for the first time…

[Swan Lake, “Swan Theme” ballet music comes in.]

… And turned to my mom and was like, “When are they going to start talking their characters?” And my mom said: “There are going to be no words for the duration of this two-hour performance.”

[“Swan Theme” comes up to full volume, then continues underneath]

RACHEL (CONT’D): And then when I left the theater, I, like — I knew the characters, I knew what they thought, I knew how they felt about one another, um, and I understood the whole story, and nobody had said any words.

MATTHEW: So Rachel started ballet classes, and eventually became a professional dancer.

RACHEL: So I danced with the Boston Ballet for ten years, and I retired, um, almost four years ago now, and started working at Harvard, actually, in their fundraising offices.

MATTHEW: What Rachel realized is that businesspeople didn't know how to use body language to help get their message across. So she started Choreography for Business, a company that teaches nonverbal communication to entrepreneurs.

[“Swan Theme” ends.]

RACHEL: So then I started working with people in fundraising, business, uh, finance, you know, consulting…

MATTHEW: I've been working with Rachel for over a year now, and we recently got together for a refresher course.

RACHEL (coaching): … up to the sky, deep breath in. [Breathes in deeply.]

MATTHEW: Back when we started working together for my TED Talk, our first task was to alleviate what I call “noodle arms.”

RACHEL: Yes! Yes, ugh, it was so good, because you had this term, “noodle arms,” [laughing] for the way — for the way you, um…

MATTHEW: Basically, since my arms had no purpose and no idea what to do with themselves, they would just hang loosely by my sides, like noodles.

RACHEL: Noodle arms no more.

MATTHEW: [In a silly voice] Noodle arms… ahhh…

[Rachel laughs.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): We needed to give the arms purpose. So Rachel created a base posture, with both hands crossed in front of the belly button, so that my arms would always have somewhere to come back to when they weren't gesturing.

RACHEL: And you were like, “Ohhh,” like, “This has never made sense to me until this moment.”

MATTHEW: Now, my arms always had a place they could be.

RACHEL (coaching): So let’s, um, get into our anchor posture, right? Perfect. Great. So you have your feet firmly planted in the ground…

MATTHEW: Once we had the base posture down, Rachel would find moments in the talk where a gesture would be helpful to visually emphasize my point.

RACHEL: … You're embodying your own experience, you know what I mean? It's like you've done this all before, and now you get to relive it for the audience. That's why we do these gestures.

MATTHEW: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

MATTHEW (as narrator): So the talk itself was about a project of mine, to make LEGO sets accessible to blind people. You're actually going to hear the whole story in a later episode, but it begins with my friend Lilya coming over to my house.

RACHEL: Your friend Lilya came by and brought that big box with that big binde, right?

MATTHEW: So Rachel suggested a large circular gesture to show the size of the box, which contained an 823-piece LEGO castle, along with a complete set of Braille instructions.

[Jazzy, up-tempo piano music comes in.]

RACHEL: It anchored — Matthew — it anchored you in that moment.

MATTHEW: We kept going like this, line by line.

RACHEL (coaching): Let’s play around with that so we get it a little less mechanical.

MATTHEW: I would give Rachel the text of the talk, and she would craft the gestures and teach them to me.

RACHEL: Yeah and when you shift… so, I want you to take, like, your whole weight to shift over to…

MATTHEW: No one had ever really explained why I should use one gesture over another.

MATTHEW (being coached): Does the body bend?

RACHEL: The body doesn’t bend, it just moves…

MATTHEW (as narrator): Why holding your hands palms up, for example, gives a sense of openness or positivity.

RACHEL: But if you want to tell someone something negative, we're going to use palms down, because it's more forceful and authoritative.

MATTHEW or why bending one's wrist a little more, or not straightening your fingers enough…

MATTHEW (being coached): … fingers… Should it be eye level?

MATTHEW (as narrator): … would give the gesture a completely different connotation.

RACHEL: Yeah. And don't bring the hands together in between.

MATTHEW: Oh, no.

RACHEL: Like, they can just keep open...

MATTHEW: Wait, so…

MATTHEW (as narrator): She even taught me how to point… finally!

RACHEL: Like, if you're like, “Aha! I have an idea.” [Laughs.]

MATTHEW: [Laughing.] Where would you point, though?

RACHEL: Up!

MATTHEW: Up?

RACHEL: Yes!

MATTHEW: [Laughing.] At the ceiling?

RACHEL: Yes.

MATTHEW (as narrator): These gestures might seem simple to sighted people, but they were completely alien to me. And if you stop and think about it, a lot of them are pretty arbitrary.

MATTHEW (being coached): "I have an idea," he said, and pointed at the ceiling!

RACHEL: That's actually — you think it's funny, but that is very accurate.

MATTHEW: OK… [Laughs.] I’ve never…

RACHEL: That is a very accurate expression. [Laughs.]

MATTHEW: [Laughing.] I have never thought of that. No one has ever told me… fascinating

MATTHEW (as narrator): And because these motions meant nothing to me, I had to write out where to put my arms and hands during each and every phrase of the talk.

[Matthew typing, while muttering instructions to himself: From base, take the hands… Make sure that your hands go out the full distance…]

For example, when I say, "what parts I needed," I should lift the right arm at a 90-degree angle, keeping the elbow away from my ribcage, and make a fist, thumb out. Then move this fist back and forth deliberately as I list the three options, with one enthusiastic punching motion per option. This motion should be slight, not wide; small and controlled.

[Typing, muttering and music stop.]

MATTHEW (CONT’D): Once we established a gesture vocabulary for my talk, I had to practice those gestures. I knew what they meant conceptually — for example, that moving my arms in a big circle was meant to show size — but that motion still didn't mean anything to me personally. It was like opera singers who learn songs in a foreign language but have no idea what they're singing about. I had to create an association between the phrases and the gestures.

[Simple piano music begins.]

[Matthew muttering instructions to himself: … put the hands in front of the upper body, as if orbs of light are in your hands. Then, bring the…]

I spent hours in my dorm room, going phrase by phrase to ensure that each gesture felt smooth. Then I ran the talk by anyone I could find to make sure that everything looked natural.

[Matthew continues softly muttering gesture instructions: … palms up to the audience, offering them something. … palms up, with imaginary fabric in hand, with the thumb rubbing against the other stationary fingers... on “build that same statue”…] [Sounds of a train rumbling over the tracks.] Soon enough, the big day arrived. I took the train with a friend to Suffolk University, where the talk was taking place. It was so incredibly nerve wracking that I could barely think straight. When they announced me, I could tell by the sound of the applause that there were about 100 people in the audience. Someone handed me a clicker to switch slides and led me out to center stage. I found my base posture, with my feet shoulder-width apart and my hands crossed at the waist. I breathed deeply a couple of times. Then off I went.

[Piano music ends.]

[Applause begins, signaling the start of the talk.]

MATTHEW (giving TED Talk): Do I look like the kind of person who builds LEGO sets in his spare time? Probably not. But on my 13th birthday, my friend Lilya came over. And with her, she brought this big cardboard box and this big fat binder, as thick as a textbook…

[TED Talk fades underneath narration.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): As a blind person, you can't see your audience, so you just do your thing and hope that they laugh, clap, or make some sort of noise to let you know that they're still listening.

MATTHEW (giving TED Talk): Sounds like a really relaxing way to spend your afternoon, doesn't it? [Audience laughs.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): That chuckle was all I needed.

MATTHEW (giving TED Talk): So when we made these text-based instructions, Lilya made them because she wanted me to have...

[TED Talk fades underneath narration.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): And ten minutes later, the talk was coming to a close.

MATTHEW (giving TED Talk): If there is something that you’re passionate about and you want to spread that passion, then give it to those who would otherwise be unable to access it. Those people will thank you, and you'll have to be the most creative you've ever been, because you'll have no choice. The creativity that I use every day to help these people do what they never thought they'd be able to do — and the joy that it brings these people — is what drives me, and what will drive you to make the most impact. Thank you. [Audience applauds]

MATTHEW (as narrator): The last gesture of all performances of course, is a bow: bend the torso slightly forward then back up, not too low. I've been practicing that one for a while now.

[Applause fades out, and piano music you might hear in a lounge toward the end of the night comes in.]

To this day, I don't move much when I talk. Turning to face people has become second nature, but I still sometimes catch myself with what some have described as a “bad case of Resting Bitch Face.” Gotta remember to smile.

I still marvel at how people can express themselves using their faces and hands, how their words are instantly and effortlessly translated into motions. It will never be that way for me.

MATTHEW (CONT’D): Some blind people can improvise their own gestures, based on their instincts, and still be understood. But for me, I want to know that sighted people understand what I mean when I use my hands, so Rachel’s technique of memorizing sighted gestures has always worked better for me.

During that TED Talk, there was a kind of freedom to the performance that I hadn't felt before — I wasn't just standing onstage and delivering my lines; I was talking, and moving, and understanding what each motion meant as I made it.

As a blind person, I stand out no matter where I go, so it felt great to be able to act just a little more sighted by using these gestures. When people came up to me after the talk, they complimented me on my speaking and asked me questions about the story itself. But no one mentioned the gestures. Not one person. I guess that's the best compliment of all. To a sighted person, it would only seem natural that the blind guy onstage would gesture too... because everyone gestures, right?

[Piano music comes up to full volume, then ends.]

Still to come on Blind Guy Travels…

[Jaunty accordion music begins.]

We'll write a musical, interview some skeptical elderly Russian ladies, and maybe even find love… ? I have no idea what lies ahead, so let's do this!

Blind Guy Travels from PRX’s Radiotopia is written and performed by me, Matthew Shifrin. I wrote and performed the music in this episode, as well. Ian Coss is our producer and sound designer. And Audrey Mardavich and Julie Shapiro are our executive producers. If you'd like to learn how to communicate more effectively, visit Rachel Cossar at choreographyforbusiness.com.

[Accordion music plods along at full volume, then ends.]

END OF EPISODE.

Transcript for Episode Two - Brick By Brick

MATTHEW SHIFRIN: We all have people in our lives who have changed us, and for me, Lilya Finkel was one of those people.

Lilya met my parents in Russia, literally a few days before they immigrated to the U.S. in the ’80s. Lilya immigrated six months later and also settled in Boston, where she babysat for my older sister and then, years later, for me.

But it wasn't just babysitting. Lilya was like another member of our family: always around, and always in good spirits. She wore the tiniest bit of perfume — just enough so that I could tell that it was her when she entered the room.

When I was young, Lilya taught herself how to read and write Braille, just so she could teach me. She created Braille Mad Libs for me, and a Rubik's Cube with little Braille labels marking the colors of each square. She was always keen on helping me experience as much of the world as I could. Once, she even let me take the wheel while driving around the neighborhood. It was pretty terrifying for me; Lilya loved it.

[Jaunty piano music begins.]

MATTHEW (CONT’D): But the greatest gift of all arrived on my 13th birthday. On that day, Lilya came over lugging a big cardboard box and a big fat binder, as thick as a phone book. On the box was a Braille label: "LEGO Battle of Alamoot, 821 pieces."

I was intrigued. I'd read about this set online: "a fortress bristling with barrels of dripping oil, catapults, and castle guards." It even came with a LEGO camel! I never thought I'd actually get the Battle of Alamoot, though. After all, blind kids can't really build LEGO sets, because the instructions are all pictures. Despite that fact, I had always been a LEGO fan, and Lilya knew it. She'd actually introduced me to LEGO, when she found a crate of assorted pieces sitting at the end of someone's driveway on our way home from a piano lesson. And she knew I'd be excited about building this palace. But the real gift wasn't the LEGOs, it was the binder.

I'm Matthew Shifrin and this is Blind Guy Travels, from Radiotopia.

[Music ends.]

I opened up the binder from Lilya, and spread out before me were pages and pages of instructions, describing every step of the building process.

[Reading instructions.] Step 1: Take a camel and put the saddle on it. Step 2: Take a flat 8x2 and put it horizontally on the table. Put a flat 2x1… [Instructions fade under.]

Lilya had created a system for identifying each piece by its tactile qualities...

[Reading instructions.] Take a flat 2x2 with connectors, and put the wheels on the connectors. [Instructions fade under.]

… And describing exactly how they all fit together, so that the whole set could be built by touch.

[Reading instructions.] … to the left of the previous piece, wheels to the front and to the back… [Instructions fade under.]

[A person sifts through LEGO pieces.]

Then she pre-sorted the pieces for each step into separate bags, so I wouldn't mix up the colors.

MATTHEW (CONT’D): [Reading instructions.] Bag 1: make the person. Bag 2: make the people. Bag 3: make a camel. [Instructions fade under.]

Lilya typed these instructions by hand, in Braille.

[A person types on a typewriter. Sound mixes with instructions and fades under narration.]

Now, if you've never seen a Perkins Brailler, imagine an old typewriter, but way louder, that punches little sequences of dots into thick, rough paper. It only has six keys on it, one for each of the six dots that combine to form Braille letters and numbers.

[Typewriter dings.]

So instead of pushing one key at time, like on a typical keyboard, you're pressing up to six keys at a time, in many different combinations. And you have to really press them hard to get a good indentation. Point is that writing these instructions was a lot of work.

[Tapping on typewriter keys mixes with simple piano music, then ends.]

I remember in elementary school, my sighted friends were obsessed with LEGO. They'd come to class with tales of the Hogwarts Express or tow truck they'd just finished. I was in awe. It would take me hours to finish even a small set when building with my parents. They'd have to tell me what piece to look for, one by one, and I'd go scrounging around for it in the box. The whole process was exhausting.

[Reading Braille LEGO instructions, which fade in over top of each other.] Number 5: put the 3x2 part next to it. Number 6: put a 2x2 part on the joint between… Number 7: put… [Instructions fade under.]

Now, years later, with Braille instructions in hand, I spent my entire 13th birthday building… And by bedtime, a domed Middle Eastern palace loomed before me on the kitchen table. And that's how LEGO for the Blind began.

[Simple piano music ends.]

A few months after my 13th birthday, Lilya was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. No one knew how long she had to live; the doctors said a year at most. I was devastated, but I couldn't just crumble into a depressed mess. Lilya certainly wasn't crumbling; she was taking it day by day, one task at a time. So I did the same.

MATTHEW (CONT’D): [A clip of Matthew building with LEGOs.] OK, here we are… Uh, I’ll just read the instructions out loud. It says: Insert two sticks into the two holes on both sides of the large, rectangular… [Clip fades under.]

When I'd call her after chemo, she'd be too exhausted to talk. And yet, she was still typing up LEGO instructions and sorting pieces into Ziploc bags with Braille labels so I could build faster. After we finished building the palace, we moved onto Hogwarts castle...

[Matthew building.] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the ship is going to be hard to build. [Clip fades under.]

… a pirate ship, the Sydney Opera House, and London's Tower Bridge. As the sets got more complicated, we realized that there was an easier way for Lilya to translate instructions: She could just type them into a Word document, which I could then read on my Braille computer. This streamlined our whole process. As Lilya wrote instructions, I would build the sets, checking for errors as I went.

[Matthew building.] Oh, never mind. I was hoping it would make a clicking noise, but… it didn’t. And now I have to put two more... [Clip fades under.]

Around this time, I reached out to LEGO to see if they'd be interested in making their own text-based instructions for the blind. I mean, if Lilya and I could make instructions from our living room, LEGO could make every set accessible, no problem. Right? Trouble was, I didn't quite know who to talk to. And neither did the customer service rep I got on the phone. So Lilya and I decided to launch our own website: legofortheblind.com. And it kind of took off.

[Clip from the PBS documentary, “How LEGO Helps Blind People See”] VANESSA HILL, INTERVIEWER: So Matthew and his family friend Lilya developed a system to enable blind or visually impaired people to build commercially available LEGO sets… [Clip fades under.]

MATTHEW: Popular Science interviewed us, TIME for Kids got in touch…

[Montage.] VANESSA: … Matthew calls it LEGO for the Blind… NEWS ANCHOR: … Now he’s doing the same for kids everywhere. Voice and Braille instructions for four different LEGO sets… [Montage fades under.]

MATTHEW: The emails started pouring in. A lot of them came from blind children or their sighted parents, requesting we make instructions for their favorite sets. Blind parents with sighted children also wrote to me, saying that they finally understood why their kids were so obsessed with LEGO, and telling me how great it felt that they could finally check their kids’ work to make sure that all the bricks were in the right spots. I even got emails from sighted kids who wrote, "Hey, I'm not blind, but this is really cool! Keep it up!"

[A waltz on piano begins.]

I've often thought that creating text-based instructions kept Lilya going. They gave her purpose. When things got really bad, I'd come over to her house and sit by her side, building LEGO sets as the oxygen concentrator whirred and hummed.

The doctors had given her a year to live, but she lived for five. And they weren't five years of pain and suffering; she was energetic as always. She mentored autistic children, translated books from Russian to English, and still made it to church almost every week. The cancer and chemo almost seemed to fade into the background. And in that time, she created instructions for over 40 LEGO sets.

[A recording, taken outside.]

MATTHEW: Lilya, what inspired you to take on a project of such magnitude?

LILYA FINKEL: [Laughs.] I didn't know it was of any magnitude when I started it…

MATTHEW (as narrator): This is the only conversation I recorded with Lilya, a few years before she died.

LILYA: It was interesting to realize that the most explainable and adaptable thing is words. You cannot build a model to copy it; it's too cumbersome. But you can explain it with words.

MATTHEW: Is there anything that you would like people to know about the process of adaptation?

LILYA: It's exciting. It's very rewarding for both of us. After I started it, I noticed that my whole thinking process changed a little bit. I was always a word person and never a construction person. And after I've done quite a lot of these directions, I found out that I could fix a broken air conditioner or a toilet bowl or something. And it was amazing, because it inspired me with confidence that I could do something like that. And it really expanded my mind.

MATTHEW: I would agree. I would say that it's just been really interesting for me, as a blind person, to really be able to — to feel on par with sighted people. And Lilya, thank you so much for your time.

LILYA: But I wanted to add that it's not being on par. It's a much higher level of building. Because if you ask anyone to close their eyes and to read the written instructions, and then to build it without benefit of sight, I think it's a real feat. It's amazing that someone can do that. And it's not being on par. It's being much, much higher.

MATTHEW: Thank you Lilya.

LILYA: Thank you.

[Recording ends.]

MATTHEW: Lilya Finkel died on April 3, 2017. At that point, legofortheblind.com had been up for less than a year. There was no way I could continue writing instructions on my own, but it felt important to try — and not just to keep Lilya's memory alive, though that was a big part of it.

Building LEGO sets gave me insight into things that I'd always heard described, but never really understood. You can't wrap your hands around Big Ben, or scale the Statue of Liberty, but when you build these monuments by yourself, you can understand their shape and their form.

The same goes for fictional objects. No one I know has a life-sized Millennium Falcon or Batmobile lying around, so LEGOs were my way of touching the untouchable.

Soon after Lilya died, I was talking to a friend at MIT about the project, and it just so happened that his friend had recently moved to Denmark to work at LEGO. So my friend put me in touch with his friend, who, in turn, put me in touch with Olav Gjerlufsen, the head of LEGO's Creative Play Lab.

OLAV GJERLUFSEN: My name is Olav Gjerlufsen, and I've been working with LEGO for 40 years. The last few years with different kinds of digital experiences for children. Yeah.

MATTHEW: So what made you decide, I mean, when when we first met, I mean, I just wrote you this email and I kind of talked about the instructions that my friend and I had made. What made you decide to pursue this project?

OLAV: That was your good story.

MATTHEW: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

OLAV: At the very first point, how you as a blind, visually impaired, who had the opportunity to actually, to build with LEGO. And as I see it, LEGO should be for everyone.

MATTHEW: Oh, absolutely.

[Playful piano music begins.]

OLAV: And if we could help them in any way, then we should do so.

MATTHEW: Olav was inspired by Lilya's instructions, but realized that he needed a totally different approach.

OLAV: It was obvious that we couldn't do the same as Lilya, who did for Matthew, writing everything down manually.

MATTHEW: So Olav decided to go with a more high-tech process.

OLAV: We should do that in a more automated way.

MATTHEW: And what he realized was that LEGO already had text-based instructions for many of their sets… in a way.

OLAV: When we actually are doing building instructions, digital building instructions on the computer, there is a code, in behind, describing the individual elements, the individual components, and their position and their colors and everything. It’s all available in there, but it's in a coded computer language. So the idea was, if we could translate that into something that could be understood.

MATTHEW: But he didn't want to rely on someone manually translating these instructions from computer code. He wanted to automate the process. So, Olav came up with something much faster.

OLAV: That was kind of machine learning, artificial intelligence. That's what we used.

MATTHEW: An algorithm that could be trained to take LEGO designs straight off a computer, and spit out step-by-step, text-based building instructions.

OLAV: It has not been done before. We're learning a machine how to read the computer code.

MATTHEW: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

OLAV: That has never been done before.

[Clip from TODAY show story] FENELLA CHARITY: … It just really brings so much purpose to what we’re doing at LEGO. KERRY SANDERS: The company developed four sets, using software to translate the visual… [Clip fades under.]

MATTHEW: Two years after that first conversation, in 2019, LEGO released their first text-based instructions.

[Clip begins.] COMPUTER VOICE (reading LEGO instructions): Find two bright yellow bricks, 1x2. INTERVIEWER: What do you hope… [Clip fades under.]

MATTHEW: At this point, word about the Braille instructions spread even faster.

[Clip from Reuters story “AI Brings LEGO to the Blind.”] [Sound of LEGOs being moved around.] EMILY WITHER: That’s Matthew Shifrin. He was born blind. But, at the age of 13, he built a LEGO model himself for the first time… [Clip fades under.]

MATTHEW: And I started meeting more and more blind kids who, like me, were obsessed with LEGO.

[Clip from Reuters story.] CHILD: … because now I might actually be able to build with my brothers. They’re obsessed with LEGOs, and I… [Clip fades under.]

MATTHEW: And one of those kids was Alex Rosario. He's twelve years old.

[A recorded call.]

ALEX ROSARIO: Hello?

MATTHEW: Alex!

ALEX: Hi!

MATTHEW: Can you hear me?

ALEX: I can.

MATTHEW: Hey, great— great to hear you.

MATTHEW (as narrator): We got back in touch recently, with some help from his mom…

ALEX’S MOM: We’re making our way upstairs…

MATTHEW: And Alex told me about what he's been working on — a massive LEGO amusement park, about the size of a pool table.

ALEX: K, so… the idea is the table at the bottom is kind of like the entrance area, with all, like, the restaurants and stuff for the amusement park. There's a pizzeria, a bunch of ice cream carts, and cotton candy stuff. And then I have my roller coaster. And then inside my roller coaster, there's… [Fades under.]

MATTHEW: Alex reminds me a lot of my younger self — his curiosity, the thrill he gets when building… ALEX: … and then as they spin, they swing outward. So if you spin them really fast… [Fades under.]

MATTHEW: … and his love of LEGO not just as a toy, but as a way to learn about the world around him.

MATTHEW (as interviewer): What was it like when you found these text-based instructions and you were able to build with them?

ALEX: Oh, it was awesome. I felt — I felt like a whole new door had opened. Kind of like, OK, wow, this is how these parts go together.

MATTHEW: What do you think you've learned from building with LEGO? Has it taught you anything about… about the world?

ALEX: It's taught me pretty much how a lot of different things are made that I was never able to really realize because I can't see much.

MATTHEW: Oh, and the roller coaster is a great example.

ALEX: Yeah!

MATTHEW: We've all ridden roller coasters…

ALEX: But getting to really see and build the track design, and getting to watch it go up and around and back down, just really kind of let me think, like, “Wow, this is what it's like to see a roller coaster.”

[Simple piano music comes in.]

MATTHEW: If you're a sighted person, the world takes shape instantly, right in front of you. You can look at an object and take it in all at once. Touch is the opposite. It's sequential, meaning you can only take in parts of an object, and your brain fills in the gaps, trying to guesstimate what this object is and what it does.

For blind people, understanding the world is a step-by-step process. I might feel a side mirror and know it's part of a car, but I can't tell you anything else about the car itself unless I feel my way around the whole thing. Building a LEGO set is the same but in miniature, and there’s a special kind of surprise and delight you get when the pieces are all in place and you suddenly comprehend the whole.

MATTHEW (CONT’D): I remember when I went to Denmark to demonstrate the text-based instructions at LEGO's headquarters, they had a LEGO version of the Great Wall of China on display. In my mind, I had always pictured it as a regular wall, flat and straight, like the kind inside your house. No one had ever thought to tell me how uneven it was, how it rose and fell, punctuated by battlements and observation points, and how it, too, was built brick by brick by brick.

[Music ends; new, slow piano music begins to play.]

As of today, LEGO has adapted 25 sets for blind builders, and they plan to continue adapting, so that hopefully someday soon, every new LEGO set will come with downloadable, text-based instructions.

MATTHEW (as interviewer): Alex, is there anything you want to tell other blind kids. Let's say other blind kids want to get into LEGO and they don't really know what to do, what would you tell them?

ALEX: I guess, just do whatever you want. That's the whole point of LEGO.

[Piano music comes up to full volume, then fades under.]

MATTHEW: What's the most rewarding thing that you get out of spending hours upon hours of typing up these instructions?

LILYA: [Chuckles.] The wonderful thing was that when Matthew started building the first real LEGO model, he was kind of talking to himself. And I overheard him sing in a singsong voice, saying, "I'm a boy. I'm building LEGO." That was amazing.

[Piano music comes back up to full volume, then ends.]

MATTHEW: Blind Guy Travels from Radiotopia is written and performed by me, Matthew Shifrin.

[Jaunty, playful piano music begins.]

I also wrote and performed the music in this episode.

Our producer and sound designer is Ian Coss. Audrey Mardavich and Julie Shapiro are our executive producers.

If you’d like to build using text-based instructions, visit legofortheblind.com, or legoaudioinstructions.com.

Blind Guy Travels is a production of Radiotopia.

[Piano music ends.]

END OF EPISODE.

Transcript for Episode Three - Listening to the Movies

[The sound of a movie theater lobby.]

MATTHEW SHIFRIN: Uh, we're at The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, and we're going to see Duck Soup by the Marx Brothers. And Ben will be the one describing it.

BEN THOMPSON: Hello...

MATTHEW (as narrator): Meet my friend Ben.

BEN: A friend of Matthew's for several years...

MATTHEW: He's a movie buff, but with a hidden talent.

BEN: I whisper descriptions of what's on the screen to him, as it goes.

MATTHEW: Very quickly. Very quickly, very effectively.

BEN: I have a bad habit of talking too fast, which I guess comes in useful for certain descriptions. But I try to —

MATTHEW: Hey look, you just slowed down!

BEN: That was deliberate.

[They both laugh.]

[Friendly, warm accordion music comes in.]

MATTHEW: I consider myself very lucky to have a friend like Ben.

BEN: We met through a mutual friend, yeah.

MATTHEW: This was years ago, when I was in grade school. And Ben was a family friend — someone I looked up to as a kid.

BEN: I should mention I'm roughly twice — what, twice your age? About that…

MATTHEW: I don’t know — practically.

BEN: Somewhere — yeah, somewhere around there.

[Accordion music continues.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): As a blind child in a family of Russian immigrants, my pop culture knowledge was pretty limited. I didn't know anything about superheroes, or Star Trek captains, or theories of time travel — but Ben did.

He and his friends went to the movies together all the time, but I never wanted to intrude. I knew that someone would have to describe what was happening to me, and I didn't want to ruin their fun.

[Accordion music ends.]

But one day I mustered up the courage and asked Ben whether I could tag along. And Ben agreed.

BEN: I guess that was Avengers — the first Avengers movie…

MATTHEW: That was our first movie together.

[Avengers music comes in.]

The Avengers.

BEN: And I think I had invited our mutual friend Rauf, and maybe one or two other people.

MATTHEW: Our friend Rauf was to my left, and Ben was to my right.

[Electronic explosion sound effect from The Avengers.]

Rauf volunteered to describe what was happening on-screen. And 15 minutes in...

[Avengers sound effects and music cut out.]

I had no idea who anybody was and what was going on.

[Sounds of flying, rocketing around.]

Things were exploding, people were yelling.

[An explosion, people scream.]

You know, the usual superhero stuff.

[Explosions and screaming continue, then cut out.]

MATTHEW (recalling): And I was like, “I don’t know what’s going on.” And he was like, “I give up. Ben, can you do this?” And Ben, mid-movie, takes over and gives pro-grade descriptions of what’s going on. And since then, he’s the only person I go to the movies with.

BEN: I seem to have a lot of hidden talents that are absolutely impossible to monetize, so this is just one of them.

MATTHEW: Should we go up? Apparently...

BEN: They are seating. So up we go.

MATTHEW: So they claim.

ATTENDANT: Hello. [Taking tickets.] Enjoy.

MATTHEW (as narrator): We try to find seats that are far enough away that I can hear Ben talking, but close enough so that Ben can see what's happening. It's a delicate balance.

BEN: I should probably warn the people, uh, sitting in front of us…

MATTHEW: Should we?

MATTHEW (as narrator): Then, we let everyone around us know what we're up to.

BEN (in background): I’m going to be talking to the person here…

MOVIEGOER: That’s fine.

MATTHEW: It's wonderful how cool people are with this. We're like, “Hey, we're going to be talking behind you very quietly.” And they're always like, “Oh, that’s fine.”

BEN (quietly): OK, it looks as if things are quieting down, so it’ll be starting soon.

MATTHEW (as narrator): I lean hard to the right, almost doubled over sideways...

[Universal Studios theme begins.]

So that Ben can whisper right into my ear.

BEN (describing): Intro, seeing the Earth from space. [Universal Studios theme continues.] And the gigantic, three-dimensional words “Universal” encircling the world.

[Universal Studios theme concludes.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): And then… it begins.

[Film starts, old-timey music begins.]

BEN (reading, describing): A Paramount movie. Presents… A large cauldron bubbling over a fire, with three live ducks swimming in it. [Chuckles.]

[Description fades under.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): If you've ever seen a Marx Brothers movie, you know it's meant to be absurd.

BEN (describing): Thirty-two, I think…

[Someone in the film utters an exclamation.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): But most of that absurdity makes no sense if you're blind. Take this scene, for example.

[Shuffling and heavy breathing.]

Sounds like some very intense shuffling to me.

BEN: … then Harpo Marx picks up the bowler carefully, polishes it apologetically, and then drops it again…

MATTHEW (as narrator): Aha! But this shuffling has a purpose.

BEN: Harpo passes his hat to Chico, and takes Chico’s hat. They take the bowler off. Then, suddenly, everyone’s wearing the wrong hat.

MATTHEW (as narrator): And whaddaya know — turns out the scene is pretty funny.

BEN: And they begin a round robin of hats going back and forth. The vendor’s getting very confused, trying to keep track of everything… [Laughing.] And so the vendor winds up with his own, and he hooked over Harpo’s hat. And then Chico plays a trick…

MATTHEW (as narrator): Pretty impressive verbal display there, no?

[Matthew laughs in the movie theater.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): Ben keeps this up for almost two hours.

BEN: … strung on the strings. [Laughing.] Chico on the stairs is horrified.

MATTHEW (as narrator): Through musical numbers…

BEN: … it comes off in his hand. He throws it forward in frustration.

MATTHEW (as narrator): And a battle scene…

BEN: … elephants charging through the forest! [Laughs.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): Until the film comes to its absurd conclusion.

BEN: And they all start throwing food at her. [Laughs.] Fade out. The end.

[Laughter, applause, music, scene fades out.]

MATTHEW: My name is Matthew Shifrin, and this is Blind Guy Travels, from Radiotopia.

[Sound of an old-fashioned television turning on.]

Today, a trip to the movies.

[Sounds and clips from television shows.]

When I was 4 or 5, I would go over to my grandparents’ house on weekends, and I'd sit very close to the television, practically with my ear to the speaker.

[Rocket Power theme song plays.]

I'd watch shows like SpongeBob and Rocket Power.

[Cartoon dialogue: “Hey Rex, how can you tell a good human from a bad one?”]

But the only reason I watched them was because of the commercial breaks.

[TV commercial: “You’re set for adventure on new LEGO Dino Island. Team up with Johnny Thunder to study the dinos…”]

Those commercials were like a window into the sighted world.

[TV commercial: “And now I, the Great Dillini, can make my own magic, like new Lunchables pizza that changes colors.” “Ooo!”]

They'd tell me about the latest Lunchable, LEGO set, or Transformer.

[TV commercial: … the ten forms of the evil Galvatron! Transformers, more than meets the eye…]

What it did, how much it cost, and yes, each set sold separately, batteries not included.

[TV commercial clips end.]

TV commercials were my version of window-shopping. Besides, the shows themselves made no sense to me.

[SpongeBob SquarePants: “I’m ready! I’m ready! I’m ready!”]

I knew that SpongeBob worked for Mr. Krabs, that Patrick wasn't very smart, and that Squidward was an ill-tempered clarinetist…

[Squidward: “No, no… SpongeBob…”]

But I didn't really care, because I couldn’t understand what was happening half the time…

[SpongeBob laughs.]

And SpongeBob's laughter wasn't much to go on.

[Clip: the end of the SpongeBob SquarePants theme.]

But what I didn't realize as a kid was that I was born at kind of a historic moment for blind people, when movies and television first started using something called "video description."

BRYAN GOULD: Back when we first got going in the early ’90s, there was probably one or two hours a week, at most, of described programing.

MATTHEW: It's an incredible story, and one which I only learned recently.

BRYAN: We even had a telephone guide where you could call our special phone number and you would hear, uh, what was being broadcast with description that week.

MATTHEW: And I heard it from Bryan Gould here, at the National Center for Accessible Media.

BRYAN: Um… OK, well, what are we doing now that — now that we're finally here?

MATTHEW: I just wanted to kind of learn more about you and video description and why — why would you want to do such a thing, of all the things you could be doing? What — what made you decide to do this?

BRYAN: Uh, I have my, um, patented elevator sort of answer for you, which I will give you right now. Uh, I graduated college and I wanted to be a writer and I found a job where I could write and watch TV and get paid for it.

[Plodding accordion music comes in.]

MATTHEW: The whole story of video description actually started in my hometown of Boston, at my local PBS station.

BRYAN: Part of WGBH's mission is to provide access to their programming, um, to as wide an audience as possible. And so, back in the early 1970s, um, WGBH invented the technology to broadcast captions for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. And the first show that was aired with open captions, as we call them, was Julia Child's The French Chef.

[Clip of Julia Child: “… This is a good old white sauce base with egg yolks…”]

So about 20 years later, in the early ’90s, WGBH applied for a grant to essentially do a similar service for people who are blind, uh, or have low vision. And that was Descriptive Video Service.

[Sound of car tires rolling up — an example of a show that used the early Descriptive Video Service.]

MATTHEW: They started with adult programming…

[Clip dialogue: “Nice results on the Kingston case, John.” “Thank you…”]

Like mysteries, dramas, and some documentaries. But by the time Bryan came to WGBH a few years later, the goal was to reach a much broader audience — including kids like me.

[Accordion music ends, and the Arthur theme song begins. Lyrics: “Every day when you’re walkin’ down the street, everybody that you meet…” Song continues in background.]

In fact, the first video description I ever heard was on a show that Bryan helped describe, right here at WGBH, called Arthur.

DVS AD: It’s called the Descriptive Video Service. It’s for people who are blind, so they can watch TV. [Beep.] Use the remote to choose the SAP channel. Then, a voice comes onto the TV show to tell you what’s happening.

MATTHEW: Whenever Arthur would come on, I'd run to the television and be transfixed for half an hour.

[Arthur theme music ends.]

DESCRIPTIVE VIDEO SERVICE: The little girl turns into a crab…

MATTHEW: Because I knew exactly what was happening.

DESCRIPTIVE VIDEO SERVICE: She snaps her claws at Bionic Bunny.

GIRL (on Arthur): Prepare to be neutralized!

MATTHEW: My parents weren't very good at describing. But these professional describers knew what they were doing. I could trust them. I felt in the know and at home, like these describers were talking directly to me.

ARTHUR (on Arthur): DW!

DVS AD: Check it out for yourself on Arthur and other PBS Kids programs!

BRYAN: So the process of description — maybe I should talk a little bit about that — tends to be: you'll watch the whole program first.

ARTHUR (on Arthur): Normally I would never suggest a harebrained scheme like this, but… I think we should follow him.

[Clip continues to play underneath.]

MATTHEW: So as you can imagine, the process they developed at WGBH is a little different from what my friend Ben does.

BRYAN: You sometimes watch scenes for a long time for many, many times.

ARTHUR (on Arthur): Normally I would never suggest— Normally I would never suggest—

MATTHEW: OK, scratch that — very different.

BRYAN: So you need to, in some ways, map out… In a scene, say it's a five minute scene, you could think of all kinds of ways to describe it.

CLIP FROM ARTHUR: That seems like a good plan… [Guitar riff.] [Gasps.]

BRYAN: But that's not worth anything until you know how many seconds and when there may be a pause so you could actually describe something. You know, if it's a new scene with new characters in a new place, you need to set the stage first.

CLIP FROM ARTHUR: [Guitar riff.] [The sound of something breaking.] Ahhh! What was that?

BRYAN: And sometimes there's only one second, and you can only say, “Later.” [Laughs.] Or, you know, “At night.”

DVS CLIP: Sunlight crests the Earth’s surface as it rotates in the Milky Way. Giant gold letters revolve around the planet, spelling “Universal.”

MATTHEW: By the late ’90s, WGBH started to expand video description from television to movies.

DVS CLIP (in Back to the Future): Marty runs down the fire trails toward him.

BRYAN: So, um, we developed an en— an entire business of selling VHS tapes, um, with description on them.

DOC BROWN (in Back to the Future): Great Scott!

DVS CLIP (in Back to the Future): He faints and falls to the ground.

MATTHEW: Arthur was great, but the VHS tapes were a total game-changer for me.

DVS CLIP: [Disney theme song plays in background.] A flag waves on top of a castle’s tallest spire…

MATTHEW: When I was 5, my mom brought one home from the local library. It was The Lion King.

DVS CLIP (in The Lion King): [“The Circle of Life” plays in the background.] Now in a cartoon, a giant yellow sun rises into a golden sky. It lights up a huge savannah, a flat grassland that stretches as far as the eye can see…

BRYAN: And the great thing about those — Matthew, I don't know if you ever experienced this — is that you just put it in the VCR and it plays and it has description on it, and you don't have to do anything.

MATTHEW: No menus, no settings — just press play.

DVS CLIP (in The Lion King): [“The Circle of Life” continues playing in the background.] They fly over a waterfall, which tumbles over a cliff as tall as a skyscraper.

[“The Circle of Life” fades out, as accordion music comes in.]

MATTHEW: The other amazing thing about these tapes is that they had Braille labels on them.

[An elevator clatters and dings.]

I remember going to the library, riding the elevator up to the third floor, and finding this giant metal shelf lined with dozens of VHS tapes.

MATTHEW (whispering titles, as if reading them in his head): Star Trek, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Homeward Bound, Lilo and Stitch, Aladdin…

MATTHEW (as narrator): I’d never been able to browse like this on my own before. I didn't have to ask my parents, “Hey! What's in this box? And that one? And the other one?” I just knew. And I watched every movie I could get my hands on.

[Accordion music continues.]

Once this idea of description started to catch on, Bryan and the team at WGBH helped it spread to other kinds of experiences, like theme parks and circuses…

BRYAN: I was down at Epcot Center many, many years ago…

MATTHEW: Even Disney World.

BRYAN: We worked in sports stadiums and many, many museums and national parks…

MATTHEW: They developed description technologies for DVDs and streaming video…

BRYAN: Really, as I like to say, anywhere that you can find a speaker or a — a screen, um, somewhere along the line WGBH was probably involved in the early days of developing the accessibility for that.

MATTHEW: But perhaps the trickiest place to get video description was the place where we started out this episode…

BRYAN: How do we make movie theaters accessible?

MATTHEW: Movie theaters.

BRYAN: It was, um, a little… it was a little crazy.

[Accordion music continues, then fades out.]

MATTHEW: When I was a kid, my parents and I would walk to a grocery store every couple of days. On our way there, we'd always pass a movie theater: the West Newton Cinema. I could tell because the marquee extended above the sidewalk, creating a distinctive echo when I tapped my cane. But even though we walked by there every few days, we never went inside. And it never occured to me that it could be a place for me.

Then, when I was 7, I was at a summer camp, and one day the whole group of us went to that same theater to see the animated film Madagascar. I remember they bought us all sodas, which in my house growing up was extremely rare. In Russia, soda was expensive, something you only had on special occasions, and I guess my parents didn't want us to take the sweet things in life for granted — hence the lack of sodas.

In any case, as I sat there with my orange soda securely in the cup-holder next to me, I was excited. I was in an actual movie theater, seeing a movie! My teacher did a fine job of describing the film, but what I really remember from that day is the experience itself. The powerful speakers cocooning you in the sounds of New York City. The smell of popcorn, and the crinkling of candy wrappers. And the feeling of everyone being there for only one reason: to see this movie.

[A single accordion drone note sounds, and continues under narration.]

The theater wasn't packed, and no one clapped or cheered, but there was a feeling of community and awe — since for most of the other campers, this was their first trip to a cinema, too. And I remember thinking, “Hey, this is for me.”

BRYAN: The mission was: curtain opens, first performance of the film, it’s going to be described.

MATTHEW: Around that same time —

BRYAN: Um, this was in the early 2000s — late ’90s, early 2000s.

MATTHEW: — Bryan Gould was trying to make movie theaters accessible for all blind people.

BRYAN: So, the technology is one thing. You can figure out how to play a track of audio, and you can have some sort of headphone device that can pick it up and play it in your ear.

MATTHEW: Ta-da! Roll credits.

BRYAN: But, Sony Pictures or Disney… Why are they going to give you an unreleased film, potentially a gigantic moneymaker for them, in enough time for you to write this, uh, complicated script and record it?

MATTHEW: Ehh, maybe I spoke too soon.

BRYAN: Why are they going to give that to you? [Laughs.] You know? OK, so this is for people who are blind and have low vision. OK. So how much popcorn are they going to eat?

MATTHEW: Probably not much. The crunching of popcorn is so loud you can barely hear the description.

BRYAN: How many tickets are they going to buy? It was, you know, blindness advocacy organizations and a lot of letter-writing and just finding the right person at the right studio to say, “OK,” for the first one…

[20th Century Fox theme plays.]

And then the next one.

[20th Century Fox theme continues, fading underneath.]

MATTHEW: And the next one… just happened to be a big one.

DVS CLIP (in Titanic): British Sky Broadcasting, in association with 20th Century Fox, presents Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack and Kate Winslet as Rose. Also starring Billy Zane, Bernard Hill, and David Warner. Grainy black-and-white pictures of the mighty ship Titanic leaving Southampton on her maiden voyage…

BRYAN: It was the second movie that we had ever done in a movie theater.

DVS CLIP (in Titanic): Well-wishers line the quayside to wave the ship on its way.

BRYAN: They sent us tapes that we were able to dub in our dub facility here. And we watched the whole thing once, wrote a whole bunch of notes — six of us, I think it was. And then everybody basically, I think, took 20-minute chunks.

JACK (in Titanic): So do you wanna go to a real party?

DVS CLIP (in Titanic): In the third-class general room, an ad hoc band stomps out music on fiddle, accordion, and tambourine. They jig, they drink beer, they laugh, and they brawl.

BRYAN: And then you would write, write, write. And when you finished your chunk, you'd grab the next available one. And we just did it like that.

DVS CLIP (in Titanic): Murdoch stares with sweat glistening on his temples.

BRYAN: And then they recorded it the next day. I think we — that might have been even just a nonstop marathon overnight session.

DVS CLIP (in Titanic): The ship hits the berg on its starboard bow. [Crashing and clanging.]

[Film sound ends.]

BRYAN: Whatever sacrifice, minor sacrifice we made, it was worth it, because it — who could have known that that movie would have been in theaters for that long and get us that much positive press? It — it was — it would have been a much different story. Eventually, description would be commonplace in movie theaters, but it would have taken probably another year or more for us to, sort of, advance the cause. Um… And that movie really helped us out.

MATTHEW: [Whispering.] Wow.

Sorry, it's just such — it's such an incredible feeling to — to be sitting across from someone who — who made your childhood, basically. Just the hours, the hours I spent watching, I don't know, Harry Potter, Star Wars or The Lion King or… whatever film and just feeling — feeling just there. Listening to this film and really being involved with these characters, feeling for them, rooting for them, yelling, “No, don’t jump in that hole. Can’t you see it there?” And that involvement is so, so, important for blind people — really feeling like they're there, and like people care that they're there.

Thank you — thank you for caring for these total strangers who you'd probably never meet. But… thank you for letting blind people watch movies just like sighted people. It really… it means a lot.

BRYAN: Well, thank you very much. That — I don't think I can say anything more meaningful than you just have. That's why we do it.

[Ending music of Marx Brothers movie.]

MATTHEW (in theater): See? I told you this guy's the best in the business.

BEN: Yeah, some of the — some of those slapstick routines were just too fast, I couldn't really catch them…

MATTHEW (as narrator): One thing about watching a movie with a description headset is that you're pretty much at the mercy of that technology… and the person who checks the batteries. When Ben and I saw that first movie together, my headset wasn't charged. But I'm glad it wasn't, because that's how I discovered his secret talent.

[Uplifting accordion music comes in.]

MATTHEW (to Ben): The part with the hats was great, where it was like, “Oh, wrong hat.” “Wrong hat.” [Laughs.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): When I go to the movies with Ben, he doesn't just describe a movie; he interprets it. He immerses me in the whole world of the movie, with notes about period costume or film technique.

BEN: … yeah, just how marvelous that is, the way they’re going, like, looking at each other, and then… they smile… and then they back away… and then look again! Or, or…

MATTHEW (as narrator): For him, it's like a puzzle, figuring out how to eloquently and concisely describe the events on-screen. For me, it's like a performance, full of all the joys, humor, and zest that he brings.

MATTHEW (to Ben): Whoever says you can’t describe slapstick, they are wrong.

BEN: Did — did you get what I was trying to say about those horns, that… [Fades under.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): Having Ben there as a guide connects me to the world around us.

MATTHEW (to Ben): [Laughing.] How could I not?

MATTHEW (as narrator): And as a blind person, this type of connection is so rare, so hard to come by, that I cherish those moments together. They’re moments when I can forget about the ins and outs of navigating the world safely, and just immerse myself in this experience and enjoy it.

[Matthew and Ben laugh together.]

BEN: So he’s — while he’s doing the sounds, he’s also kind of doing these — these facial expressions, which are, of course, completely useless over the telephone. It makes no sense.

[Mathew laughs, which gets Ben laughing.]

It’s all for our benefit.

[Titanic theme music comes in and drowns out Ben and Matthew’s movie theater chatter.]

DVS CLIP (in Titanic): The end.

[Titanic theme fades out.]

MATTHEW: Blind Guy Travels, from PRX’s Radiotopia, is written and performed by me, Matthew Shifrin.

[Jaunty accordion music comes in.]

Music in this episode is also written and performed by me.

Our producer and sound designer is Ian Coss. Audrey Mardavich and Julie Shapiro are our executive producers.

Thanks, this episode, to Ben Thompson for his audio description. If you’d like to learn more about audio description, visit the National Center for Accessible Media at NCAM.org.

[Two jaunty accordion notes, then music ends.]

END OF EPISODE.

Transcript for Episode Four - The Blind Date

MATTHEW SHIFRIN: Like most people today, I use a smartphone. Nothing special — just your average iPhone. If you're sighted and curious how this works, just open up the accessibility settings and turn on VoiceOver.

iPHONE (at fast speed): VoiceOver on.

MATTHEW: Now, when you move your fingers around…

iPHONE: Messenger, 11 minutes ago…

MATTHEW: … the built-in screen reader tells you what's there.

iPHONE: Passcode field. 4, 5…

MATTHEW: I can make phone calls…

iPHONE: 5-5-5-7…

MATTHEW: Write emails…

iPHONE: Inbox. Two unread messages. Button. Inbox.

MATTHEW: Call an Uber…

iPHONE: Item. Item. Item…

MATTHEW: Even learn Japanese!

iPHONE: Vocabulary… One. Let’s start.

MATTHEW: In fact, once you learn to process speech at double speed, most apps work pretty well. But some really don't. Like dating apps.

iPHONE: 22. Non-binary. 5’1”. Maplewood. [Fades underneath.]

MATTHEW: As far as I can tell, every major online dating service out there is designed for sighted people.

iPHONE: Selfie number 503. The backstory of this photo…

MATTHEW: Swipe through Tinder or Bumble, and mostly what you see are pictures, with very little space for actual information about the person.

iPHONE: Do you agree or disagree that white wine and sprite is an amazing combination?

MATTHEW: Even though my phone reads text, it can't describe images. And even if it could, images are so subjective that it would probably just say, "Image: Person Smiling," which is pretty useless.

[Jaunty accordion music begins.]

For sighted people, I imagine online dating is like shopping for clothes: you browse the store and you see what tickles your fancy. Well, for me, shopping for clothes has always been torture. When I was a kid, my parents would take me to the Gap, and I'd sit there for what felt like hours trying on shirt after shirt. No matter how many I tried on, my parents kept bringing more. "But why are we buying this one and not that one?" I’d ask.

"Well, this one looks good on you," my parents would say.

For me, using a dating app is like the Gap all over again: an endless stream of shirts and an endless stream of people whose visual signals I can barely understand. But today on the show, I'm gonna give it a try anyway.

[Accordion music comes up to full volume.]

I'm Matthew Shifrin, and this is Blind Guy Travels, from Radiotopia.

[Accordion music ends with a flourish.]

My parents will not be the right guides for this excursion. So instead, I'm turning to some friends — starting with Litha.

LITHA ASHFORTH: Oh, yeah, of course. It's the name of the game. It's what I do. [Both laugh.]

MATTHEW: We study together at the New England Conservatory of Music, and Litha's experience with dating apps makes her the perfect guide.

LITHA: Um, my friends like to tease me because once I said I downloaded Tinder the same year I downloaded Uber. [Laughs.] It's like I wanted to meet college students so I could go to parties in high school. [Laughs.] And so I started out on Tinder, and then I feel like I graduated Tinder when I graduated high school.

MATTHEW: Her next app was Hinge.

LITHA: So, I would say Hinge is my favorite dating platform, because I’ve met partners on there that I, like, still talk to.

[Plodding, jaunty accordion music begins.]

MATTHEW: So then let's use Hinge.

LITHA: Let's do it.

[Accordion music comes up to full volume.]

MATTHEW: Like all the other apps, Hinge allows you to post photos of yourself, "like" other people, and then message them.

LITHA: Right. It says, “Welcome to Hinge. Press continue. What's your name?” OK, so we're gonna do Matthew Shiffrin.

MATTHEW: But part of what sets this app apart is the sheer number of questions you need to answer to create an account — at least 20 of them.

LITHA: OK, who do you want to date: men, women, or everyone?

MATTHEW: Women.

LITHA: OK. How tall are you?

MATTHEW: Uh, I’m 5’ 8”.

LITHA: Nice.

MATTHEW (as narrator): Pretty standard stuff... So far.

LITHA: So they have Buddhist, Catholic, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, spiritual, agnostic, atheist… (conversation fades under)

MATTHEW: In a way, this kind of personal cataloging is familiar to me. It's how I keep track of all the faceless people in my world: with fun facts and biographical details.

LITHA: What are your political beliefs? Liberal, moderate, conservative, other…

MATTHEW: Like, if I arrive at a musical theater rehearsal and ask where I can find so-and-so the trumpet player, I'll probably get the usual: “Not sure, what does he look like?” To which I say: “I don't know, but he's from Pittsburgh, played lacrosse in high school, owns four cats, and sounds like Homer Simpson on helium.”

LITHA: Biggest risk I’ve taken… Something that’s non-negotiable for me…

MATTHEW: And yet, despite my knack for distilling human beings into sets of obscure facts, nothing could prepare me for the onslaught of questions awaiting me on Hinge.

[Accordion music ends with a long-held note that builds anticipation for the questions to come.]

LITHA: I’m overly competitive about… You should — I'm just gonna go ahead and read all of them. You should leave a comment if… The hallmark of a good relationship is… Weirdest gift I have given or received… [Fades under.]

MATTHEW: I was just going to go with, “Blind rock-climbing counter-tenor accordionist,” but apparently, that won't do.

LITHA: [Fades up.] My most irrational fear… I recently discovered that… One thing I'll never do again… I'm overly competitive about… You should leave a comment if… And yes, we're back to the beginning.

MATTHEW: Oh my goodness. There's so many.

LITHA: OK, how about we do this — we’ll do, like, I'll say it, you give me an immediate response without thinking. OK? Worst idea I've ever had. Go!

MATTHEW: Oh, goodness. I've had so many… Trying to figure out how centrifugal force works by climbing into the dryer.

LITHA: Unusual skills. Go!

MATTHEW: Uh, I speak Russian and French and Italian. And, I don’t know…

LITHA: OK.

MATTHEW: I'm very good at long, rambling texts by grandmothers that don't go anywhere. [Both laugh.] If you ever need a translation of one of those.

LITHA: Good at — strong decoder of long, rambling texts from your grandmother. [Laughs.]

MATTHEW: OK, sure.

LITHA: OK. [Laughs.] [Typing.] … long, rambling texts from grandmothers. [Giggles.] How about: my love language is…

MATTHEW: French accordion music?

[French accordion music comes in.]

LITHA: That's great. Unusual skills: running into people?

MATTHEW: [Laughs.] Yes, colliding with unsuspecting strangers!

LITHA: OK, great.

MATTHEW: And so on and so on, until…

[French accordion music ends with a triumphant flourish.]

LITHA: Ta-da!

MATTHEW: She did it.

LITHA: It's done.

MATTHEW: But, there's a catch.

LITHA: Oh wait, it says we have to add more — we have to add one, two, three, four, five — five more pictures in order for you to be able to start liking.

MATTHEW: Five more pictures? I don't even have five more pictures! [Litha laughs.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): OK, it's not like there are literally no photos of me — they're somewhere online for sure. But when I get tagged on social media, I'm never really sure what to make of it. The caption is usually vague; then suddenly the photo has 50 likes, a few shares, and someone I don't even know has left a comment saying, “Dapper!” But I don't even know what's in the photo.

So for this step, I'll need some advice from a close friend… someone who I know will tell it to me straight.

RAUF SYUNYAEV: All right, chief, I'm all set.

MATTHEW: Fantastic.

MATTHEW (as narrator): My friend Rauf is a visual artist, studying at the Rhode Island School of Design.

RAUF: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold up a second.

MATTHEW: And he has a knack for knowing what photos to use in what contexts.

RAUF: OK. So… I have it open. Um… Yeah, I think these photos are bad.

MATTHEW: What makes them bad? You’ve gotta be real specific.

RAUF: Your smile looks forced. It doesn't look natural.

MATTHEW: Ah. You're right. [Laughing.] It probably was forced.

RAUF: There's a photo that I see that's great. But your hair looks untamed. Uh… [Matthew laughs.] So, so, so, so poofy. It's wild.

MATTHEW (as narrator): Some may call this brutal honesty, but I call it expert guidance. It's good to know that you can trust someone so completely with an aspect of your life that you can't understand.

RAUF: I also want to get rid of this photo. That's your Facebook photo of you singing.

MATTHEW: OK. Why?

RAUF: I think your expression makes your mouth look a little funny. I think it has to do with the angle of the photo.

MATTHEW (as narrator): So, we go looking for some fresh photos.

RAUF: You want me to Google you?

MATTHEW: Yeah. All right.

RAUF: Oh, there's — there's some great photos here.

[Upbeat and playful accordion music enters.]

RAUF: I'm telling you right now, you look like a model here. Straight up.

MATTHEW: OK.

RAUF: Straight up. You — you look so good. I might ask you out after this.

[Matthew laughs.]

It's you, rock climbing. You look really serious.

MATTHEW: OK.

RAUF: Great. I think a lot of it's about the cheekbones. I think you have great bone structure. I think — I think we're going to have to flaunt that.

MATTHEW: Flaunting those cheekbones.

RAUF: You — you heard of 'smizing?'

MATTHEW: No.

RAUF: It's smiling with your eyes but not your mouth.

MATTHEW: Uh-huh.

RAUF: And I think maybe you're kind of doing a little bit of smizing here, Matt.

MATTHEW: Uh-huh.

RAUF: We're gonna use this, too. Matt, I'm having so much fun.

Yeah. [Laughs.] That's awesome. You look like a rockstar.

MATTHEW: OK.

RAUF: Yeah. We're going to use that for sure. And again, Matt, those cheekbones are popping. So we always —

MATTHEW: OK.

RAUF: — we love that. We love that.

[Accordion music ends.]

Matt, you, you, you — you got it. One thousand matches guaranteed.

MATTHEW: That's a high number, no?

RAUF: One million matches — tomorrow. With this profile? You wanna start swiping?

MATTHEW (as narrator): Rauf is raring to go. But for this first swiping session, I figured it wouldn't hurt to get some more seasoned guidance, from someone who's been around the block a couple of times.

TATIANA HAYKIN: What do you mean, who am I?

MATTHEW: What's your name, where you come from…

TATIANA: Oh.

MATTHEW: Just kind of give me a brief overview, if I have no idea who you are.

[Waltzy accordion music gently fades in.]

TATIANA: Oh god. I have no idea who I am. Um, well, my name is Tatiana Haykin.

MATTHEW (as narrator): Tatiana is a family friend

TATIANA: And I am actually from Moscow, Russia. But I came to United States when I was 16 years old. So I've been here for quite a while.

MATTHEW (as narrator): She's an actress who has been married and divorced, plus she's used dating apps, so I consider her a highly discerning judge when it comes to potential partners.

[Accordion music settles into a steady pattern.]

TATIANA: OK. People who come up… so, there we have Victoria.

MATTHEW: OK.

TATIANA: I would say it’s OK, but I wouldn't want to talk to her.

MATTHEW: [Sighs.] OK. There's an X button at the —

TATIANA: Yeah.

MATTHEW: — bottom left corner of your screen.

TATIANA: Yes, X.

MATTHEW: If you press it —

TATIANA: I did.

MATTHEW: — we will see the next one.

TATIANA: Michaela.

MATTHEW: Uh-huh.

TATIANA: I don't think so.

MATTHEW: OK.

TATIANA: We're doing well.

MATTHEW: Very well.

TATIANA: Nelly. No.

MATTHEW: Why not?

TATIANA: Just because.

MATTHEW: You're not going to get more specific? I mean…

TATIANA: Mmm, I don't think so. Caitlin.

MATTHEW: OK. Also don't think so?

TATIANA: Well, she zip-lined in Costa Rica. So there's something…

MATTHEW: I guess…

TATIANA: Maybe. But… not — not a strong maybe.

MATTHEW: OK.

MATTHEW (as narrator): And yes, ladies and gentlemen, I can assure you that all Russian ladies of Tatiana's generation are this jaded.

TATIANA: She likes country music, that's a no-no. She's from New Hampshire — no. Bye, bye. OK?

[Matthew laughs.]

MATTHEW: OK.

TATIANA: OK. Next girl. She's a baker. So she will make a lot of… eh, no, never mind.

MATTHEW: What makes you say “never mind”?

TATIANA: I don't want you to get fat.

[Accordion music comes up to full volume.]

MATTHEW: After ten minutes of straight nos, we finally catch a break.

[Music ends.]

TATIANA: Tracy. Oh, I like this girl — look: software engineer at Google. She is Brown University graduate.

MATTHEW: OK.

TATIANA: She's an atheist, which is a big plus in — in my book. She's from California, and she's liberal. So we — we’re hitting all our requirements.

MATTHEW: OK. Yes.

TATIANA: We don't know about her editing skills, but, you know…

MATTHEW: [Laughs.] Why is atheism a huge plus in your book?

TATIANA: Because those are the only reasonable people on the earth.

MATTHEW: Yeah, we can — we can hit “like”…

TATIANA: Yeah, so, “I want someone who brings out my inner chaos Muppet,” which is good. You know, it's funny.

MATTHEW: What is an “inner chaos Muppet”?

TATIANA: Who cares? It's better than, you know… “I want someone to love me.” Right? Um…

MATTHEW: Yes. But I would generally not use the “I want someone who” prompt…

TATIANA: You don't know enough about Muppets, obviously. You need to do research about Muppets.

MATTHEW: [Laughing.] That is true.

TATIANA: So… “I won't shut up about podcasts.” Well, that could be annoying. But maybe…

MATTHEW: Yes, well, it depends… OK, let's hit like.

TATIANA: OK. So if you don't push cross, do you put heart?

MATTHEW: What? I don't know. I think — is there a heart?

TATIANA: There's a heart. And you can send a like.

MATTHEW: OK. Do we do both?

TATIANA: Yeah, uh — yeah, I did the heart and then it says: “Send like. Do you want to add a comment?” You can say, “What's your inner Muppet?”

MATTHEW: Uh…

TATIANA: Say, “What’s your inner Muppet?” [Chuckles.]

[Waltzy accordion music, similar to what we heard before, comes in.]

TATIANA: I mean, don't forget, the girl is an engineer, so don't get your hopes up.

MATTHEW (as narrator): As usual, Tatiana is correct. Once I learn the name of my match's favorite Muppet — Beaker as it turns out — the conversation dies with a whimper.

[Music ends.]

To be honest, I've never really dated much. In fact, before this experiment, I had only been on a grand total of one date. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, I just didn't know how. The dating scene seems so daunting, so when my friends ask what I'm looking for in a potential partner, I can only give them vague descriptors: caring, creative, enthusiastic, interesting, motivated… you know, the things that most of us are looking for. Trouble is, these aren't characteristics that you can easily determine from a dating profile.

[Jaunty accordion music fades in.]

LITHA: Oh! See, that's your problem. It's like darts in the dart board. You gotta just throw 'em. Even if you don't love their profile, they might surprise you.

MATTHEW (as narrator): So it's time to change tactics, and take some risks.

LITHA: OK. This girl, Cindy.

MATTHEW: OK.

LITHA: She said, “I want someone who can make me laugh.”

MATTHEW: I would personally swipe left, because —

LITHA: I'm gonna swipe right. [Laughs.]

MATTHEW: OK. Fine.

LITHA: And I'm gonna like her thing that says, “This year I really want to be more spontaneous.” I'm just going to send a like.

[Music comes up to full volume for a moment.]

Let's say you're trying to show someone your heart through music. What would you play?

MATTHEW: Something by Sondheim?

LITHA: Can I say, “Sondheim bb”? [Laughs.]

MATTHEW: I don’t know why… why “bb”?

LITHA: It's like “Sondheim baby.” [Laughs.]

MATTHEW: OK, I personally wouldn't.

LITHA: I'm going to say it. [Laughs.]

MATTHEW: No — ahhh. OK.

LITHA: [Laughing.] I said it.

MATTHEW: Why?

[Music loses steam and ends.]

LITHA: [Singing.] “You just met somebody new…”

MATTHEW: Uh-huh.

LITHA: You know the ditty?

MATTHEW: Never heard it. No.

LITHA: OK. Also, I gotta go, because I'm watching a movie with my cousins.

MATTHEW: Uh-huh.

LITHA: But we can pick this up. You wanna pick this up later?

MATTHEW (as narrator): I'd really rather not, but I subject myself to one more round of swiping with my friend Rauf.

RAUF: She has blue eyes. I don't know if that means anything, like if you — if you care about eye color, Matt. I don’t know.

MATTHEW: No…

RAUF: Matt, we've said no to about 50 people together right now.

MATTHEW: No, no, that’s you —

RAUF: We each have about 30 of ’em.

MATTHEW: You said no!

RAUF: All right, I'm just gonna put a like down.

MATTHEW: OK, fine. Sure.

RAUF: Sick.

MATTHEW: Great.

RAUF: Send like. This next girl looks really nice.

MATTHEW: OK.

RAUF: The key to her heart is Reese’s. If she shares them, consider yourself lucky. She's tall.

MATTHEW: OK.

RAUF: Oh wait, no, she isn't. Her friends just must be really short. She's 5’4”.

MATTHEW: [Laughing.] OK.

RAUF: Are we liking anything?

MATTHEW: Ehhh… (indecisive)

RAUF: I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

MATTHEW: OK.

MATTHEW (as narrator): And so on.

RAUF: OK, next… [Fades under.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): As a blind person, hair or eye color doesn't matter to me, since I've never seen color. Redhead or brunette, Black or white — they’re just adjectives to me. The best way for me to learn about another person is to hear their voice. I can tell a lot about someone by the way they talk: how outgoing they are, where they're from, maybe even the kinds of books and music they're into.

RAUF: [Fades up.] OK. Next girl, name is Kay…

MATTHEW (as narrator): Litha, Rauf, and Tatiana all have intuitive reactions to the photos…

RAUF: Like, I can tell for sure you’re not going to be interested.

MATTHEW (as narrator): Curiosity, attraction, disinterest…

RAUF: All right, I’m just going to pop, like, one “like” here.

MATTHEW (as narrator): I have those same reactions when I hear a person's voice. And yet, a human voice is the one thing Hinge won't give me.

RAUF: Oh no! It only let me like one photo. That’s OK. We’ll like one thing. OK… [Fades under.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): There are voice-based dating apps, but they're such a niche product that you're basically limiting yourself to dating within a small group of blind people. Nothing against other blind people, but all my life, I’ve strived to engage with the sighted world as much as possible. And so, I'm left with Hinge…

RAUF: Yes or no?

MATTHEW (as narrator): Getting secondhand information from friends…

RAUF: Yeah, I — I just clicked to like.

MATTHEW (as narrator): Trying to form an opinion based on their opinions, before swiping left or swiping right.

RAUF: I’m sorry, I should’ve — I should’ve asked you what — what you wanted to do.

MATTHEW: OK.

MATTHEW (as narrator): I call Litha back, to vent.

LITHA: OK.

MATTHEW: I've, I’ve had the app for — goodness — two weeks it was since you set it up? And in that time, I've matched with one person and nothing came of it. And if I'm not with someone using Hinge, all I have to go on are the profile prompts. It's exhausting, to be honest. Because you're — you’re kind of hitting skip, skip, skip on all of these people, knowing very little about them. And… you — you just don't. It feels like such a — such a waste of your soul. [Laughing.] If that makes sense…

LITHA: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The questions can only say so much. Like, the pictures — you can look at a picture and see that a person's, like, holding a potion bottle and a candle and they're standing in front of, like, a gargoyle. And you're like, “Oh, I get it.” But if you can't see that, then it's hard to know from the other answers, if their other answers are just like: … eggs.

MATTHEW: It's a fact of life that… eggs.

LITHA: [Laughs.] Right.

[Accordion music comes in, slower, more reflective.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): If you have a disability and something is inaccessible, there are two things you can do. You can either find a way to make it work for you, or you can ditch it and move on. That's about where I am now. It's not that these dating apps are completely unusable by blind people, but they're just unusable enough to make them useless.

As a blind person on one of these sites, I almost feel like an interloper — like I need to announce my blindness as a disclaimer, to explain my presence in this hyper-visual setting. But who wants to lead with that? As you may have noticed, I didn't mention that I was blind at all in my profile. If someone talks to me, if they take even the most casual interest in who I am and what I do, they'll figure it out pretty quickly. Somehow, my encounters on Hinge never made it that far.

[Music ends.]

To make dating apps accessible to blind people, you would need to completely redesign how people think about online dating: eliminating the split-second decisions and reliance on pictures, and getting to the deeper stuff right away. I don't see that happening. But there was something Litha said in our last conversation that got me thinking…

LITHA: It's like… you put your profile together and it's art.

MATTHEW: Art.

LITHA: It is art. And it exists without people looking at it. Like, you know, you're making music, you're making podcasts — make it the same way. There's nothing different about it. It's the same thing.

MATTHEW (as narrator): So I decide to ditch the apps, and take Litha's advice to heart. I grab a rhyming dictionary, strap on my accordion, and begin:

[Matthew’s song starts, somewhat reminiscent of a Tom Lehrer tune played on accordion.]

How would your mom describe you? Generically, I fear. Since this will be my dating song, I must be very clear.

Everyone wants to travel, everyone wants success. Everyone wants a cat, or a dog, or a pig, or children, I guess. I am allergic to animals, I don't speak toddler you see, But you get priority boarding when going through airports with me.

A date! A date! One girl could seal my fate. I hope it's not too late for me to find a date.

Everyone wants a smart man. Everyone wants some wit. Everyone wants an honest man, a fellow who's buff and fit. I am no late-night comedian. I cannot lift a car. But I can speak five languages, I'm sure that will get us quite far.

A date! A date! One girl could seal my fate. I hope it's not too late for me to find a date.

So everyone wants perfection, everyone wants an ideal. So why not simply try me? At least I'm a fellow who's real.

If you’d like to go on a date with me, there’s one thing you must do… Email blindguytravels@gmail.com, and I’ll get in touch with you.

[Matthew’s song ends.]

[The accordion instrumental only, a little sparser, for Matthew’s dating song plays again.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): Mmm, credits. OK, let’s do some dating credits. [Clears throat.]

Blind Guy Travels, from PRX’s Radiotopia, is written and performed by me, Matthew Shifrin. Our producer and sound designer is Ian Coss. Our executive producers are Audrey Mardavich and Julie Shapiro.

Special thanks this episode to Tatiana Haykin, Rauf Syunyaev, and Litha Ashforth.

[Accordion instrumental continues at full volume, then reaches its conclusion.]

END OF EPISODE.

Transcript for Episode Five - The Sound of Sound

MATTHEW SHIFRIN: At 9 a.m. every Friday, I open up my front door to Michael Meraw, a singing teacher with a stately baritone. We enter my living room, he sits down at the piano, and we begin our lesson.

MICHAEL MERAW: OK, so let’s sing. [Plucks out two notes on the piano.] So, again, begin gently. Really try to find, with the…

MATTHEW: Some days, I’ll lay on my back on the hardwood floor, with my knees bent, and a pillow beneath my head. I'll take a breath, let my ribcage expand, release the back of my jaw, and begin to sing.

[Matthew does vocal warmups to the tune Michael plays on the piano.]

MICHAEL: Good. So now, don’t misunderstand, gentle doesn’t mean [sings the vocal warmup incorrectly]. It’s still going up. [Sings the vocal warmup slightly differently, with Matthew following along.]

MATTHEW: The reason for all this is that I'm about to graduate from music school. To do that, I need to present a senior recital, and to make that recital pop, I'll need all the help I can get.

[Michael demonstrating a vocal warmup.]

MICHAEL: The reason I sort of move in — in through…

[Plodding accordion music begins.]

MATTHEW: All artists are part of a lineage of mentors and role models who help us understand our abilities and teach us how to create and emote. For me there are four people in particular who have shaped my musical life, and in this episode I'll introduce you to them. Because during this recital, I'll be channeling each of them, thanking them in my own musical way.

[Plodding accordion music comes up to full volume.]

My name is Matthew Shifrin, and this is Blind Guy Travels, from Radiotopia.

[Plodding accordion music comes up to full volume, then ends.]

MATTHEW: My parents realized that I had musical abilities when I was 2 years old.

[Slow, simple piano music begins.]

If my dad sang a melody or played it on the piano, I could sing it right back. So, they took me to a music teacher, and it turned out that like a lot of other blind people, I have what's called perfect pitch, meaning I can hear a sound and immediately know what note it is — like C or C sharp — without using any kind of instrument as a reference point.

[Piano music ends.]

It's as clear to me as the color red is to a sighted person.

[Piano music — “Prelude in C Major” — begins.]

When my parents discovered this ability, they did what most Russian parents would do and started me on piano lessons.

Trouble was, I wasn't disciplined enough to be a quality pianist. I didn't enjoy the process of endless practicing. And when it became clear I would not be the next Glen Gould or Evgeny Kissin, they signed me up for singing lessons instead.

[“Prelude in C Major” fades out.]

My first teacher, Alexander, was a stern Russian bass. He didn't teach much technique, so I’d often come home hoarse from his lessons, but I loved it anyway. Alexander knew how to make a singer embody the music.

[Opening chords of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” come in.]

Each of his students had their own signature song, and mine was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

[Opening lyrics of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”: “Somewhere over the rainbow / way up high…”]

I entered my first singing competition at age 10.

MATTHEW (CONT’D): The competition was called Our Talented Children, and it was held at some tacky Russian restaurant in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. This may sound kind of crazy, but as I remember it, the stage was surrounded by wealthy observers who would place bets on which kids would advance to the next round of the competition. It's hard to know exactly what was going on, especially to a blind kid like me. At the time I was too young to feel the pressure and stakes of the performance — all I could do was just get up there and sing — and it surprised everyone, including Alexander, when I won.

[“Somewhere Over the Rainbow”: “… beyond the rainbow / Why, oh why, can’t I?”]

After that first competition, I was invited to another one in the Dominican Republic, called Caribbean Gold. My parents and I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. And it turned out that this competition was essentially a beauty pageant for Russian children, with overfed contestants wearing gold chains, and panicked mothers running around applying make-up or hair gel to their young virtuosos.

[Music begins: “Time to Say Goodbye.”]

I was billed as “Little Bocelli” and was all set to do his signature number, “Time to Say Goodbye.” The catch [music cuts off abruptly] was that we weren't actually allowed to sing, and instead had to lip-sync to recordings we'd made.

[“Time to Say Goodbye” picks back up.]

Since I can't see, I didn't even know what lip-syncing was or why anyone would do it, so I just ended up flopping my mouth around hoping no one would notice. I did not win that competition.

[“Time to Say Goodbye” comes up to full volume.]

I studied with Alexander for three years. But ultimately, he wasn't interested in the long-term careers of his singers.

[Music fades out.]

He was in it to give everyone a fun time, and once a singer's voice cracked, he'd find more kids to fill his ranks. So when my voice started changing, I decided to switch teachers, and I wound up with Normma Giustiani, an Italian opera singer in her 80s.

NORMMA GIUSTIANI: You — you lose that anchor, and then it wallows into someplace in the head, and… you have it. The feeling is always right at the bones —

MATTHEW: Yep.

NORMMA: Or even here in this bone.

MATTHEW: Yup.

NORMMA: And this has to just be deadweight.

MATTHEW (as narrator): I was hoping to interview Normma for this podcast, but sadly she passed away earlier this year.

NORMMA: Yeah, that’s all…

MATTHEW (as narrator): I do have recordings of all our lessons, though, and they give you a pretty good sense of how she taught.

MATTHEW (singing): Ahhh…

NORMMA: Wait a minute, wait a minute… hold on, let’s get it right.

MATTHEW: OK. [Sings a vocal exercise of ‘ah’s.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): During my first lesson with her, she made me get on my hands and knees, and then sat on me as I sang the five main vowels (i, e, a, o, and u).

[Matthew sings vocal exercises.]

NORMMA: Yes! Yes. You hear it? You hear it? Tell me if you hear that.

MATTHEW: Yes, I hear that.

MATTHEW (as narrator): This was pretty typical of her style. She would sometimes strap her students into a machine that flipped you upside-down while you sang. Then she would put elastic exercise bands on your jaw, to make sure it wouldn’t come forward, and jab a wooden pole into your solar plexus to make sure your epigastrium wasn't tensing.

NORMMA: See, now I’m holding — this is the muscle that grabs in the high note. See? Feel it. Near the carotid, right here. Um, see? Put your hand there, let me show you…

MATTHEW (as narrator): Normma wanted to make sure that the larynx, the part of the throat that contains the vocal cords, was low, so she would routinely hold me by the throat while I was singing. I'd come home with red marks on my neck, as if someone had tried to choke me.

[Matthew sings vocal exercises.]

NORMMA: You can do it, you can do it.

[Matthew sings some more.]

NORMMA: That was the muscle. Yeah. Yeah.

MATTHEW (as narrator): I know this might sound kind of abusive, but Normma was truly committed to her students. She hung me upside down and grabbed me by the throat because all she wanted was to make me a better singer. She put her soul into those lessons, and they really paid off.

[Matthew sings vocal exercises.]

NORMMA: No, “speh” is wrong. [Normma sings the vocal exercise to demonstrate how it should sound.]

[Matthew tries the vocal exercise again.]

NORMMA: That’s it.

[Matthew sings.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): My voice became more flexible, and I was able to navigate the voice-change unscathed.

I studied with Normma right up to when I started college at New England Conservatory; and that's where I met my third and current teacher, Michael Meraw.

MICHAEL: I'm an ex-countertenor and baritone. I'm a voice teacher. Um… And then, of course, husband, father, and hockey coach.

MATTHEW: Mm-hmm. Could you talk a little bit about the differences between teaching blind students as opposed to sighted students?

MICHAEL: You know, I was — I was thinking about this, because it's an interesting question, um, partially because I have such a limited sample.

MATTHEW: [Laughs.] Very true.

MICHAEL: I have — I have you. Um, and, you know, one very obvious thing that I discovered in teaching you is that, for obvious reasons, you depend very much on the sort of physical feedback of the sound within you and about you.

Um, and unfortunately, as I spend time with sighted singers, that is one of the greatest obstacles, too — is they cannot spend time trying to get feedback. Um, because that's a rabbit hole that you go down, and it becomes something you're chasing as opposed to actually just singing. And so they don't fully appreciate the feeling of a sound, or the sound of a sound — the way you can — when they're distracted by their eyes and the information it's giving. And that might be a fascinating thing to hear from you about.

MATTHEW: It's an interesting concept. I've never… I've never considered sharing that because I just assumed that, kind of, people, whether you have vision or don't have vision, you just kind of… you think about the muscles, you think about the notes. You just kind of prepare to make art, and then you do it. I mean, of course, vision is a — a major source of information, but I, I didn't really think about it interfering with the singing as much as it probably does.

MICHAEL: Well, you just have to see somebody who is engrossed in a bad television show and you call their name and they don't hear you to know that if the information you're getting from your eyes overwhelms the sound you're feeling… My first serious voice teacher, or I guess my second serious voice teacher, talked about feeling in a sort of, hmm, uh, a loving way is not the right answer… an enjoying way, in an enjoyable way, the sound when you're making it. Now, that can be taken too far and get in your way. But I do think that the way you perceive the feeling of sound and arguably the aural feedback you get in singing would be simply deeper than mine would be, potentially.

[Matthew singing.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): A lot of singers talk about mentally placing the voice in physical space: sometimes you put it in the front of the face, where your mustache would be; sometimes in the middle of your skull; and sometimes in the back of your head, behind your soft palate. Generally, though, I try to not hyperfocus on where the sound is in my body, but instead think of sound as a way to tell a story.

[Matthew singing “How Beautiful Is Night.”]

If I'm singing a song about how beautiful the night is, I try to imagine a warm summer night by Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire.

[“How Beautiful Is Night” up to full volume, then fades down.]

You should probably go to bed, but it's just so peaceful out, that you want to stay there, and revel in that silence.

[“How Beautiful Is Night” up to full volume, then fades down.]

I've heard that sighted people have all these tricks for dealing with anxiety when they're onstage, like looking past an audience member's head, or making direct eye contact with one person. Since I can't see my audience at all when I'm singing, I try to tune out the space around me, and transport myself to wherever the music takes me, like that warm summer night in New Hampshire.

[Singing and piano music end.]

MATTHEW (as interviewer): And then, moving a little bit forward, thinking about the recital.

MATTHEW (as narrator): Back to my conversation with Michael.

MICHAEL: Mm-hmm.

MATTHEW (as interviewer): What's your recipe? I mean… I'm thinking about this recital. I mean, sometimes you have singers who are graduating and they're just like, “Oh, well, this is my recital. I'm gonna sing things and then they're gonna set me free.” [Laughs.] And I — I really don't want to take that approach. I — I want it to really be kind of an engaging experience that really makes people kind of revel in the qualities of the human voice. What are — what's your advice to make that happen? What concrete steps do I need to take to really make this recital impactful?

MICHAEL: Right… OK. Well, I think you want to have a balanced program that takes them on a trip, takes them on a… on a kind of a journey. And that is one of my favorite quotes. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who of course is well known in song recital circles, used to apparently say to his pianist before he went out onstage “gute Reise,” which means “good journey.” Meaning we shall go out there and we will take people somewhere and we will not be the same when we come off the stage, and arguably, neither will they.

And I think that's what people want. They don't want just vapid entertainment. There's lots of vapid entertainment in the world today. Feeling like you're taking somebody on a trip through a topographical landscape of joy and sadness and, and fear and angst and then resolution and apotheosis or whatever, you know, like that's a bit much.

But you need to have something you want to share, something you feel compelled to bring to an audience. And when you do that, you are much more likely to be vulnerable in front of that audience. And those moments of vulnerability are what I will give my teeth for, to see in a recital. To feel something.

[Classical piano, then Matthew comes in, singing Vivaldi.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): For my recital, I'm hoping to take the audience on a journey through time. The first part will consist of classical music, starting from Vivaldi in the 1700s and ending with George Crumb in 1946.

[Matthew sings Crumb.]

The second half will focus on contemporary music…

[Matthew sings Kurt Weill.]

Kurt Weill, Yiddish theater songs from the 1920s, French chansons from the 1940s, culminating in my own one-man musical, called The Confidence Academy. This last piece will be the biggest undertaking of the whole recital, which is where my fourth teacher, Màtti Covler, comes in.

MATTHEW (as interviewer): So, do you remember how we first started studying?

MÀTTI COVLER: I actually do remember. I remember that your mother called me on the phone. We had a three-hour-long conversation… [Fades under.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): When I was in high school, I auditioned for the school cabaret and didn't get in. I went to the theater director after to ask for feedback, and he said I didn't get in because I was blind. He said it right to my face.

Then, when I brought in the big guns — my mom, who had been in countless meetings with teachers, advocating for my education — the director suddenly back-pedaled and said that it had nothing to do with my blindness. My mom told him about all the other plays I'd been in and how the directors had adapted them for me. She even cited the law, which stated that blind students must be accommodated in extracurricular activities. But he wouldn't budge. The man just didn't care.

[Melancholic piano music comes in.]

Mom left the office and cried in the hallway. “Pick your battles,” my dad always said. This one didn’t seem worth fighting, so I gave up — on that teacher, at least.

At the time, I was starting to study composition with Màtti. And as it turned out, he was starting a theater troupe of his own. He invited me to act in it, and was more than willing to adapt the shows so I could perform in them.

We traveled to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, and put on interactive theater experiences in sculpture parks and art museums. It was awesome. Without those shows, I would’ve been a depressed mess in high school. And I’ve kept working with Màtti ever since.

MATTHEW (as interviewer): So first, I think first question should be: what are the differences for you between teaching blind students and sighted students?

MÀTTI: I mean, since, since we deal with music composition, there's not a whole lot of difference, I think. It's, it's more about creativity, development of musical imagination… And these things do not require the visual side. I mean, music is in our heads, in our brains, in our imagination, and also in our fingers.

I mean, of course, uh, when it comes to notation and using notation software and… this is, this is where the challenges arise.

But I think the common core is something that I actually get from my own teacher and then I do, which is no matter what you do, you kind of need to try to access the inner child in you and your students. And through this inner child, you can access many beautiful creative things.

[Matthew works on songs on piano.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): My musical, The Confidence Academy, is loosely based on my own experiences at an independence-training program for the blind — all told in song of course.

[Matthew continues working on songs on piano.]

For me, writing music is mostly improvising. Once I have the basic lyrics and structure of a song in mind, I sit down at the piano, turn on a tape recorder, and let loose.

[Matthew continues working on songs on piano.]

MATTHEW (in recording): That’s… spicy? But not what we need.

MATTHEW (as narrator): It's kind of like fishing: you know that your goal is to catch fish, but you have no idea what you’ll catch until a fish almost yanks your arm out of its socket.

MATTHEW (in recording): That E-flat is flat. And it’s…

MATTHEW (as narrator): Same with improvisation. You have a general idea of what you’re going to write about, but the thrill is thinking of something on the fly and then having to stop the tape because you’re laughing so hard. That’s what the inner child is for me: giving yourself the opportunity to be as goofy and ridiculous as possible, without worrying about what you're trying to say, or whether it’ll work. Sometimes it takes me days to get to that place, and I’ll have takes and takes that are just blah. And then, when I’m about to give up and throw my tape-recorder against the wall, that energy, that anger, gets me going, and something hilarious or insightful comes out.

[Matthew sings and works on a song on piano.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): Some composers will write their ideas out on paper, but Braille music notation is incredibly cumbersome, so most of my songs come together entirely in my head.

For me, a melody only exists as sound, not lines and circles on a page. In fact, many times, I learned a song from a recording, only to later discover that some parts of it were the singer's improvisation, not what the composer wrote at all.

That line between composition and improvisation gets a little blurry when you can't see the music written out.

[Matthew works on a song on piano.]

For my musical, Màtti or one of my friends from school will help me notate everything on a computer, based on the recordings I've made, so that my accompanist will be able to play along during the recital.

[Matthew finishes working on a song.]

The recital itself is entirely virtual due to the pandemic. I recorded videos of the individual pieces in the program and then streamed the whole thing live via YouTube. So, you're not going to be hearing any thunderous applause, but fortunately, I was able to get some audience members to record themselves as they watched.

[Accordion music comes in gently.]

BEN THOMPSON: All right, so, um… this is an unusual kind of description since I'm not describing it with Matthew, I'm actually describing Matthew and recording myself.

MATTHEW: You may remember my friend Ben, who I went to the movies with.

BEN: I don't know what to expect or what I'm doing, so in that sense it's a pretty typical description.

RACHEL COSSAR: Looks like this is about to start!

MATTHEW: And Rachel, my gesture coach.

RACHEL: I hope I'm doing this right, but I'm very excited and it's so nice to see all the people who are watching this.

MATTHEW: Olav from LEGO is watching, as is Tatiana, my dating guide.

TATIANA HAYKIN: I’m not a professional musician, and I know very little about music, actually.

MATTHEW: My parents, the whole podcast team from Radiotopia. Everyone is able to tune in on YouTube for the big show.

BEN: One minute. 9, 8, 7, 6…

MATTHEW: And all I have to do is press play.

RACHEL: 3, 2, 1...

[Recital starts.]

MATTHEW: I remember as I stood in front of the Steinway piano in the recording studio, preparing myself for Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater, I thought back to how Rachel and I had prepared for the TED Talk, and how we would identify the right gesture to make each moment pop.

[Matthew sings “Stabat Mater.”]

Then, mid-piece, during the most grief-stricken part, I slowly lifted up my right hand, moved it left, and placed it on my heart, holding it there, until the next piano interlude came in. It was a small gesture, but it felt right. It was a movement, with purpose.

[“Stabat Mater” ends.]

I like to think I channeled all of my mentors in this recital.

[Another piece in the program begins.]

Alexander’s theatricality, Normma’s technique, Michael’s artistry, and Màtti’s gusto and creative energy.

[Another piece begins.]

But I also know they can only take me so far. As with any mentorship, you take what they can teach you, and then try to make it your own.

[Yiddish folk song and accordion continue.]

After we filmed the videos for the recital, I showed them all to Màtti, my composition teacher, for feedback. His only comment was: “Why are you wearing that awful sweater?” Well, what could I say? Mom said it looked good on me.

[Another piece comes in.]

The night before the recital, I stayed up late sending invitation emails. And in the end, there were 400 people there, watching it live.

COMMENTER 1: I’ve been waiting for this moment.

MATTHEW: Comments started pouring in.

COMMENTER 2: Hi Matthew! Congratulations on…

COMMENTER 1: Love those chords.

COMMENTER 2: And I love the accordion!

MATTHEW: It was so heartwarming to see all these people actively participating in the experience…

COMMENTER 3: Oh, [inaudible] Matthew.

COMMENTER 4: I think you could play all…

MATTHEW: Instead of sitting in hushed silence in a concert hall.

COMMENTER 5: Bach is tapping his toes from the Great Beyond.

[Matthew finishes singing a piece.]

COMMENTER 6: Wow, wow…

RACHEL: My favorite.

[Clapping.]

BEN: Matthew has obviously quite a vocal range, and I really wouldn't have known this was the same singer.

[Matthew performs a song from his musical.]

TATIANA: Your best part was the third part when you were actually playing your own music.

[Matthew continues to perform a song he wrote himself: “Will I ever learn the / Secrets of adulting…”]

TATIANA: And you were totally alive and into it, and I can see the characters, and I love your accordion work.

[Matthew continues to perform a song he wrote himself: “Probably not. / Probably not… / Why not? / It’s worth a try.”]

COMMENTER 7: Oh, very interesting.

COMMENTER 8: Bravo!

COMMENTER 9: Congratulations.

MATTHEW (in video): Thank you for coming.

COMMENTER 10: Thank goodness!

MATTHEW (in video): And I hope to see you again after this pandemic blows over.

BEN: All right, that’s the end of the solo, so…

RACHEL: This is amazing! Thank you so much for letting us…

COMMENTER 11: I can see that you worked very hard during your years at the conservatory…

[Reflective piano music.]

MATTHEW: Once the curtain finally comes down, and the thank-you letters are all sent, there's a feeling of emptiness. I worked so hard to make this recital happen, and it went great, but it was fleeting, transitory. I guess that’s why we keep performing, even if virtually: to feel that momentary connection with the audience, and as my singing teacher Michael said, to take them on a journey that leaves us all in a different place than where we began.

[Melancholy, reflective piano music comes up to full volume for a few seconds.]

Blind Guy Travels from Radiotopia is written and performed by me, Matthew Shifrin. Our producer and sound designer is Ian Coss. Julie Shapiro and Audrey Mardavich are our executive producers.

Thank you so much to our recital commentators: Ben Thompson, Tatiana Haykin, Rachel Cossar, and Olav Gjerlufsen.

If you’d like to hear the complete recital, visit radiotopiapresents.fm.

Next time on Blind Guy Travels, our final episode, and my graduation day.

[Piano music stretches on a few bars longer, then resolves.]

END OF EPISODE.

Transcript for Episode Six - Crossing the Street

MATTHEW SHIFRIN: The thing we are applying to is the SICPP.

DAD: Wait a minute.

MATTHEW: OK.

MATTHEW (as narrator): I'm in my dad's home office, filling out an application form.

DAD: OK. [Typing.] SICPP.

MATTHEW: Dot org.

DAD: [Typing.] Dot org.

MATTHEW: And then you hit Enter.

DAD: SICPP… “Announcing SICPP”—

MATTHEW: Yes.

MATTHEW (as narrator): This is a regular occurrence for us: whether I'm applying for college, grad school, singing competitions, technology development grants — basically anything with an online form.

DAD: I’m filling out your form.

MATTHEW: Uh-huh. First name, last name…

MATTHEW (as narrator): Technically, these websites are accessible for blind people. But my screen reader can only relay the words, not the layout: no lines, no columns and no boxes, just raw text that I have to listen through in search of clues for what goes where. So I simply write up all the text on my own, and then ask my dad to help paste it into the right boxes.

[Matthew continues filling out the application with his dad. We hear typing and some chatter.]

And, as if I needed another reminder that this form was not designed with me in mind, there are the security questions.

DAD: Security question. “What is your favorite color?” Really?

[Both laugh.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): Your favorite color and your first car.

DAD: [Laughingly.] “What was the make of your first car?”

MATTHEW (as narrator): I have neither.

DAD: “Where did you spend your honeymoon?” [Matthew laughs.] “Who is your favorite superhero?”

MATTHEW (as narrator): But we find one that works, and move on.

[Jazzy, slow piano music comes in.]

MATTHEW: I guess we could do the superhero one?

DAD: Ah… [inaudible] spelling that one…

MATTHEW: Uh… that’s a good point…

MATTHEW (as narrator): I've always been close with my parents and still rely on their help with things like annoying online forms and making sure my outfits match before performing in a concert; things that my sighted friends don’t need help with, for obvious reasons.

DAD: [Speaking Russian] coupon code?

MATTHEW: No…

MATTHEW (as narrator): I guess I could have rebelled when I was a teenager and insisted that I do it all myself. But do I really want to spend three hours slogging through a form that my dad can fill out in half an hour? Nope.

[Matthew and his dad chatter back and forth in Russian.]

[Slow piano music continues.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): During the show, I've introduced you to the people who have helped and supported me: Lilya, Ben, my gesture coach Rachel, my singing teacher Michael, my friend Rauf. Each of them has helped me understand the world — and myself — in ways that I couldn't on my own. But no one has guided me more than my parents.

I wouldn't say that my sighted friends have outgrown their parents, but they've leveled up, if you will, and moved out. And I'm hoping to do the same. I'll be graduating from college in a few months, and I’m trying to figure out what comes next.

[Piano music continues.]

My name is Matthew Shifrin, and this is Blind Guy Travels, from Radiotopia.

[Piano music resolves and ends.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): Independence is a word that’s thrown around in the blind community a lot. When teachers talk about it, it seems like some sort of enlightenment that you’ll reach if you get the proper training, find a steady job, and learn all the little skills you’ll need to navigate the world on your own. For my parents, it’s something they knew they had to prepare me for, ever since they learned I’d never see.

MATTHEW: So, um, first of all, I think it would make sense to start at the beginning. Could you talk a little bit about Dr. Hartnett and, kind of, the — the time when… when she told you that I would be blind?

DAD: So it was many steps, and every step was, you know, next step was worse than the previous one. And I remember that when she told me that most likely you will — you'll lose your eyesight, I just fainted right in her office. I just, you know — everything, you know, blacked out and I came back when they gave me the… something to, to sniff you know, to bring me back. So that's how… how it was the first time.

MATTHEW (as narrator): After that, there were more appointments and treatments, and even an experimental procedure in Detroit where they tried injecting something into my eyes to make the retinas reattach.

DAD: But nothing worked, actually. So…

MATTHEW: Kind of, wh— what was your grieving process like?

DAD: There was — there was never a grieving process. You know, it was like, that's the deal you got and you need to deal with it. So…

MATTHEW: I just ask because some families really, kind of — it hits them very hard and they think about all the things their child can't do.

DAD: Yeah… No, what I remember is there was a young nurse in the intensive care unit, and when you have developed first signs of retinopathy, she said, “Well, OK, so you won't be an airline pilot, so what?” And, you know, that was, you know, the attitude that was helpful. Also, you know, you had very large ears back then and she said, “Oh, he'll grow up, he'll grow into them,” or something like that. [Matthew laughs.] So… [laughing] it was another prediction which turned out to be true.

MATTHEW: [Laughing.] That's true.

DAD: But they were really big, so…

MATTHEW: Mm-hmm.

DAD: For your size, you know?

[Both laugh.]

[Upbeat, jazzy piano music comes in.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): I began my independence training at 5 years old, when I got my first cane. It was actually a pre-cane: basically a square frame that I would push ahead of me with both hands, almost like mowing the lawn. It helped me learn what different surfaces, like asphalt or brick, felt like, teaching me to interpret the vibrations of a physical object.

A year later, I graduated to a proper white cane. I had to be measured for it, since canes are supposed to go up to your sternum, and sometimes even your chin. At the time, I was working with an Orientation and Mobility instructor, or O and M, and I remember the instructor putting a tape measure against my chest to make sure he ordered the correct length.

That first cane was a non-folding, or straight cane, with a janky handle made out of the kind of foam you see on exercise equipment from the ’80s — the flaky, peeling kind. It had a marshmallow-shaped tip, which helped it roll better on the ground. Soon, though, it became impractical, since if I put the straight cane down under my chair, it would roll away, or students could trip on it. And putting it by the classroom door wasn't an option, either, since I wouldn't have time to grab it during fire drills, when everyone would be stampeding out into the hall. So my O and M teacher got me a folding cane that breaks down like a tent pole, small enough that I could put it in my backpack. I've haven't gone anywhere without one since.

[Jazzy piano music ends.]

As a student, my first task was to learn how to get from classroom to classroom inside my school. We would play games where a teacher would give me a location and we'd see who could get there faster. He called it time-distance, since the point of the exercise was to learn how long it takes you to get from place to place — one minute from my classroom to the nurse's office; four minutes to the auditorium. I could practically count how many steps it took.

MATTHEW: I am on the sidewalk that is in front of my school. And we’re just going to go over how to cross…

MATTHEW (as narrator): Once I mastered the indoor routes, I had to learn the outdoor ones, like how to get from the school's entrance to the parking space where my parents would pick me up.

MATTHEW: … And I’ll be good to go.

O AND M INSTRUCTOR: Now, you want the mic on? …

MATTHEW (as narrator): I actually recorded one of these practice sessions when I was in high school.

[Sound of a vehicle going by.]

MATTHEW: There’s parallel traffic going in front of us, relatively large…

O AND M INSTRUCTOR: That’s a school bus.

MATTHEW: Didn’t sound like a school bus. Sounded like a truck. But, whatever.

O AND M INSTRUCTOR: Well, same thing.

MATTHEW: Yeah, so —

O AND M INSTRUCTOR: What you’re going to do is line yourself up —

MATTHEW: Yup. I’m lined up. And I’m going forward.

[Sound of cane tapping on the ground.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): Part of what I was learning here is how to use the bumpy plates that are in a lot of sidewalks now — what I called ‘sidewalk Braille.’

[The sound of something gently hitting a car.]

MATTHEW: And that was just my dad’s car getting bumped. And I’m on the other side of the sidewalk Braille.

O AND M INSTRUCTOR: Um…

MATTHEW: Yes?

[Simple accordion music comes in.]

O AND M INSTRUCTOR: Get over to your left to stay in the middle of the sidewalk.

MATTHEW: Oh. Whoops. I have to get to in the middle of the sidewalk. I trail the grass on my left, by having my cane touch it, and, oh, I found the shrubs. So I’m gonna take a right, go down to the sidewalk Braille, which I just found. [Cane taps a few times.] And now go down from there. Turn and stop.

O AND M INSTRUCTOR: What are you facing?

MATTHEW: I am facing… [Fades out.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): The best O and M teacher I ever had was named Aaron Rouby. My previous teachers would walk right next to me, so if anything happened they'd be right there to help. Maybe they were worried about their own liability if they let me be too independent. But Aaron wasn't like those teachers.

[Sound of cane tapping.]

When we'd practice together, he'd walk silently a few steps behind me, and only step in if things really got dangerous. Sometimes, I'd be wandering in some stranger's driveway for what seemed like hours, before realizing that this was not a road at all… while Aaron just stood there patiently, waiting for my ‘aha!’ moment. That kind of tough love was exactly what I needed.

[Sound of traffic going by.]

I worked with Aaron as I was preparing to start college at New England Conservatory, so the goal of our lessons was for me to learn how to navigate the campus by myself, right in the middle of Boston.

[A single accordion note begins to drone.]

[Sound of traffic, a bus hissing as it stops, a car horn honking…]

When you're outside in the city, there's no way to take in the big picture, so you try to lock onto minute details — an echo off a building, a flagpole clanking and flapping in the wind, the hum of an HVAC unit, anything that can give you a snippet of info about where you are and what's around you.

[Single accordion note morphs into jaunty accordion music with a hint of something sinister…]

MATTHEW (as narrator): Once, Aaron and I were standing at an intersection with a beeping traffic light.

[Sound of traffic going by.]

I pressed the button and waited. These lights were often broken, and would just beep incessantly without telling you when it was safe to cross. I heard a man next to me say, "It's green." The light continued its monotonous beeping, so I figured it must be broken, and moved to step into the street.

[Accordion music begins to sound more sinister.]

Suddenly, Aaron grabbed me from behind. "Are the cars still moving?" he asked me. I listened, and sure enough, cars were zooming by at 40 miles an hour. And the man suggesting I step into oncoming traffic was nowhere to be found. "Be careful," Aaron told me, "and trust no one."

[Accordion music ends on a long, droning, sinister note.]

That may be good advice, but still, Aaron is sighted and I’m blind, so at some point I’ll have to trust people, whether I like it or not.

MATTHEW: What do you think I need to learn as a blind person? What — I mean, I'm at this crossroads, if you will. What do you think about, kind of, me leaving home and going out on my own, and kind of that whole aspect of it?

[Pause.]

DAD: Yeah, that's the most difficult thing, because, you know, everybody who, when, you know, the child leaves a home, it's a difficult time for the parents. And for us, you know, because you are blind, you are lacking a lot of information that, you know, the other people will have by default, you know? So, in some aspects, you'll be like a child because, you know, the child at some age doesn't know many things, right? And you are at your age, but you still may not know. [Laughs.]

MATTHEW: Could you give some examples?

DAD: How to stop, uh, the fire alarm. [Laughing.] I don't know, you know? The things you'll come across. Some bigger things, too, but, you know, it's…

MATTHEW: What would some of those bigger things be?

DAD: I would say life experiences, you know? The deceit. You know, betrayals, you know, things like this.

MATTHEW: Mm-hmm. And you think that things like deception or deceit are easier to spot because you're sighted, or it's just a matter of I haven't been in the world long enough to really engage with those emotions?

DAD: Both. Just the sense that you are more vulnerable than I was at your age.

[Melancholy piano music comes in.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): I wrote a song once, called “Empty Space,” which ended with these words:

“Help me, somebody help me. / I'm losing myself in this city. / I tried, I can't find where I started, / but is that just where I wanted to be? / Trying to follow them. Why would they hide from me? / What if they're standing there, but I've never noticed them? / Never knowing what it is you'll find. / Always on the edge.”

That feeling of never knowing what’s around me is still true today. When I’m walking outside, I feel anxious and vulnerable. Not because something’s going to happen to me, but because it might. And if it does, I’m more likely to get injured or lost than a sighted person.

It’s pretty embarrassing to feel anxious about crossing the street or going to the grocery store — things sighted people do without batting an eye — but the inability to see the objects and people around me means that I have to be on high alert all the time, almost hypervigilant, to make sure I’m safe. That kind of vigilance takes a mental toll. When I used to come home from my Orientation and Mobility lessons, I’d be completely exhausted, because it took so much energy just to get from point A to point B.

I try to go places with friends whenever I can, since that takes some of the stress off. And services like Uber and Lyft make getting from place to place much easier. But even then, I still use my GPS app to make sure the driver is taking me where I want to go, just to be safe.

[Piano music ends with a small flourish, and transitions into Matthew singing “Empty Space.”]

Like the song says: "Never knowing what it is you'll find. Always on the edge."

MATTHEW (as narrator): I graduate from college on May 23rd in New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall. My parents can't be there in the room, due to the pandemic, so I go alone.

[Sounds of graduates chatting, subdued graduation day din.]

PROFESSOR: Do you want to find your seat now?

MATTHEW: Sure. Would that work?

PROFESSOR: All right. Yeah. How do you want me to do that? Do you want to grab my arm? Or—

MATTHEW: I can grab an arm, if that’s easier.

PROFESSOR: Sure. Here we go.

MATTHEW: Thanks.

MATTHEW (as narrator): One of my professors leads me down a maze of zigzagging hallways to get me to my seat, somewhere up in the balcony.

MATTHEW: And the diplomas are on the chairs? I assume?

PROFESSOR: They’re on the chairs, yeah.

MATTHEW (as narrator): I can hear the other students filing in around me, as “Pomp and Circumstance” plays over the loudspeakers.

[We hear “Pomp and Circumstance” playing in the background.]

Finally, the president of the conservatory takes the stage, and the hall bursts into applause.

[Graduates clap and cheer.]

Graduating from music school in the 21st century brings with it a lot of uncertainty, for anyone. There's no one path to success, and success is different for different people. But to me, the path seems especially nebulous. The standard jobs that artists take while pursuing their craft, like waiting tables, or being administrative assistants, aren't things that I can do.

[Quiet, slow piano music comes in as students clap and cheer again.]

So how do I make that leap from an aspiring artist to a professional? I'm hoping to put off that question for a while by going to grad school, but that can only last so long. At some point, I'll have to earn my own living.

[Graduation ends with cheers and applause, and the quiet piano music fades out.]

I believe that no one is truly independent. We all ask others for help, even sighted people. They probably won't ask for my help crossing the street, but they may ask for my advice on an issue or open up to me because they think, as a blind person, I'm more likely to listen, and less likely to judge. Maybe that’s why so many blind people become therapists.

For me, independence is knowing the places I'm comfortable with, and going out of my comfort zone in controlled ways to get slices of independent life without being thrown into the deep end. Sometimes, I take the train places, just to make sure I can, to learn to count stops and figure out when and how to board and disembark. Some blind people wander around their city or town just exploring. I'm not at that level of comfort yet, but if I go to grad school in a new place, like New York, I might just get there.

[Jaunty accordion music comes in.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): For now, I always say a short prayer before dashing full-speed across the street, since I never know when the light will turn red.

[Jaunty accordion music comes up to full volume, then fades under narration.]

I started Blind Guy Travels with an idea: a travel podcast hosted by a blind guy. I did research and created a giant list of travel destinations, things to do, and people to interview all around the world. Eventually, I got in touch with Julie Shapiro at Radiotopia, who introduced me to one of their producers, Ian Coss.

That was over two years ago, in 2019, and it's hard to believe how much has happened in that time: I did that TED Talk and learned the basics of gesture, LEGO released their text-based building instructions for the blind, there was a global pandemic, I wrote a musical, and now I've graduated from college.

When all this started, and I was a sophomore in college, what I'd do post-graduation was a distant worry. But now here I am. It's pretty daunting to try and figure it all out, especially during a pandemic that has been incredibly isolating for blind people. Blind Guy couldn't travel anymore, but the podcast evolved, and it has helped me immensely. It's given me the chance to reflect on experiences I haven't thought about in years, and have conversations that never would have happened on their own.

At one point, we thought about changing the name of the show, since we weren't doing much traveling, but something about it just felt right. It's not the journey I thought I'd be taking right now, but it's a journey for sure.

Creating Blind Guy Travels became a constant when everything around me was in flux. Our team — Ian, the show's producer, and Julie and Audrey, our executive producers — were all in it together, united in making this show. And now you're listening to it.

I have more stories of course — like the time I went urban exploring in the bowels of MIT, or how singing in a sawmill landed me a movie role — and there are new stories beginning every day. But that's for another time and another podcast.

[Accordion music comes up to full volume, then ends. New accordion music comes in.]

MATTHEW (as narrator): Blind Guy Travels from Radiotopia is written and performed by me, Matthew Shifrin. I also wrote and performed the music in today’s episode. Our producer and sound designer is Ian Coss. Audrey Mardavich and Julie Shapiro are our Executive Producers.

A special thank you to Mark Pagán from Radiotopia, who helped shape these stories into the episodes you’ve heard.

Thank you to our marketing team: David Cotrone, Mariel Cariker, and Charlotte Cooper, as well as Austin Boyer and Ma'ayan Plaut at PRX. And finally, thank you to Joe Richman from Radio Diaries, who connected me with Radiotopia in the first place.

[Accordion music ends.]

I thought it would only be right to end this series with a song, so here’s a number from my musical, The Confidence Academy, about a blind schlimazel, trying to make his way on his own. Happy listening.

[Jaunty accordion music comes in.]

MATTHEW (singing): Have you ever witnessed / such a frazzled fellow? / Fella who put Comet / in his tea! / Nutmeg in the washer! / Thought it was detergent. / Need the world’s worst cleaner? / Well, that’s me.

Will I ever learn the / secrets of adulting? / How to cook and iron? / Wash and dry? / Maybe scrub a pot? / Probably not! / Probably not.

Mother tried to teach me / how to be an adult / up until I vandalized / our house. / It was accidental. / Tried to fix an outlet. / Started up a blaze / I couldn’t douse.

Father tried to teach me / how to fill the car up. / That adventure ended / with a boom! / Give me one more shot? / Probably not! / Probably not.

So I Googled a bit, / and what did I find? / An intense six-month course / teaching skills to the blind.

The Confidence Academy. / The Confidence Academy! / If I really commit, / I could learn to adult real soon.

Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely / living somewhere different? / Find a girl you like, / then she’s your wife! / Graduate from college. / Find a job that suits you. / Look! No more anxiety / And strife.

If I take this program, / all the world’s before me. / I can bid my cleaning woes / goodbye. / I could have a life… / Probably not! / Probably not.

Why not? / It’s worth a try…

[Music fades out.]

END OF EPISODE.