Reading For Inclusion Day

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

To lead a normal life, a person needs to have the chance to learn to empty their mind of confusing thoughts and ideas and take in new ones through education in regular schools of socially diverse children. I never had that experience. Most of my learning took place in the world of sparsely populated books and continuously running TV shows in lonely social surroundings.

All of that memory came back when skilled-children’s-book-reader-Pascal and I went to a Burlington (Vermont) Elementary School last week for a Reading for Inclusion Day. Opening students’ minds to inclusion as an idea about keeping differences in the way distance and commonalities in the foreground was my mission as I had to stimulate conversation and thinking caps with probing questions and G-rated, jolly for kids, jokes. It was more momentous to do this than speaking to lots of adult groups because operating like a teacher on the level of moving ideas around a playground of malleable jungle gyms, I knew that I might naturally influence their attitudes about their peers with disabilities.

Awestruck as I was by their participation in the discussion, I was alone in my memories of a isolated childhood so please make learning in a regular classroom a mandate, not driven by politics but by compassion and commitment to a belief that all children can learn.

~Larry

Larry & Pascal read to children as part of "Reading For Inclusion Day" in Burlington, VT

Support Our Weirdly Entertaining Film And TASH

Friday, March 18th, 2011

Tracy & Larry are supporters of TASH, an organization that advocates for human rights and inclusion for people with the most significant disabilities and support needs. For more information about TASH, please visit www.TASH.org.

Movies are the next best thing to People-like magazine coverage of your mission so I would like to rock the theaters across the country with lots of cheers to name our autistic starring roles as Oscar winning in leading the campaign for the acceptance of every one who communicates differently than the population of normally speaking, and possibly too much and too loudly, people.

Make a date at your local AMC theater to see Wretches & Jabberers in April and you will not only be supporting a very weirdly entertaining film but you will also be promoting the greater goals of TASH for inclusion and opportunities for growth as individuals and organizations in the world of disability rights.

By Larry Bissonnette, artist and advocate

Thoughts on the South End Arts Festival

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

Opportunities to show my artwork take me into a world where roaming around over the networks of the disability world moves out and leaning into attracting potential buyers of my artwork takes over. I made an appearance on last Friday night at SEABA (South End Arts and Business Association) and showed my short, like an appetizer for Wretches & Jabberers, film to an audience which included the Mayor of Burlington and wood painting frame art lovers. I newly framed and titled many pieces for this show. Most of all, my sister, Sally came out too and we mightily enjoyed this moment of artistic celebration together.

I appear more in mostly taken pictures by Pascal except when he is looking after my typing focus so please look at the photos of the event and let me know what you think.

~Larry

Larry presents his artwork at the South End Arts Festival

Looking Out To Japan

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011

Today it is noteworthy that I personally look out of myself to think about entire country of Japan and listen to how calmly they are dealing with the massive, horribly destructive earthquake that has moved over the beautiful countryside there. Missing our friends in moviemaking about intelligence, art, and disability, I was relieved to hear that they are all safe and might it be spiritually acceptable, I urge all of our fans to say prayers to let the ocean leave the shores of Japan soon and have places of powerfully made buildings give out shelter and food to those who are in need of lots of assistance.

~Larry

On Cancelled Flights

Monday, March 7th, 2011

Periods of snow and rain made a mess of our travels yesterday, but we moped only a little as opportunities to eat meaty burgers and drink tall, swimming-with-bubbles, glasses of beer punted our big movie star temper tantrums into the stratosphere of our, quite-comfortable-for-airport-hotels, rooms in snowy Albany, New York as looking to leave on good-to-go flight to Iowa is peering at us later this afternoon.

~Larry

Larry & Harvey toast in snowy Albany

Thank You AMC and Autism Society!

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

Of most insignificant movies, it can be said that words are sophomoric and characters are shallow with plot thin and music saccharine. Upset is the word that working people use to describe an underdog’s next-to-impossible win over preferred-by-lots-of-tycoons favorite. This names our documentary’s reputation in that other people might pretend the work of making movies about autism is about hiring a person like Hoffman to do his best impersonation of a Rainman-like character. Mass appeal is the goal with knowledge and understanding about autism outtaked as a mapped for DVD extra.

I am proud to say that, in the month of April, Wretches & Jabberers, popularly known as Tracy’s and Larry’s partying on sushi and not Budweiser beer adventure around the world, will be shown around greatly-seen-on-major-streets in very cosmopolitan cities theaters around the country, thanks to the support of the Autism Society of America. The necessity of impressing on the public over what is a crisis in our adult service system for autistic people ideally matched with a powerful message of hope is what our partnership will accomplish so please move your pocket books to shell out money for popcorn and movie tickets and your checkbooks to make donations to the work of ASA.

~Larry