Blindfold Press – blog
Definition of blindfold
We have been asked what our publishing “house” is about. What kind of books are we going to publish. Will we only publish online? Will we do print books? Will we sell gifty items? I don’t feel we can answer any of those questions yet, or else the answer is Yes to all possibilities.
Founded in 2020, a year that should have exemplified clarity of vision but which really was a year of stumbling around in the dark, the blind leading the blind, Blindfold Press should be dedicated to the publication of things that allow us to better see the conditions in which we live and to critically examine how we experience them.
That is too big an ambition, and too small.
What Blindfold Press will do should be as varied as the meanings of word “blindfold”.
OUr favourite meaning of “blindfold” relates to type of magic. A “blindfold” is a type of trick in which an illusion of ‘seeing’ is created even while the magician cannot see or is literally blindfolded.
Our second most favourite meaning of “blindfold” is on the gallows side of humour: the imprisoned rebel or resistance fighter tied to a pole before a firing squad.
Then there are the more playful meanings: blindman’s bluff, pin the tail on the donkey.
What we are doing now, in the midst of this pandemic, is related to all these various meanings. Doctors and other experts appear “to know” based on nebulous, never really fully explained “facts;” we (many of us) feel we are in the firing line and chained by weakly justified social restrictions; and everyone is chasing around not really knowing what to do, what is permitted and what is not.
DEFINITION
The best definition is, as usual, to be found on Wikipedia.
1: to cover the eyes of with or as if with a bandage
2: to hinder from seeing especially: to keep from comprehension
1: a bandage for covering the eyes
2: something that obscures mental or physical vision
…
TRIVIA
How do we know what we know? And do we really know it?
Perhaps we need some sort of test? Like…
Leonard Feather’s Blindfold Tests
The Blindfold Tests are a series of interviews conducted by jazz critic Leonard Feather with prominent jazz musicians throughout the 20th century.
Charlie Mingus takes the Feather’s Blindfold Test.
…
For now, our preferred meaning of “blindfold” is as in magic, like driving a car blindfolded, or a publishing house.