With our ASL Opera project picking up steam, I was curious to know just how the “High Art” of Opera has influenced mainstream American culture over the last 50 years or so, and I was surprised to learn, via ChatGPT-4 AI, just how deeply many of the most famous Opera melodies made their way into our shared childhoods and our culturally maintained totems of relevance!
For the past 60 days, I have been intensively studying the Italian language. I want to learn Italian in order to better serve our ASL Opera project since 50% of the most popular operas were written in Italian (25% were written in German, and 15% were written in French). I understand modern Italian isn’t the same as “original opera Italian” — but learning something new only helps deepen the appreciation of the comprehension of the context of the original aesthetic. In this article, I will share with you some of the treasures, and techniques, I have been using to apply a greater understanding to my Italian learning.
Continue reading → Learning Italian Lifetime Immersion Style
[UPDATE: September 12, 2023; our ASL Opera Project website is now live! Join us there for new videos, translation updates, and for consultation concerning the right interpretation of Opera in American Sign Language!]
On July 11, 2023 — the anniversary of our being married for 35 years — Janna and I had the complete delight, and the absolute honor, to meet with The Metropolitan Opera to discuss our ASL Opera project intended to bring live and “High Art” American Sign Language interpretation to MetOpera productions! The meeting was positive, forward-thinking and inclusive! If you are interested in working with our High Art ASL Opera Project, or if you want more information, please Contact Us and we’ll be happy to meet you! Our ASL-Opera.com and ASLopera.com domains currently point to this article!
Continue reading → Yes, the Deaf Just May Sing at the Metropolitan Opera!
[UPDATE: September 12, 2023; our ASL Opera Project website is now live! Join us there for new videos, translation updates, and for consultation concerning the right interpretation of Opera in American Sign Language!]
[UPDATE: July 11, 2023. Janna and I met with the Metropolitan Opera to discuss heightened ASL interpreting for their performances. The meeting was positive, forward-thinking, and hopeful! We will soon update with more information! Here’s the July 11 update!]
My delightful wife Janna Sweenie and I are big lovers of opera. Opera is the pinnacle of all the Performing Arts — Painting, Acting, Voice, Costumes, Lights and Sets — and when put together, in unison, in an exaggerated and elevated performance, the entire world glows and resonates! We have always been dismayed that opera is not often, if ever, interpreted in American Sign Language for the Deaf like all Broadway shows are interpreted. Janna and I are currently working on our “Opera Project” where she will present ASL renderings of famous opera arias. We will place those performances online as proof-of-concept. This is a challenging, but rewarding, and complex academic process of interpretation and adaptation, and implementation.
Here’s my Boles.tv live stream discussion of the Deaf singing at The Met:
Continue reading → Will The Metropolitan Opera Allow the Deaf to Sing?
As an early advocate for AI (Artificial Intelligence) I get some pushback from people who don’t know anything about the technology and who just want to persecute the entire idea of AI anything. They argue AI text responses are wrong; they bray that AI images are stolen. I have little patience for having a conversation with those types of Luddite deniers because, in the end, their arguments are both boring and wrong. Here’s why.
I recently had an online conversation about the future of AI, and the possibility of the human mind one day becoming AI — and the subsequent gift of everlasting life would finally be realized. We are not our bodies. We are not our souls. We are our minds — filled with memories, learning, and perception. The ultimate goal we know several scientists are working on right now is to “download the mind” and copy the experiences into AI to create a parallel life among the living where the only thing that will matter moving forward is the collected, replicable, experiences of where we have been and the codification of future morality and the “human beingness” in our futures.
There’s nothing new in having established books censored. In 2011, I wrote about the concentrated effort to have Mark Twain’s books “rewritten” and “edited” without him. Today, there is a similar effort to “rewrite” and “edit” the fine work of author Roald Dahl. These reverse efforts, after publication, to quiet the writer’s voice through “social context” editing, is absolutely the same as burning books on a wood pyre — but with the excuse of protecting children. and of being sensitive to the new emancipation of provocative social norms.
Continue reading → The New Book Burning: Rewriting Roald Dahl
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