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The Golden Age of Deafness: 1991, Tanya Towers, and the Long Erosion After

There was a year, exact and bounded, when the world we built held together. 1991. David and I had just celebrated our third wedding anniversary. He had finished his MFA at Columbia that spring under Peter Stone. I had just started teaching ASL at New York University, where I have now taught for thirty-five years. I had come east from Iowa, where I attended the Iowa School for the Deaf from first grade through twelfth, and from CUNY Lehman, where I would graduate the following spring as the first Deaf graduate in the school’s history. We were in our twenties and newly credentialed, and we felt as if we owned every inch of the city.

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My Language Is Not English: A Deaf Educator Answers JB Mitchell

I have taught American Sign Language at New York University since 1991. My credentials and history sit on the public record: first Deaf graduate of CUNY Lehman College in 1992, Master’s in Deafness Rehabilitation from NYU in 1997, SCPI rating of Superior Plus, Iowa School for the Deaf from first grade through twelfth, twenty-three years as a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor for Deaf services at the New York State Department of Education, and in Spring 2023 the first Deaf dual tutorial instructor at NYU Gallatin, where one of the two tutorials I taught was Black Sign Language. I write today because a man on TikTok who calls himself an ASL Communication Coach has been telling a generation of young people that my language is English. It is not. Marlee Matlin has said so publicly, clearly, and with the moral authority she has earned across forty years of Deaf advocacy. JB Mitchell has responded by calling Marlee an actor rather than an educator. That is the move of a man who has run out of argument.

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The Metropolitan Opera is Dying Because It Wants to Die

The pinnacle of the Performing Arts in America is collapsing not from the weight of its chandelier, but from the brittleness of its imagination. The Metropolitan Opera has chosen extinction over evolution, and the evidence is no longer circumstantial.

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The EleMenTs Series Is Complete: A Young Adult Fantasy Trilogy

Twenty years ago, I began imagining a story about three disabled teenage girls who discover they possess elemental powers. The idea stayed with me, growing and changing as I grew and changed, waiting for the right moment to be told. That moment has arrived. The EleMenTs Series is complete, and all three novels are now available.

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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!]

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!

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Will The Metropolitan Opera Allow the Deaf to Sing?

[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:

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ASL and the Deaf Culture Appropriation of Apple Fitness+

I have been a big fan of Apple Fitness+. However, after completing the workouts for a several months now, I have come to the uncomfortable conclusion that Apple’s misuse of Deaf Culture — in particular, ASL — in their workouts, is a disengaging, and phony, cultural appropriation intended to falsely imply inclusion, when the real aftereffect is a complete failure of meaning. At the beginning, and at the end of almost every workout, but never during a workout, the non-Deaf, and non-ASL fluent, trainers toss in a little ASL sign — a gesture, really — like “ready” or “welcome” or “thank you” and it just comes across as clunky; a falsely sprinkled twinkle on a star. Those throwaway “ASL” signs do not fit the spoken words of the trainer, or even really the intent of the class — they’re just movements intended to appease, and impress, and to not really communicate any emotion or context. Apple uses “ASL signs” as a winking trinket without the inherent value of a cultural totem or the magic of a talisman.

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Notice of Civil Rights Violation

U.S. Department of Education via Fax

I am writing to inform you of a Civil Rights violation that occurred on the campus of LaGuardia Community College on October 15, 2016, and was sponsored by the LaGuardia Program for Deaf Adults, Sorenson Communications and the U.S. Department of Education, as a “Deaf Self-Advocacy” seminar.

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Left Behind by Design: A Voice Command Future Silences the Deaf and the Other Disabled

Ever since the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 became law on July 26 of that year, disabled people have been in a steady decline in services, support and protection. Oftentimes — the struggle is more rewarding than the win — and once the day is won, everyone relaxes, and forgets what the real meaning of the fight for rights was all about, and things begin to decay into apathy against an upward, failing, expectation.

Evidence of this lack of accessible ubiquity in our technological futures for the Disabled is the rise of the “Voice Only” command system, be it an Amazon Echo, the Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana, Xfinity Voice Remote, Apple TV voice command, Google Docs voice dictation, or even Apple’s Siri.

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Attention and Intention: Contextual Consequences and Cultural Confusion in Deaf West’s Spring Awakening Broadway Revival

Let’s agree on one thing: Deaf West’s excellent Broadway revival of “Spring Awakening” is a fine production currently showing at the Brooks Atkinson theatre in a limited run. The sets and lights are magnificent. The staging is right. The actors are completely superb. The effort is noble, but perhaps, imperfect in the execution of its essence, and it is in that vacuum of those slight flaws in amber that this review reflects — to make you think and wonder in preservation and ponder beyond the simple joy of watching a few Deaf actors on a live Broadway stage.

Continue reading → Attention and Intention: Contextual Consequences and Cultural Confusion in Deaf West’s Spring Awakening Broadway Revival