Category: General

Valentin Haüy’s Essai (1786) * On the Education of Blind Children * NYPL Rare books * Image + Description

I wrote about Valentin Haüy and his founding of the first school for blind children in 1785 in There Plant Eyes. My dear friend David Lowe, who is a photo specialist in the Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs at the New York Public Library, read my book (Thanks, David!), and because he did, when he saw Valentin Haüy’s… Read more

Scent Lectures at the New School and NYU Tanden

I had so much fun being a guest lecturer/visiting artist in Cara Hagan‘s graduate theater class at the New School last month. I brought my boxes of smells and told them sometimes more, sometimes less about what they were and how I used them in my scent performances, such as Becoming Blind (as a Bat). I also gave them prompts… Read more

The 2024 New York City Marathon – My First Marathon!

That’s 26.2 miles my friends! MY body has recovered, but there are still cowbells ringing in my brain – the crowds were incredible, the sense of accomplishment immense. But especially, I’m so grateful to the three Achilles guides who helped me do it and have become so dear to me along the way: Gillian Broome, Sarah Goodman, and Kristen Berke.… Read more

Image Description and the Critical Blind Gaze * NYPL Public Lecture

*As a 2023-24 Diamonstein-Spielvogal Fellow at the New York Public Library, I was asked to give a public lecture in the Vartan Gregorian Center for Research in the Humanities on March 8, 2024 called: “Image Description and the Critical Blind Gaze.” Below is the recording of the lecture—including questions from the star-studded audience!—followed by a cleaned-up transcript of my lecture… Read more

The 2024 Brooklyn Half Marathon- My First Half Marathon!

I began showing up at Achilles NYC—a running/walking/rolling group that pairs disabled athletes with volunteer guides—last summer after many years away. I was sporadic until I met a young woman named Gillian. On our second run, we flirted with the idea of doing the NYC Marathon. She’s doing Chicago like a month before, and said something along the lines of:… Read more

Newsletter: Smells on Parade

The latest DR. M. Leona Godin’s Aromatica Poetica Newsletter includes A new poetry/prose series that articulates the joys and difficulties of putting language to smells, 2 new books, a cosmic smelling dog, anosmia revisited—with a twist, a NYPL Fellowship, oh, and, sometimes, SIGHTED PEOPLE SUCK!     Dear Friends and family, Here in NYC, winter seems finally to be upon… Read more