Friday, October 11, 2019

I killed my BBF; Silent Scream

Silent scream, how dramatic. That's exactly the way a hearing person would title something like this. See, it's a scream that comes out silent, "ak, ak, guk, ak" nobody responds to that, or a regular scream that no one around can hear. Because they're all deaf!

Seen on the Justice channel OTA.

The photo of Gallaudet University caught my attention. It's a distinctive old fashioned main building with a ten-foot high black wrought-iron fence around the whole campus. It's immediately recognizable. The building is tall and somewhat clunky, red brick with white horizontal stripes that follow up to the shingles of its Mansard roofs, square tower and adjoining buildings in the same style with round turrets. The place has a Hogwarts quality to it. It's the only liberal arts college for deaf in the world. The whole place is ace. It's a privilege to attend there.

Duckduckgo images [gallaudet university]

Gallaudet was the American educator graduated from Yale who's neighbor's daughter was deaf whom he saw playing alone apart from other neighborhood kids. He set himself to teach the girl nouns and the basics of language, her parents were impressed, hired him, and sent him to Britain to learn their vocal method of teaching deaf. The British educators of deaf were stingy with their methods so he headed off to France to learn their manual method, and that's why American Sign Language is more closely related to French than it is to English. It's why they use sign language at the university named after him. I'll bet you $10.00 that's why Gallaudet University looks French.

Wikipedia [thomas hopkins gallaudet]

The young people signing are clear as a bell, ding, that's what their sign language looks like. The voices that interpret them are a bit off.

The student signed, "friend, see eye to eye, continue"

The voice said, "they expected their friendship to go on forever."

[There is a sign for "expect" and a sign for "forever" and those were not shown.]

While other portions are interpreted to English in other voices precisely as signed.

It's disconcerting because the English portion is worked out in advance and spoken over the signing. The student is still signing while the spoken English relates key concepts that haven't been signed yet. The speaker blows it for you as you interpret yourself. Example: He didn't say "sophomore and freshman" yet, oh there it is now at the end, "4th and 3rd year." That happens throughout.

It's great because there are so many students signing, so many different handwritings, different facial expressions, so much of it is partial, truncated clips, bits left out, portions of their bodies and their signs off screen, edited bits not intended to convey full sentences and that really is the way that it's seen in the world at large.

Gay.

Damnit, Janet.

I was hoping the murder case would be purely murder, but now it's all about not fitting in. The double jeopardy of not fitting into a marginalized group that doesn't fit in. That's the dramatic angle. Too bad. If you care to stick with it then you have to deal with all that.

Then a second murder.

Turns out to have nothing to do with gays not fitting into deaf not fitting into a hearing world.

Rather, it's about a deaf student from Guam who killed to rob his victims. It's believed he was insane and had he not been caught then he'd still be killing people at large.

The good thing is, all the kids are gorgeous. They're all very easy to watch. And it's great practice picking up ASL. You get to see how it's actually used. You get to compare what you see with translated English.

The murder's story as told around the edges from Guam by the Washington Post.

The video online not for free.

YouTube [gallaudet murders] Mostly deaf people talking about the murders without translation or cc.

5 comments:

The Dude said...

I was born in DC, spent most of my life in that area, never saw the Gallaudet campus. Now that I look at the map I can see why - Florida Avenue is behind Capitol Hill. I rarely went over there. Pre-Metro we would generally drive down 355 which becomes Wisconsin Avenue, and that area I know pretty well, or at least I did know it years ago. Perhaps when I was a child we took 29, which becomes Georgia Avenue, but even that doesn't go right by the school. Well shoot. It's not as if I am going back up there for any particular reason, so I guess I missed my chance.

I used to have a customer in Anacostia, but in addition to stinking to high heavens due to the Blue Plains Treatment Plant, it is also dangerous as all get out. It's like Newark - don't stop at traffic lights, keep your doors locked and keep your head on a swivel. And don't let the sun set on you there.

ricpic said...

On First Seeing The Statue Of Thomas Gallaudet and Alice Cogsworth

The eyes well up with tears. Overcome all fears.
The man saw her imprisoned face - condemned by chance! - and mortified, released her from her lonely place.

What miracles a man can wrought.

The Dude said...

Of course that sculpture is great, it is by Daniel Chester French, the same sculptor who carved the Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial. Mr. French was familiar with ASL and if you look closely you can see that Abe's left hand is forming the letter "A" in ASL, and if you squint, and don't look too closely, you can imagine that his right hand is forming the letter "L".

Here is a link to more of Daniel Chester French's work, he was brilliant and that was a period of ascendancy in American arts and artists.

MamaM said...

If the wiki is to believed, it was Gaudette's youngest of eight children, Edward Miner Gallaudet (1837–1917) who founded the first college for the deaf in 1864 (thirteen years after his father's death) and served as president for 46 years. Two years after it's founding it became Gallaudet University.

With this spelled out as the origin of the football huddle: https://theweek.com/articles/451763/true-origin-story-football-huddle

ndspinelli said...

Know a family from Boston who sent their son to ASD in Hartford. So hard for parents but he got a good education. He then went to Gallaudet. Smart, funny kid. Superb lip reader.