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Observations toward a Stillborn Novel
I wrote a lot today. I have a new short story that came almost out of nowhere. It's not finished yet though. It's about 85 percent done. It has nothing to do with anything else I've written lately.
Observations toward a Stillborn Novel
When I was in kindergarten, I learned fingerspelling. I can't say I remember it, but it was interesting; some of the letters clearly had relation to the english alphabet while others were not even letters at all except when your fingers were in motion. It was a different way of thinking about speaking, and about writing, and the boundaries between.
When I was very young, between the ages of 5 and 10 I'd say, one of the employees at my father's business had a deaf wife. Sometimes she and her husband and kids would stop by our house, or I would be at my father's office coloring with both shades of orange highlighter and hooking all the paperclips together, and she would say hello. Then, I didn't know that the quality she had had a word, but now I do: vivacious. She had red hair and liked to laugh, and what little I remember of her children was neat: the youngest one learned ASL before she could speak. I accepted her like I accepted the fact that I had to stand outside in the snow to wait for the bus, or the fact that the stegosaurus had bony plates on its back: it was another thing in the world, another thing to experience or do or even watch. I had to remember to look at her when I spoke so she could lip read, which was a nice change from constantly being told to speak up. When I talked to her I felt like she had to want to know what I said, because she had to care enough to pay attention to the answers.
I've been thinking about relearning ASL.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seishonagon has had some conversations with me about her experiences teaching ASL. It sounds fun, if bad for RSI. Maybe the Tufts Summer school will offer sessions next summer. It seems like it might be a good fit for me, linguistically: I like learning esoteric things, and I like using my hands. I love the way learning a new language gives rise to concepts of ideas you wouldn't have had before.
I think it's interesting how ASL translators have to take shifts; it seems like it would be difficult to be, say, a senator trying to fillibuster, or someone having to give a long speech.
I wonder what happens to deaf students who go to public schools in areas where there is a foreign language requirement. Do they get to learn European sign language? Or take Latin?
One summer in college, I did a lot of reading about strange things: small people, synaesthesia, blindness, amputees, stained-glass windows. One of the things I read about was the first hints of deaf culture in the United States, and dialects of sign--from north to south, from east to west, from country to country, from the Basque-esque linguistic and genetic enclave of Martha's Vineyard to the mainland 20 miles distant. I was fascinated. There was an untapped history of cultural schism, split along complicated lines. Race, class, coast, preferred social structure, and personal opinions on the inventor of the telephone and his wife shaped a whole secret world. In the library, I was brought to understand that the way a certain person moved their ring finger could be eloquent and personal at once--an outward and inward signifier, like a mode of dress--and could ignite debates at the same time.
Today I got a phone call from a deaf person; I picked up the phone and an ASL translator was on the other end of the line, translating for the deaf person. She said, "have you ever done this before?" I said "no," and wondered how many others had ever had the experience. I didn't know what to expect, and maybe some of this was the translation, but the speed, or perhaps the phrasing, of the conversation was different. There was a lot of exposition in chunks. I would say something for four sentences; then the other person said something for four sentences.
It made me oddly aware of my speech patterns: I tend to speak in exposition more than the average person, perhaps. I knew that already; this intensified that knowledge. It made me frustratingly aware of my tendency to say "uh-huh," or "ok": just those little verbal signifiers that mean "yes, I'm here, I understand, I'm listening, please continue," made me feel as if I had a tic that I had to get rid of, something unnecessary, as if it were the summer I decided to eradicate "I'm sorry" from every other sentence I was saying.
I had to listen in chunks, remember everything relevant, and respond to it in a chunk. This made me understand differently, though the call wasn't long enough to process the ways in which it made my understanding different. I bet the ASL translator wasn't translating every time I made the verbal equivalent of a nod, but maybe she was. It was strange that I couldn't tell.
Maybe it was just the fact that it was the phone that made the conversation feel that way; a lot of people don't like dealing with the phone and their speech patterns change.
--
Some commentary on the ETech 2009 Call for Submissions BoingBoing post by David Pescovitz
Note: I have since skimmed the actual 2009ETech Call for Submissions. It looks both more interesting and less interesting than the Boing Boing post made it out to be, and may or may not bear any resemblance to what I wrote about.
"We live in two worlds: one filled with abundance and the other with constraints. Each has its own favorite—or essential to survival—inventions and directions. Each has been deeply affected by technology."
Most people live in only one: the one with constraints. The truly rich and priveleged live in the world filled with only abundance, but they don't get to live in the world with constraints: that's their one constraint.
"The constrained world has to make do with what's available. Why scrimp and sacrifice for a computer when most people have mobile phones with an SMS server that can do the job just fine? With limited food, water, fuel, medicine, it's the people and their ideas that are often the cheapest part of the equation. Their technology looks to collaboration and connection with fewer resources—almost the opposite of the industrialized world which seeks to make each individual as effective as possible."
A lot of cellphones in the US aren't that good at the internet, I'm led to understand, because people aren't relying on them as their only method of connection to the internet. In places where most people connect to the internet through phones, it follows that those phones can "do the job" just fine because that's one of the jobs their cellphones are meant, designed, to do.
* City Tech
I think it would be neat if this talked about cities built soley of technology (eg: Second life).
* Geek Family
This looks interesting. I wonder if there are transcripts from this conference; I'd love to be in on that discussion. How do geek families shape the social lives of their children through the social, intellectual, material, and moral spheres they choose to inhabit? How do geeks choose a family? What are we seeing from first-generation chosen-family geeks as they raise their children, who choose families of their own? Where did this idea of the chosen family get its start, anyway--does geek chosen family disprove the idea that "you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family?"
Unfortunately, the real panel seems to be more about how home and educational technology and "how the future home looks" than social ideas surrounding what it is, or could be.
* Sustainable Life
Isn't life, by its very nature, unsustainable long-term? Isn't that part of the beautiful, amazing point, in everything from bacteria to sperm whale? In 3 billion years, this star is a cinder, and life we'll never know will be be building on some other star. See also "The Deacon's Masterpiece" in "The Medusa and the Snail" by Lewis Thomas.
* Life Hacking & Information Overload
I wonder if this will address the problem of these two things coming together: "Oh my God! I have too many websites to look at to tell me how to organize my personal finances, my cat's veterinary records, my sleep cycle, grooming habits, screenprinting company, and furniture for maximum efficiency! I am forced to choose between not two, but forty-two, goods and no evils! I sit, paralyzed by the daily feng shui reminder popping up on google calendar."
Observations toward a Stillborn Novel
When I was in kindergarten, I learned fingerspelling. I can't say I remember it, but it was interesting; some of the letters clearly had relation to the english alphabet while others were not even letters at all except when your fingers were in motion. It was a different way of thinking about speaking, and about writing, and the boundaries between.
When I was very young, between the ages of 5 and 10 I'd say, one of the employees at my father's business had a deaf wife. Sometimes she and her husband and kids would stop by our house, or I would be at my father's office coloring with both shades of orange highlighter and hooking all the paperclips together, and she would say hello. Then, I didn't know that the quality she had had a word, but now I do: vivacious. She had red hair and liked to laugh, and what little I remember of her children was neat: the youngest one learned ASL before she could speak. I accepted her like I accepted the fact that I had to stand outside in the snow to wait for the bus, or the fact that the stegosaurus had bony plates on its back: it was another thing in the world, another thing to experience or do or even watch. I had to remember to look at her when I spoke so she could lip read, which was a nice change from constantly being told to speak up. When I talked to her I felt like she had to want to know what I said, because she had to care enough to pay attention to the answers.
I've been thinking about relearning ASL.
seishonagon has had some conversations with me about her experiences teaching ASL. It sounds fun, if bad for RSI. Maybe the Tufts Summer school will offer sessions next summer. It seems like it might be a good fit for me, linguistically: I like learning esoteric things, and I like using my hands. I love the way learning a new language gives rise to concepts of ideas you wouldn't have had before.I think it's interesting how ASL translators have to take shifts; it seems like it would be difficult to be, say, a senator trying to fillibuster, or someone having to give a long speech.
I wonder what happens to deaf students who go to public schools in areas where there is a foreign language requirement. Do they get to learn European sign language? Or take Latin?
One summer in college, I did a lot of reading about strange things: small people, synaesthesia, blindness, amputees, stained-glass windows. One of the things I read about was the first hints of deaf culture in the United States, and dialects of sign--from north to south, from east to west, from country to country, from the Basque-esque linguistic and genetic enclave of Martha's Vineyard to the mainland 20 miles distant. I was fascinated. There was an untapped history of cultural schism, split along complicated lines. Race, class, coast, preferred social structure, and personal opinions on the inventor of the telephone and his wife shaped a whole secret world. In the library, I was brought to understand that the way a certain person moved their ring finger could be eloquent and personal at once--an outward and inward signifier, like a mode of dress--and could ignite debates at the same time.
Today I got a phone call from a deaf person; I picked up the phone and an ASL translator was on the other end of the line, translating for the deaf person. She said, "have you ever done this before?" I said "no," and wondered how many others had ever had the experience. I didn't know what to expect, and maybe some of this was the translation, but the speed, or perhaps the phrasing, of the conversation was different. There was a lot of exposition in chunks. I would say something for four sentences; then the other person said something for four sentences.
It made me oddly aware of my speech patterns: I tend to speak in exposition more than the average person, perhaps. I knew that already; this intensified that knowledge. It made me frustratingly aware of my tendency to say "uh-huh," or "ok": just those little verbal signifiers that mean "yes, I'm here, I understand, I'm listening, please continue," made me feel as if I had a tic that I had to get rid of, something unnecessary, as if it were the summer I decided to eradicate "I'm sorry" from every other sentence I was saying.
I had to listen in chunks, remember everything relevant, and respond to it in a chunk. This made me understand differently, though the call wasn't long enough to process the ways in which it made my understanding different. I bet the ASL translator wasn't translating every time I made the verbal equivalent of a nod, but maybe she was. It was strange that I couldn't tell.
Maybe it was just the fact that it was the phone that made the conversation feel that way; a lot of people don't like dealing with the phone and their speech patterns change.
--
Some commentary on the ETech 2009 Call for Submissions BoingBoing post by David Pescovitz
Note: I have since skimmed the actual 2009ETech Call for Submissions. It looks both more interesting and less interesting than the Boing Boing post made it out to be, and may or may not bear any resemblance to what I wrote about.
"We live in two worlds: one filled with abundance and the other with constraints. Each has its own favorite—or essential to survival—inventions and directions. Each has been deeply affected by technology."
Most people live in only one: the one with constraints. The truly rich and priveleged live in the world filled with only abundance, but they don't get to live in the world with constraints: that's their one constraint.
"The constrained world has to make do with what's available. Why scrimp and sacrifice for a computer when most people have mobile phones with an SMS server that can do the job just fine? With limited food, water, fuel, medicine, it's the people and their ideas that are often the cheapest part of the equation. Their technology looks to collaboration and connection with fewer resources—almost the opposite of the industrialized world which seeks to make each individual as effective as possible."
A lot of cellphones in the US aren't that good at the internet, I'm led to understand, because people aren't relying on them as their only method of connection to the internet. In places where most people connect to the internet through phones, it follows that those phones can "do the job" just fine because that's one of the jobs their cellphones are meant, designed, to do.
* City Tech
I think it would be neat if this talked about cities built soley of technology (eg: Second life).
* Geek Family
This looks interesting. I wonder if there are transcripts from this conference; I'd love to be in on that discussion. How do geek families shape the social lives of their children through the social, intellectual, material, and moral spheres they choose to inhabit? How do geeks choose a family? What are we seeing from first-generation chosen-family geeks as they raise their children, who choose families of their own? Where did this idea of the chosen family get its start, anyway--does geek chosen family disprove the idea that "you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family?"
Unfortunately, the real panel seems to be more about how home and educational technology and "how the future home looks" than social ideas surrounding what it is, or could be.
* Sustainable Life
Isn't life, by its very nature, unsustainable long-term? Isn't that part of the beautiful, amazing point, in everything from bacteria to sperm whale? In 3 billion years, this star is a cinder, and life we'll never know will be be building on some other star. See also "The Deacon's Masterpiece" in "The Medusa and the Snail" by Lewis Thomas.
* Life Hacking & Information Overload
I wonder if this will address the problem of these two things coming together: "Oh my God! I have too many websites to look at to tell me how to organize my personal finances, my cat's veterinary records, my sleep cycle, grooming habits, screenprinting company, and furniture for maximum efficiency! I am forced to choose between not two, but forty-two, goods and no evils! I sit, paralyzed by the daily feng shui reminder popping up on google calendar."
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Yay.
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----
curious, finding labor my lowest expense
qualify, good people / good ideas trend towards expensive
future living may again see bedroom sizes shrink or shared to gain space for more used/shared living areas. the concept to separate sink/mirror, toilet, and bath/shower areas I also favor. sadly impersonal home office-cube areas will also become more common.
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I have to revise it. But I think parts of it are very good.
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such would place you again in the SF Bay Area but speaking publicly. no matter, I would be unlikely to attend and would regret having not heard your presentation.
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Quelonzia might be the one to contact if you're looking to place more faces with names from AFD.
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(Anonymous) 2008-08-30 06:05 am (UTC)(link)If that's the kind of call you received, the process is extremely regulated. The goal is for the deaf to have access to all the same information they would have if they could hear for themselves, so the operator is supposed to type absolutely everything, word-for-word. Any little "uh-huh" would get typed, and the operator is even supposed to throw in incidentals, like "TV playing in background". If someone yelled at you from across the room and the operator could hear what was said, that would get typed too. If you whispered something under your breath that you clearly didn't mean for the deaf person to hear, but the operator heard it, it would get typed.
The operator has to type anything else that is apparent, such as the emotion or tone of the speaker. If you sound annoyed, the operator will type, "(sounds annoyed)". The operator also has to interpret the deaf person's mood and attempt to convey that to the hearing person. So if it's a conversation in which the deaf person is clearly trying to yell at the person he's calling, the operator is supposed to yell. Sex calls are also supposed to be done with feeling.
Since it's all done by typing, the operator isn't interpreting ASL per se. But in practice it is still an interpreting job, because many people who were born deaf type English using ASL syntax, meaning that their sentences don't work properly in standard English. Part of the operator's job is to translate something like "Yesterday me go store" into "Yesterday I went to the store" so that the conversation flows more normally and without confusion.
Anyway, I just thought you might find that interesting. I know that I had no idea about any of this stuff until I got the job, and I found it fascinating to learn.
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Do you have a livejournal?
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-Beth
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I don't think I have an email for you, or an accurate phone.