Wrong Game ASL movie

Today I watched Wrong Game with friends. If you like thrillers that keep you guessing through several twists and turns, then this movie is for you. But be warned, Wrong Game is SCARY. It would be a perfect film to watch around Halloween or any time of the year you find yourself in the mood for psychological suspense.

The movie starts by showing a children's birthday party game that goes horribly wrong. Many years later ten deaf strangers regain consciousness to find themselves tied up and locked in the basement of a very strange house. They have no memory of being brought there and are wondering what is going on. Soon they discover, each of them had agreed to participate in a game with a $10 million dollar prize. When they review the rules of the game, they discover that in the fine print they have waived all their rights in case of injury and death. The kicker is the group has one hour to play "the game" and only one of them can survive to win.




As with Gerald and Black Sand, two other ASL Films productions I have seen, all is not as it seems. Wrong Game's plot reminded me of the classic Agatha Christie mystery "And Then There Were None" also known as "Ten Little Indians". I'm not going to reveal any more details. You will have to watch for yourself to find out the secret of the game.

I highly recommend this movie to you. The captioned DVD is available for sale through ASL Films Store.

SIGNin' in the Street

Picture credit: Mary Rappazzo

Disneyland is hosting an event called SIGNin' in the Street March 17-18 to celebrate creativity in the deaf community. Sean Berdy from ABCFamily's Switched at Birth will be performing his signed interpretation of Enrique Iglesias' song Hero. Other cast members will be on hand to meet fans and sign autographs. There will be a special theater screening of two Switched at Birth episodes and a sneak peek at the spring finale.

In addition, two deaf films, "The Hammer" and "See What I'm Saying", will be shown. There will also be live performances by T. L. Forsberg, CJ Jones, and Beethoven's Nightmare. To learn more about all of these events, check this schedule posted by Disney.

This sounds like a wonderful event. Wish I could go. I hope there will be video highlights available on the web afterwards.

Lenten Opportunity

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent in the Christian faith. At church last night I picked up a sheet of recommendations on how to observe a Holy Lent. Reading through it I noticed that the adoption of a Lenten discipline is strongly encouraged.

To be honest, I'm not a very disciplined person or even holy minded* for that matter. But in spite of my failings, I've decided to use Lent this year as a new way of experiencing my faith - through ASL. My church doesn't offer sign language interpretation, but I often find myself thinking about how the beautiful words of the liturgy might be expressed in ASL. During Lent, I'm going to look online and see what I can learn.

My first goal is to learn the Lord's Prayer in ASL. I found the video below on YouTube. If you know of any other websites or videos that would be helpful, please let me know.

*Doesn't it seem strangely funny that the sign for devil was chosen as the thumbnail for this video of the Lord's Prayer?

Finally! Says This Switched at Birth Fan

Last night I watched Switched at Birth and finally got the payoff that I'd been waiting for since the beginning of this new television series. In episode 6, Regina points out to Kathryn that her biological daughter who is deaf has had to make ALL the efforts communication wise since meeting her hearing family. I wanted to cheer when I watched that scene. I realized in that moment how much the inequity had bothered me about the Kennish family. You may remember in a previous post that I speculated on who in Daphne's new family would be the first to learn and use ASL.

In this episode titled "The Persistence of Memory" Regina encourages Kathryn to learn Daphne's language and get to know her in a whole new way. A little while later Kathryn knocks on the door and signs to Regina that she wants to learn. Endearingly, she is nervous that she has signed wrong as she explains that she learned how to sign that much off the internet. Regina responds graciously telling her she could understand her and that it will mean a great deal to Daphne.

That was probably my favorite moment of the whole season so far.

If you're watching the show, what do you think of how the story lines have developed?

American Sign Language Writing

I just stumbled across this video on the internet. I had never heard of ASL writing before. According to the si5s website, the purpose of ASL writing is to "build ASL literature in text form".

I've been working on learning ASL for some time now and I don't see this writing system as being useful to me or other hard of hearing/late deafened adults that are already fluent in English. I want to learn ASL for communication not for reading. I want to learn how to express myself in ASL by watching fluent signers not by reading written symbols.

What do you think? Would this be useful to you? Would it be useful to a deaf child to learn written ASL alongside written English? Let me know your thoughts.

Communicating at Don Juan's Organic Farm

I wanted to give you an idea of what it was like for me to travel in a Spanish speaking country while on a tour with deaf adults who communicate in sign language. This very short video made at Don Juan's Organic Farm will give you a glimpse at my experience. Keep in mind that I know some Spanish, so when Don Juan spoke I tried to listen to him and watch the ASL interpretation. Fortunately for my comprehension, at many points a hearing member of the tour restated what was said in English.



Here's the text of the English portion of this video:

"...smell different things together.

So now I need one more person to volunteer.

something with yucca

Come on down. Put you to work."

Don Juan's farm was a beautiful place to be and his demonstrations were very visual in nature so if I missed some of the details of organic farming... Oh well... I had a wonderful time anyways.

Wonderful Video on Children and Sign Language

Black Sand ASL Movie

Have you seen the ASL movie Black Sand?

A deaf organization in my area sponsored a showing at a church recently. I was very excited about seeing it after my previous experience watching Gerald. This time I brought along my husband (who is hearing) so I'll share some of his perspective on the film too.

Black Sand is about a group of teenagers visiting Costa Rica and their stay at the home of an older woman who has recently been experiencing strange happenings around her property. For me the premise was reminiscent of Scooby Doo with its gang of young people and a mysterious creature lurking in the shadows. Not to give anything away but there's even an unmasking at the end!

That said, this movie is so much more. Nothing is as it seems. All your assumptions will be overturned before the final scene. If you like a movie with twists and turns, this is the film for you.

The title of the film has its own part to play in the plot twists. I found this interesting quote about black sand (the grainy stuff on the beach, NOT this movie) on a prospector's website:

The topic of black sand comes up in prospecting sometimes more than gold does! And it is very misunderstood. You often read or hear that the presence of black sand in an area means there is gold in the area also. This is not true.

You may want to keep that quote in mind when you see the film!

This movie has no audio. The story is told through ASL with English captions at the bottom for those like me who aren't fluent and those like my husband who don't know any ASL. There are no sound effects described. For my husband it was like seeing any foreign film but for me it was an opportunity to experience deaf culture.

To me the director did an excellent job of building suspense. In one scene there is a power outage and everyone is gathered around a table by candlelight when they notice one of them is missing. In another scene, one of the girls is hiding in a closet peeking through a crack wondering if she is about to be discovered. I thought how much more scarier it was for the deaf characters to have their vision limited in these situations. My husband didn't see it that way. He thought the lack of scary music made it less intense. In fact, he cracked that the soundman for the film should have been fired.

If you've seen the film, let me know your thoughts. If you haven't seen it, you can visit the ASL Films Black Sand website to read a synopsis, view the trailer, and book a showing.

Astronaut Signs from the International Space Station

Expedition 23 Launch Day (201004020023HQ)
Originally uploaded by nasa hq photo

From the NASA website 7/22/10,

"The International Space Station has had guests from all over the world, representing myriad languages. But until NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson came aboard, one language was still not represented. Said to be the fourth most commonly used language in the United States, American Sign Language, or ASL, made its debut on the space station in a special video recorded by Caldwell Dyson.

In the almost six-minute video, the American astronaut spoke directly to the deaf community about what she does on the space station and how she became interested in ASL. She even offered several words of encouragement for young deaf students."

To read more and view this video which has English subtitles, click here.

To read more about astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson, click here.

Finger Spelling Inspired Art Project

While I'm on the subject of crafts, I wanted to share this picture my son made at school this year. His assignment was to create a picture featuring his hands. He chose to illustrate finger spelling in a colorful, fun way. For anyone unfamiliar with ASL, the hands below are spelling out R-U-S-T-Y, the name of our dog, from the perspective of the person signing.

Yes, I know the Y is shown sideways - most likely because he ran out of room on the paper but perhaps it could be artistic license.

My son had never mentioned this assignment to me so it was a wonderful surprise to find it among the many art projects he brought home at the end of the year. I plan to keep this one and perhaps even frame it.

Watching a Film in ASL

Tonight I had the unique opportunity of viewing the ASL film Gerald at an event sponsored by a local deaf organization. I had never watched a movie entirely in ASL before. This film was audio free - no sound whatsoever. I found myself liking that aspect a great deal. Whenever I watch a movie that has been captioned with the sound effects included, I am distracted by the fact that I didn't hear the sound mentioned. I will ask anyone watching with me, "Did you hear that noise?" It was a relief not to have that distraction tonight. In fact, I didn't even mentally fill in the sounds either. I just embraced the quiet and felt drawn into the experience of someone profoundly deaf. All the characters in this movie sign. Some speak and naturally I found myself reading their lips. Fortunately for me and any other viewers who are not fluent in ASL, the film is subtitled in English.

The plot was compelling. Imagine that as the son of a single mother all your life you had longed for family connections. Now just when you are about to be married, you discover your mother hasn't told you the truth about your father. Even more pressing is the fact that you have an autistic grandfather who is about to be evicted from his nursing home. Would you be willing to take him into your home and care for him even at the risk of losing your fiancee? That is the dilemma faced by the main character.

I recommend this film highly. You can read a synopsis of Gerald and view its trailer at this website. To read more about the making of the film, specifically the parts played by the principal and middle school students of California School for the Deaf, check out this link, [a PDF document].

Sign Language for Everyone

Today my hearing loss support group had a fun meeting. We got together to watch the DVD "Sign Language for Everyone: How to Talk to a Person Who Can't Hear" starring Anthony Natale.

If you haven't seen it before, this video is a friendly introduction to American Sign Language. Throughout the film, Anthony teaches signs to some new hearing friends who imitate his signing with various degrees of success. At one point, a girl unknowingly signs condom instead of month and a warning appears on the screen to be careful how you sign, heh. The video also educates viewers about deaf experience through vignettes on what it's like to shop in a store alone as a deaf person and what it's like for a hearing friend to use relay telephone service for the first time. I especially enjoyed the scene where Anthony explains that "Yes, he is allowed to drive!"

While watching, I was pleased at the number of signs I already knew and enjoyed practicing them and learning new ones. I noticed almost everyone else in the audience doing the same thing. At the end of the film, we raised our hands and moved them in silent applause.


If you'd like to see the video yourself, you can find order it online here at www.signlanguagevideo.com. To learn more about Anthony Natale, you can visit his official website at www.anthonynatale.org.

Fun ASL Video with Captions in English and ASL

This video is FUN to watch! I really appreciate the time the signer took to add the captions in ASL below the English captions. When I was taking my sign language class and had to sign sentences in front of the class, that's how I wrote them out on my paper. First in English, then as ASL concepts. It reinforces the idea that ASL is not "English in the air".

Thank you to my friend Pam for bringing this video to my attention. I hope you all enjoy it! Have a great weekend, everyone.

Read more about signer Stephen Torrence and how he makes his ASL videos in this interview: part one and part two.

ALA: Day Three

Travelling to ALA today was more of an adventure because I had to switch trains to get there. I had never made this switch before, so to be certain I didn't miss my stop, I crossed off each stop the train made in my schedule booklet. This worked wonderfully and I didn't have to ask for anyone's assistance. Actually, this is a tactic I've used before when travelling somewhere new on Metra and it occurred to me today that maybe that's just a way I've been coping with my hearing loss for years without realizing it.

At the switching station platform, I saw a group of ladies who had that librarian look about them. I edged closer. They were talking about the conference so I just barged into their conversation with a "Did I hear someone say ALA?" They welcomed me into their group and I got that safety in numbers feeling.

I felt particularly drawn to one of the ladies who also seemed to be a stranger to the others. I sat by her on the train and we started talking. This was rather tricky for the two of us as she had speech difficulties and with my hearing loss I had a tough time understanding her. All the same, we wanted to chat. We managed successfully by having her write to me on a notepad and then have me speak back to her. All too soon, we were at our stop.

Once inside McCormick Place, I broke away from the group as they were all going to the exhibits area and I was going to a meeting straightaway. My first program was held in a small room but I got there early enough to grab a seat in the front row. The room started filling up with people and someone behind me set a piece of paper on the chair next to me. I turned around to inquire about it and found out it was being saved for a friend of the ladies behind me. More people continued to come in and people started sitting on the floor now.

One of the conference assistants was concerned about the empty seat next to me. The ladies told her their friend was on her way from the "bus room". The assistant seemed annoyed. "Bus room? What are you talking about?" The ladies continued to repeat the phrase and a light dawned in my head. I butted in to the conversation and said, "Bathroom. She's coming from the bathroom." The ladies behind me were grateful for my intervention. I guess I knew what they were saying from all my practice at taking the nonsense I hear and turning it into something that actually makes sense. They told me they were a group from Egypt and needed to stick together.

The program was all about simple stretches one can do to relieve the strain that working on a computer causes your body. I found it very useful and look forward to adding them to my daily work routine.

My second program of the day was on metadata. This one was held in a very large room and again I scored a seat in the front row by the speaker. Once seated, I noticed a woman in a chair facing the audience off to the opposite side of the room. Watching further, I noticed she was using her hands to communicate. Could she be an ASL interpreter? I went over to ask and yes she was and yes I was welcome to come and sit in that section. I moved immediately. I signed my name and nice to meet you to the Deaf librarian sitting on my left and she signed her name to me. As fate would have it, the person to my right was the woman with the very soft voice I had sat next to on Thursday and Friday. I asked her if she knew ASL and she said she didn't. I turned on my Pocket Talker but kept my attention on the interpreter.

An interesting moment in the program came when the speaker used the word "shibboleth". I knew what that was but the librarian on my left and the interpreters didn't. I quickly wrote the word down and what it means on my notepad, showed it to my neighbor, and she communicated it by fingerspelling and sign to the interpreters. They were still a bit puzzled so I wrote "Bible word" on my pad and watched as that was signed realizing I probably could have managed to sign that phrase myself.

At the end of the program, I wrote out the Shibboleth story on my notepad and shared it. In case you're unfamiliar with this tech term and/or its Old Testament basis, here it is. Shibboleth nowadays refers to a computer system's way of authenticating that someone is an authorized user. The Bible story goes like this. "Shibboleth" was such a difficult word to pronounce in its native language that guards used it to see if someone was one of them or an enemy. Right after "Who goes there?" came the "Say Shibboleth" test. You can read the story for yourself in Judges 12 or find out more here (scroll down past the first definition). The ladies were impressed that I knew that so I signed to them "Sunday school" which brought big smiles. [See Mom and Dad, I did pay attention!]

Then it was time for lunch break. I met up with two of my coworkers and we joined the throng in the food court. We had to pay $11.75 for a hamburger with french fries and cole slaw. Pricey!

My last workshop of the day was on books and blogs. Two things I love, naturally. This was a panel discussion and I chose a seat in the back as I had to leave before the end to catch my homebound train. [The next one left an hour and a half later.] I got out my trusty Pocket Talker and the librarian next to me asked if I was recording it. "No," I replied, "this helps me hear the speaker better." Strangely she asked, "Is it worth it?" "Yes," I replied and left it at that.

For the train ride home, I travelled with my two coworkers. This time I had no need to cross off the stops as I was familiar with when my stop came. Arriving home, I greeted my family, relaxed a bit with them, and then took a blissful two hour nap.

Tomorrow I get a break. I will return to the conference on Monday. Hope you all have a great weekend!

A Song by Sia

One nice thing about having my coworkers aware of my hearing loss is that sometimes they show me something online I would otherwise have missed. A great example is this video of Sia performing on the David Letterman show last fall.



I love Sia's artistry and her colorful hands using ASL to express the meaning of her song. Sia has an even more creative and beautiful rendition posted on YouTube which she doesn't allow for embedding on blogs. You can see it here.

Sia is a pop singer from Australia. She explained in a press release that she chose to use ASL in this song because "I've always been obsessed with the beauty of sign language. To ignorant hearing me, the movement and expression appears as a dance — a beautiful, emotive dance. But the real beauty is the communication hidden within these perfect shapes."
You can find out more about Sia at Wikipedia.

Lyrics for "Soon We'll Be Found"

Come along it is the break of day
Surely now, you'll have some things to say
It's not the time for telling tales on me

So come along, it won’t be long
'Til we return happy
Shut your eyes, there are no lies
In this world we call sleep
Let's desert this day of hurt
Tomorrow we'll be free

Let's not fight I'm tired can't we just sleep tonight
Don't Turn away it's just there's nothing left here to say
Turn around I know we're lost but soon we'll be found

Well it's been rough but we'll be just fine
Work it out yeah we'll survive
You mustn't let a few bad times dictate

So come along, it won’t be long
'Til we return happy
Shut your eyes, there are no lies
In this world we call sleep
Let's desert this day of work
Tomorrow we'll be free

Let's not fight I'm tired can't we just sleep tonight
Don't turn away it's just there's nothing left here to say
Turn around I know we're lost but soon we'll be found

ASL Bracelet Giveaway

Would you like to win a lovely bracelet with your choice of either the word "hope" or the word "dream" spelled out in ASL? If so, head on over to KV Creative Designs and enter her giveaway. For a chance to win, all you have to do is leave a comment at this post where you'll see a photo of her hope bracelet. The winner will be announced February 12.

This giveaway is part of the One World One Heart blog event. You can read more about this global project and learn about other giveaways here.

Good luck!

*Update 2/13/09
Find out who was the lucky winner.

Accepting Accomodations: Day Two

October 30
Day Two went much better! It's amazing what a good night's sleep can do! This time I knew right where to obtain my morning coffee and muffin. I understood the layout of the conference center and could navigate to the various room locations without wandering around in a daze like the day before. Off to a good start.

This time when I attended the general session in the large auditorium I arrived early enough to find my way to the assigned seating. When I got there another woman was sitting in the section. I struck up a conversation with her and found out she was an ASL interpreter. For this presentation two interpreters took turns signing what the speaker said. I was so pleased to get this opportunity to improve my ASL reading skills. Especially since the talk was very IT (information technology) heavy and much less interesting than the previous day's speech on brain research. Now I know the signs for "embedded computer" and "internet". How about that!

The next presentation was on "Confessions of a Digital Immigrant". That topic sounded fascinating to me. A digital immigrant is someone born before 1982 who has had to learn all the technology that digital natives (those born 1982 and later) take for granted. I found my assigned seat in the front row and was all excited to hear the speaker's wisdom. Unfortunately, this speaker took the liberty of changing his presentation to a talk on what it's like to be a CIO (chief information officer). I could not relate to that at all. Grrr. However, the speaker had been honored with an award at this conference so out of respect and politeness not to mention my conspicuous seat practically under his nose I stayed to hear his talk. But I didn't tire myself out listening too closely.

A much more interesting talk on social media was given by a young woman with a prominent pink streak in her hair. For this session, I ended up at the back of the room but I used my Pocket Talker and heard everything. I also used my assistive listening device for a talk on how one university has implemented mobile devices (ipods and iphones in this case) into their curriculum. That's something I've been asked to get involved in looking at for my own school.

In the afternoon I explored the vendors exhibit area. I heard a great presentation by Camtasia. I am very interested in their Camtasia6 product which would enable me to add captions to the podcasts I'm creating of my library's technology workshops. Their sales reps were really helpful in answering my questions about captioning and even gave a step-by-step demonstration of how it's done. A man from Duke University happened to sit next to me during the demo and while chatting with him, he gave me a great idea for assessing these podcasts. Brilliant! The Educause conference emphasizes the importance of networking with others in your field to share ideas and this is where that happened for me.


It wasn't all business. There were lots of free giveaways and drawings in the exhibit area. I got three t-shirts (one for me, one for hubby, and one for my son) from different vendors and loaded up with cool pens. I "won" a set of golf balls at one booth for taking a swing at a mini golf hole. I "raced" a toy car around a track. I picked up assorted gizmos and some nice cloth tote bags at other booths. Best of all was my enthusiastic greeting from the Wimba owl! I didn't even have to be at Disney World to get my picture taken with a friendly costumed character.


The fun continued that evening with a Halloween party at Universal Studios City Walk.
There was a generous buffet laid out and music and performers all around. I met a Chicago icon (John Belushi as one of the Blues Brothers) and had my photo taken once more. Of course, this outdoors party (designed for hearing people) was very loud so I didn't stay the whole evening. A pair of foam earplugs would have come in handy. I got back to the hotel and found out my husband and son had a wonderful day of their own exploring more of the Universal Studios theme park. Day Two was fun.