Have you seen Glee?

I do not usually post links to singing television shows. After all, music is a point of contention to various parts of the Deaf community.

The apparently imaginary Haverbrook School for the Deaf had their show choir perform on GLEE. The song was "Imagine" by John Lennon. There are a variety of responses already to the episode ranging from irritation that the Glee kids joined in the singing to protests about the lyrics of the song.

What did I like? I like that the Glee kids seemed to get the unity of the song and joined in (apparently plot-wise it was to remind the Glee kids about the simplicity of beautiful music). I liked that some of the deaf signed left handed and some right handed. I liked that although over all the song was in English order, it remained true to the meaning of the song.

What did I not like so much? That the Glee kids could "learn to sign along" on the fly. And I do see the point of some who say it looked like the "real singers" had to fix the deaf voice singing.

But over all it was a lovely scene, that had little to do with the rest of the episode (in my humble opinion), and I hope you wander by.

Hulu shows only 5 episodes at a time and this one aired last week, so there are about 3 weeks left for it to remain available. And yes, it is captioned.

Oh and if anyone knows if this is a real school choir and not just a bunch of deaf actors put together for the scene, let me know?

Update on "UP" (and Disney)

Marlee Matlin tweeted the following:

"Spoke with Disney execs. Missing "UP" captions on DVD rental versions- a manufacturer error. They will be restored. Thank you Disney!" (3:45 PM Nov 17th from web)

And thank you Marlee!
(http://twitter.com/MarleeMatlin/status/5807270305)

Welcome Back

I hope you all enjoyed the Holidays. I was in the midst of trying to write a 50k word novel in one month (see www.nanowrimo.org) and so I am afraid the blog suffered while I was gone.

However I discovered a really useful tool in my gmail box.

Have you ever looked at the sponsored link just above the archive button? Many times it is a funny little link like to spam casserole, especially if I go into my spam filter to make sure I didn't miss anyone.

Well, this week I had more ASL and Deaf related emails than usual. I looked up at the sponsored link and guess what I found?

An actual deafness-related link! It wasn't just for spoofs.

Anyway, in honor of the occasion, here is the link:

OKCDeaf
News and Information for the Oklahoma City Deaf Community.

I will try and get caught up on Deaf news and post more this week.

Then I guess it is time to edit that mess I wrote and see if it is any good.

Happy Holidays!