This was a fascinating book, although it’s very easy to overlook. It’s a slender little book, barely 100 pages including the intro, text, list of signs, and references. Plus, fully half the book simply lists acceptable name-signs in alphabetic order. So if you’re a fluent ASL speaker, this book probably won’t even [...]

I’ve just finished reading Mindfield by John F. Egbert, who kindly sent me a copy. I thought this was an excellent book, and I think it might be a good way to introduce issues surrounding deafhood and deaf culture via an enjoyable piece of fiction. As good as some other books are, some [...]

Well I finally got to see Through Deaf Eyes this morning (actually half last night and half this morning; it’s been a busy few days). I thoroughly enjoyed watching this. I should note that my perspective on this is as an orally educated deaf person; I have been largely ignorant of deaf culture [...]

The author of the Alone in the Mainstream book was on, talking about finally realizing others like her out there…very cool! The music stuff’s on now, and I had to laugh when the guy was talking about how they make the music loud loud loud so everyone can feel the music…and he wonders Gosh, [...]

Forbidden Signs is a book that traces the history of sign language in the United States and how and why oralism attempted to obliterate signing and replace it with lip reading and speech. As the author himself notes, the history is quite complex and even though he takes a detailed look at various aspects [...]

…in light of recent conversations around here. (I do plan on a proper review, but I happened across this gem just now.)
From Forbidden Signs, pp 103:
Another measure of the oralist preoccupation with efficiency was the support they gave to a national movement to rationalize the spelling of English words. The late-nineteenth-century spelling reform [...]

I’m pretty pleased with my progress in ASL and while I have a long way to go, it’s interesting to see what a long way I’ve come. Example, I passed along the Deaf Ninja video to a friend of mine, on the assumption that the pantomimes were enough to get the story across, and [...]

I just checked out their website and it looks to me like they’re starting up sort of a “Deaf MTV” site where songs are reinterpreted with captions, ASL and so forth. If this sticks around and expands, this might be the best place for me to discover new music.
I’m definitely keeping an eye on [...]

Over at Mike Schmidt’s Oh I See blog, he’s got a great vlog called From Solitaire to Poker. Go take a look if you haven’t already. I very much enjoyed watching it and picked up a couple of new words as well!

Wow! Go read this!
I thought this was a very well laid out overview. In particular, he addresses the inherent problems behind the whole definition of Deaf Culture — problems that are readily apparent to me as an outsider but a yes-I-am-deaf solitaire. I do have some quibbles; at one point he says:
The [...]