I posted a photo of this T-Mobile ad wrap on the Bank of America building the other day. Today, there’s even more to it– in fact it covers two sides of the building now. It looks like there’s a piece missing on the right side of the south wall of the building, so maybe I’ll see it completed tomorrow or even later today. It is interesting to me to see where advertising is headed. What is an exciting curosity might be an ugly invasion of public space if all the buildings downtown were wrapped. And I saw on The Science Channel that the buildings of the future might actually be covered with LCDs as ever-changing "skins." We’re already seeing more and more of our city’s billboards going LCD, so the idea of whole buildings wrapped in LCDs is not too farfetched. I just don’t know that I like the idea of it.
P.S. I sent this to my blog-via-Flickr e-mail address earlier this morning, but for some reason it didn’t show up on either Flickr or my blog. Odd!
I was hoping that my colleague A Dreamer (yes, that’s his name) would be televised as he interpreted the National Anthem into ASL at the beginning of the big game. Unfortunately, this year’s coverage of the signing of the Star Spangled Banner was even less satisfying than last year’s. Last year, we at least got to watch Marlee Matlin signing “bombs bursting in air” on the big screen. This year, I was only able to see — by watching very carefully — the interpreter signing “flag was still there” (all in one nicely inflected ASL sign, by the way) on the Jumbo Tron behind Jordin Sparks’ head.
And what about that Deaf Pepsi ad that was supposed to air? I never saw it. Did you?
I was excited to hear that Marlee Matlin would be signing the American National Anthem (“The Star-Spangled Banner”) at Super Bowl XLI, but was disappointed to see her on television only during the phrase “the bombs bursting in air.” Whatever happened to the “signer in the bubble”? I would think they could put an Academy Award-winning deaf actress in a picture-in-picture “bubble” so that her performance of our National Anthem could be enjoyed throughout the duration of the song. Apparently, the director of the televised broadcast underestimated ASL and its many users.
I would like to believe that in the year 2007, accessibility for deaf people and the beauty of ASL would be esteemed by American society. Sadly, the Super Bowl XLI broadcast reminds me that American Sign Language and Deaf Culture are still relegated to a momentary side show.
Posted in Interpreting for the Deaf
Tagged accessibility, ASL, deaf, interpreting, Marlee Matlin, opinion, review, sign language, sports, Super Bowl, television
