Link: Against Access

[packbat]

"Against Access" by John Lee Clark, on interpreters, descriptions, and the difference between being burdened with objective data and getting help from an accomplice.

I just want to quote the whole thing, but here's a bit that stood out:

Another thing ASL interpreters habitually do is describe the whole of things. Upon entering a room, for example, theystop and say, “This is a midsize room with a few tables, here, there, and over there. There are… let’s see, one, two, three, four, five, six, okay, six windows—”

Here I stop them. “Why are you telling me, telling me, telling me things? Your job isn’t to deliver this whole room to me on a silver platter. I don’t want the silver platter. I want to attack this room. I want to own it, just like how the sighted people here own it. Or, if the room isn’t worth owning, then I want to grab whatever I find worth stealing. C’mon, let’s start over. What we’ll do is start to touch things and people here, together, while we provide running commentaries and feedback to each other.”

(Hat tip to fluffy's Notes page on beesbuzz.biz, via the fediverse.)

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

This is exactly where I went from "I'll probably send this link to the household group chat" to "reading this out and relating it to my own experiences" because this reminded me so strongly of how I sometimes feel about audio description.

I want to read it again and maybe try to articulate some of my own thoughts about it, but not now; it's past my bedtime already! :)