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Métal hurlant
Jan. 23rd, 2008 05:19 amThe wee small hours are a good time to work for me. No distractions & I'm usually wide awake and alert until at least 1 even if a bit sleep deprived, 2 or 3am if rested.
So this evening, I've been setting up a new PC for a client.
( Concealed irrelevant geekery... )
So anyway, while innumerable progress bars zip across the screen, I had plenty of time to sit and gaze vacantly at the TV. Not enough time between installations, alas, to get into a book - Green Mars is calling to me, even though it's about the 5th time I've read it - but the late-night music video channel is ideal, requiring no brain power whatsoever.
After 4am, for an hour or two, they put on videos with sign language interpretation in one corner. At first I found this bemusing - if you can't hear it, why would you care about music? But videos themselves are an artform now, and I guess even deaf teens are going to take an interest in the charts, especially if they can hear some of it but not make out the words. I struggle with some and my hearing's fine -- for a 40y old who enjoyed heavy metal in his teens, anyway.
The signers are a mixed bunch. Three or so of them are middle-aged - two plump women and a skinny balding guy with a dusting of close-cropped grey hair. Very occasionally, for R&B tracks, they bring on a younger black woman - but I may just be unable to accurately gauge age outside my own race; she may not be that young after all.
All seem to enjoy the music to some degree, though only the guy seems to really get into it; he boogies away during instrumentals. All make a really good effort to sign along in time to the music and at about the right cadence - the turbo-speed finger-spelling is a wonder to behold.
Tonight, there was only really one track that I actually like, and I'm not entirely showing my age when I confess it's Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, because hey, come on, it's a classic. (I also quite like Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars but most of the rest is chart dreck. Girls Aloud videos are best watched with the sound off altogether, I feel. The only point of interest is dancing girls; the line between soft porn and pop videos grows ever thinner. Q.v. Kelly Rowlands or Rhianna. The managers or choreographers are turning into pimps; I wonder if they feel even vaguely guilty when the girl's still in her teens? It does seem exploitative. Except for the piles of money the artistes make, of course.)
However. To return to what I laughingly call a thread. The signer for the Queen track was the slightly younger, dark-haired, matronly one of the two older women. She and the guy do 80-90% of all the videos, at a guess. And this time, she really seemed to be enjoying the song - which is fair enough; it probably dates from her teens or twenties. It was before mine! So I watched closely, while singing along, quietly. It's fascinating to watch the interpretations; I don't speak BSL but I can follow a tiny bit when I see it. All I can say is "thanks" and "sorry" and a few things like that. Wretched effort, for an amateur linguist. I very much want to learn more.
The bit that delighted me was the main guitar break in the middle. If there's a lengthy instrumental in a song, they fade the signers out briefly, so you can see what's going on unobstructed. The breaks in BoRap are too short, though, so down in the corner she stayed. Usually they bop along a bit, but in this one, when it was Dr May's time to rock out, damn me if she didn't break into a massive air guitar solo. Massively OTT, full-on headbanging, the works.
To which I think I can only say:
\m/ EXCELLENT! \m/
So this evening, I've been setting up a new PC for a client.
( Concealed irrelevant geekery... )
So anyway, while innumerable progress bars zip across the screen, I had plenty of time to sit and gaze vacantly at the TV. Not enough time between installations, alas, to get into a book - Green Mars is calling to me, even though it's about the 5th time I've read it - but the late-night music video channel is ideal, requiring no brain power whatsoever.
After 4am, for an hour or two, they put on videos with sign language interpretation in one corner. At first I found this bemusing - if you can't hear it, why would you care about music? But videos themselves are an artform now, and I guess even deaf teens are going to take an interest in the charts, especially if they can hear some of it but not make out the words. I struggle with some and my hearing's fine -- for a 40y old who enjoyed heavy metal in his teens, anyway.
The signers are a mixed bunch. Three or so of them are middle-aged - two plump women and a skinny balding guy with a dusting of close-cropped grey hair. Very occasionally, for R&B tracks, they bring on a younger black woman - but I may just be unable to accurately gauge age outside my own race; she may not be that young after all.
All seem to enjoy the music to some degree, though only the guy seems to really get into it; he boogies away during instrumentals. All make a really good effort to sign along in time to the music and at about the right cadence - the turbo-speed finger-spelling is a wonder to behold.
Tonight, there was only really one track that I actually like, and I'm not entirely showing my age when I confess it's Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, because hey, come on, it's a classic. (I also quite like Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars but most of the rest is chart dreck. Girls Aloud videos are best watched with the sound off altogether, I feel. The only point of interest is dancing girls; the line between soft porn and pop videos grows ever thinner. Q.v. Kelly Rowlands or Rhianna. The managers or choreographers are turning into pimps; I wonder if they feel even vaguely guilty when the girl's still in her teens? It does seem exploitative. Except for the piles of money the artistes make, of course.)
However. To return to what I laughingly call a thread. The signer for the Queen track was the slightly younger, dark-haired, matronly one of the two older women. She and the guy do 80-90% of all the videos, at a guess. And this time, she really seemed to be enjoying the song - which is fair enough; it probably dates from her teens or twenties. It was before mine! So I watched closely, while singing along, quietly. It's fascinating to watch the interpretations; I don't speak BSL but I can follow a tiny bit when I see it. All I can say is "thanks" and "sorry" and a few things like that. Wretched effort, for an amateur linguist. I very much want to learn more.
The bit that delighted me was the main guitar break in the middle. If there's a lengthy instrumental in a song, they fade the signers out briefly, so you can see what's going on unobstructed. The breaks in BoRap are too short, though, so down in the corner she stayed. Usually they bop along a bit, but in this one, when it was Dr May's time to rock out, damn me if she didn't break into a massive air guitar solo. Massively OTT, full-on headbanging, the works.
To which I think I can only say:
\m/ EXCELLENT! \m/
