Speaking of conversations, the other day in a New York Times’ new feature called “Here to Help,” came this offering: HOW TO HAVE MORE ENGAGING EVERYDAY CONVERSATIONS.
Wow! The New York Times has spoken! I guess I don’t have to offer any more tips now do I?
I’ll link to the article at the bottom of this column, but here is the opening of their story:
” Ask people what they miss most about college, and many will mention something similar: the intellectual stimulation of living near hundreds of thousands of potential friends, studying physics, psychology and literature, with the time to talk over a meal or some drinks late into the night. But there are ways to keep that conversational spirit alive no matter where you are. Here are three pieces of advice.
Unite around a common interest
Be friendly, open and polite
Don’t overthink it “
I want to add these most excellent convo kickstarters from my friend Nick O’Connor, lines he says he heard Spalding Grey try out:
What do you do for fun?
What happened to you on the way over here?
So as I head to a college reunion in Middletown, Connecticut, I’ll leave you this link to the Times column and make sure that as I walky the old campus I talky into the night with me old college chums…
Take my niece Liz, who works at Gallaudet University in Washington D.C.* Recently, she taught me that speaking in ASL – American Sign Language— can bring forth better conversations onto this earth. How do the deaf do it? And do they do it better?
“Well not necessarily better,” Liz explains, “but it’s a different way of conversing.”
But don’t the deaf miss muchoel converso when they don’t hear any of it?
For the following conversation, we aren’t using ASL; Liz reads my lips and I understand her speech, being in the same family for 30 years…
HANK: How different is this conversation?
LIZ: While I talk, you are hearing everything going on around us. 360 degrees. While you talk, deaf folks listen by looking. I can’t look away.
HANK: How about when two deaf conversationalists use ASL to communicate?
LIZ: The person who signs doesn’t have to look directly when conversing. But the person paying attention has to look at the signer to understand. This is a more direct and more effective way to communicate.
HANK: More direct. Why do you think so?
LIZ: Because it takes more of an attention span to look the whole time. Deaf speakers are more comfortable with eye contact.
HANK: Sometimes it is too much for me to look so long into someone’s eyes.
LIZ: I know! Hearing people get like, “Stop staring at me!”
[Laughter]
HANK: The deaf don’t stare?
LIZ: They’re paying attention. They convey information by the way they look at each other, with facial expressions.
HANK: Your convo has more info because of facial expressions?
LIZ: A hearing person can use the inflection of their voice to convey certain emotions –excitement, sadness, fear. A deaf person on the other hand – I have to tell you visually: I AM SO ANNOYED! Or just pissed off.
HE: It’s much more in your face.
LIZ: Yes. Another thing is, sometimes with a hearing person who is dull, the words come out all – the – same.
HANK: So the deaf are really the most un-robot-like of all conversationalists.
LIZ: I don’t know about that….
Awkward And Semi-awkward Silences
HANK: What about silence? Are deaf folks more comfortable with them?
LIZ: No, we’re the same. There’s no difference.
[Silence]
HANK: What other differences are there?
LIZ: Deaf culture is much more information-centered.
HANK: Give me an example.
LIZ: A hearing friend says: “Look over there.” But “over there” means what?
HANK: Look there?
LIZ: “Look, look!” they’ll say. But that’s not specific enough. And I’ll say, “That’s not helping me. What is over there? A bird, the sky?”
HANK: Superman?
[Laughter]
LIZ: Deaf speakers offer more information: “Look at that tree, how red the leaves are. Look.” We’re used to a more direct way of explaining things. Sometimes with a hearing person, things get so vague.
HANK: Deaf conversation is fuller in a way?
LIZ: Well, I miss the nuanced clues. I can see what’s going on, but you know more than I do. You have the information about the red bird: Please explain more to me!
HANK: What about talking in a group of people? Like at a meeting or a party?
LIZ: In most groups, there is “turn taking.” Talkers take turns while others listen. A deaf conversation has much more turn taking. It is a requirement, because you can’t all be signing at the same time; everybody will get lost. When one person talks, everyone looks at that person. That’s how it works.
Tips For The ASL-impaired Conversationalist
HANK: What else can I learn about conversing?
LIZ: Slow down. Exercise your facial expressions. Move your hands and don’t be afraid to point things out.
HANK: Sign language seems such a wonderful way to conversate.
LIZ: I don’t know that word “conversate,” but ASL can be taught right from birth. It is a part of the connection between parent and child. Babies want to communicate. They can be taught the sign for “milk” which is the baby squeezing their hand. So this is before they ever say in English, “I want milk.”
HANK: I love that!
LIZ: And look, it can serve you your whole life. Think of this: if you are across a room, you don’t have to scream. You can just sign!
* * *
QUESTIONS
With blind folks, everyone seems to want to help. But with deaf people, are hearing people scared to even speak? Is there a fear of the deaf?
As early adopters of technology — from Blackberry to Sidekick to FaceTime, Skype, etc — what’s next? Liz suggests: Virtual interpreters, avatars there anytime you need translation, some kind of captioning on your eyeglasses so you can understand in real time whatever information is coming your way.
So what do you see coming after that? Liz answers: “Beam me up!”
ACTIVITY
Be more visual by using facial expression.
Provide more context when pointing something out, get more comfortable with your hands.
Don’t be afraid to point.
Maintain eye contact.
Slow down.
And if you are still struggling to communicate?
My niece suggests: Relax.
“I’m shy too,” Liz says. “Remember that nothing is perfect and it’s okay to ask questions. It’s really okay to say: I did not get that. Can you say it again? It’s a drag when someone goes yeah yeah yeah and I know they aren’t getting it. I wanna slap them in the face.”
Between now and now, between I am and you are, the word bridge. Entering it you enter yourself: the world connects and closes like a ring. From one bank to another, there is always a body stretched: a rainbow. I’ll sleep beneath its arches.
Conversation can sometimes seem, yeah I know – old school, y’all.
I mean, look how much we love being pulled away from it by technology tools outside our bodies.
Right? Why is that? Because we want the future and we want it now!?
And yet, even with so many new kinds of ways to communicate, we still move forward through time together talking. Thus the aim of this weblog: how to deal with it and hopefully continue to get closer while doing so. (Poet William Butler Yeats: “That’s all there is for men and women, just to grow closer together.”) (Or was it William Blake?)
Another poet good to quote in conversation is a later 20th century Beat from California named Gary Snyder. Snyder said the only reason tribe members started writing things down was because they couldn’t remember the stories otherwise! And as our tribal-cultural memory has been passed down through aural storytelling, we now see how we’ve begun to forget. (The couple in the cartoon up top may not have devices at the ready; perhaps because they’ve stuck all their memories and what-to-say-to-each-other in them.)
Luckily, friends and convo-lovers everywhere, we’re in the midst of a mass cultural shift.
Yes.
Have you noticed: Storytelling is King!
by Andy Rash
Your intrepid folk journalist was lucky enough to attend a wedding of two storytellers in upstate New York. An older fellow there told me: I haven’t seen this much talent since I was in the Catskills sixty years ago! The grounds were overflowing with tall tale-tellers, ribald playmakers, musicians, magicians, dancers and clowns. I felt part of one village I’d gladly take. Or however that goes.
Many of today’s less mountain-high tribal folks have a tendency to document our humanity as they live it. Via devices like Snapchat et al. Is this an attempt to get it down and pass it on before it goes away? Maybe we’re just simply using the tools we’ve created, playfully. Then again, playwright Thornton Wilder once explained that, “at the end of every great civilization there is a huge explosion of creativity.”
One big banging on a can, man? Is that what’s exploding all around us? Like, I’d love to chat, maybe learn a bit more about each other during my next coffee break, but I’m off attending to my social affairs! My personal media-me needs me! Hey, I’m being social, through a mediated experience. What’s going on here? Have we become what Ethan Hawke’s character in the movie Boyhood described as the robots we fear are coming for us from somewhere else some day?
But back to the storytelling The 92nd Street Y * in New York City, rallying to a belief that the oldest way is still the bestest way to communicate, has astonishing conversations between two good talkers made intimate. Move over on that couch, I gotta sit close to this! (LINKS BELOW)
Back Pocket Banter (Questions for Folk Journalists to Ask)
Have conversations failed you before?
How do they fail all of us now?
Do you consider Facebook a conversation?
Why do you think we distract yourselves with all these new devices?
What kind of new conversation have we created in the social media age?
Cultural Convo
Heard about the new “bullet screens” in China’s movie theaters? Audience members project text messages onto the screen. “At any time the screen may be overlaid with multiple comments scrolling across the action,” said the story I read about this phenomenon. The point, they say, is often not to watch the show, but to “tucao”— in Chinese to “spit and joke around” with friends.
Can that happen here? Sounds like a riff on Joel Hodgson and his Mystery Science Theater 3000** show, where audience banter get riffed over bad movies. In the Chinese version, according to the article, “Even when the videos are boring, the viewers are entertaining each other. Bullet screens are for young viewers who make sharing every thought a way of life.” (And if your battery runs down, just give your seat number to an usher via text; they’ll be by ASAP, “with a portable battery to recharge phones.”)
Now, does this seem like the end times of our amusing ourselves to death? On the bright side, perhaps it signals the return of the triple feature! And as they gaze into other’s screens together, leaning up head-to-head buried in each other’s hair, you have to admit these kids look adorable…
* To hear conversations and great writers reading check out these 92nd Street Y links:
Listen, I really think that stories are the best tool for empathy that we have. Aaron Sorkin, screenwriter “Steve Jobs,” in the Jewish Journal November 6 2015
