Cueing Up Some Cool Jazz

Aug 19 2013


I have heard actors say
you build character from the outside in.
The costume, the wig,
how the outer trappings
transform the man.
Not method, but craft,
free of the anguish
of living in your head.

Just as DNA
is expressed
according to the outside world,
deception
hardens into self.
Because how the world sees us
we begin to see ourselves,
empowered
by that protective skin;
while curled within, still warm and wet
the timid homunculus.

I hear her on the radio,
a beautiful voice
both at ease, and masterful.
I imagine her
as perfect as she sounds,
as intimate
as the single listener
she was taught to picture
one-to-one.

You hope never to see
radio people,
who will only disappoint.
Her disembodied voice
here with me
in this warm safe place,
whispering in my ear;
cooing the news, the weather
the latest hit,
cueing up some cool jazz
at 3 am.

Which we will enjoy, together
some far-off day;
a dream sequence
on a private stage,
playing as ourselves
in a clever masquerade.

I was just reading a piece in the weekend paper about a woman named Lake Bell (love the name!) She is an actor who always dreamed of being a voice artist, and who is still fascinated by the inscrutable power of the invisible voice: on stage, over radio, and in voice-over. She's just written, directed, and acted in (at a ridiculously young age, further confirming my self-image as a horrible under-achiever) a very well-received indie movie called "In A World ..." (add your own deep apocalyptic voice and over-hyped music!)

I've loved public radio for as long as I can remember. (So "the latest hit", needless to say, is poetic licence; since as much as I love public radio, I detest top 40.) This shouldn't be surprising, because it seems a perfect match for a solitary type who is very good at living in his head (never mind an information junkie). When I've gotten to see the person behind the voice, I've almost always been disappointed. So I'm very aware of the power of a beautiful voice; and quite certain I'd rather keep my illusions intact. (Which reminds me of that cleverly self-deprecating expression: "I have a face for radio." But the less on that the better!)

I think it was Alec Guinness who said something to the effect that costume and make-up transformed him instantly into character; that character builds naturally from the outside in. This idea of craft appeals to me, and seems the essence of acting. I find the anguish of "method acting" both over-wrought and unnecessary: after all, the audience isn't privy to the inner turmoil going on in the actor's head, which all seems rather solipsistic and pretentious.

In real life we also carefully construct personas, presenting ourselves to the rest of the world in calculated and self-conscious ways. And when we inhabit this way of being long enough, it becomes more real than pretence.

So, whether costumed actor or well turned-out fashionista or disembodied voice, the viewer projects freely, attributes to him/her all sorts of undeserved qualities. This is the halo effect of a beautiful disembodied voice. It's easy to fall in love with an announcer's seductive charms, sight unseen.

This poem is also a pean to radio, an old technology that is still very much with us; and of which -- as I said -- I'm a giant fan. I love the intimacy of radio. I love the theatre of the mind. Because in radio, as has often been said, the pictures are the best part!

I suspect the poem might be criticized as an awkward marriage of two very different pieces: that it probably would have been better to lop off the first 2 stanzas, and simply start with "I hear her on the radio": a really strong first line with which to hook the reader, in contrast with the more analytical and less visceral bit about the stage. Or perhaps I could have reversed the order, moving from "masquerade" to " ...actors say", and ending with the quivering homunculus. I'd very much appreciate feedback on this. I'm quite willing to consider the change.

Here's why I think the poem works as is. It ends with a call-back to actors on a stage, which helps pull it together, cinch it tight. And the theme is coherent: the idea of the power of surface; the idea of becoming what we appear. And the title, an obvious reference to radio, should stay with the reader and help steer her through to the 3rd stanza, where that subject again picks up. And I like the more detached start, which then shifts gears into something more personal and confessional: it's as if there is this bravely hidden vulnerability that can't help but eventually break through.