Sounds of silence

A while back, a close friend of mine lost an acquaintance in a pretty horrific way. This wasn't someone she was particularly close to, but it was someone that she interacted with, and someone whose story she had heard. When he passed away, she and I discussed it and how she felt about it. It seemed like she was sort of puzzled as to why she'd be so affected. (She and I are both really lucky in that our 27 years have been blessedly devoid of deaths. There've been a few, but certainly not like generations past. We're still total amateurs.) And the thing that I felt compelled to tell her was that a voice had been silenced. A story she'd heard had ended abruptly. I think that's the shittiest part about losing someone, be it a close friend, a mere acquaintance, or even an entertainer that you admire-- suddenly, that voice, that unique perspective, that singular sound, is gone. I was thinking about this when I read the 2009 "in memoriam" issue of Entertainment Weekly, and saw all of the little tributes to the entertainers that passed away. Three of them struck me in particular--

1. David Lloyd-- he was a TV writer, and as I've learned in the past few hours, he wrote monologues for Jack Paar and Johnny Carson, he wrote episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "The Bob Newhart Show", "Frasier", "Cheers"-- basically a cross-section of the best TV produced in his generation. His mini-tribute was written by his son Christopher, who writes "Modern Family", a GREAT new show. First of all, I LOVE that the brilliant comedy gene is hereditary. That is beautiful. Also, Christopher wrote that a major recurring memory from his childhood was hearing his dad typing on a manual typewriter, creating this indelible moments of comedy, and every so often, the typing would stop for a second and his dad would chuckle at his own writing. How great is that!?

2. Ron Silver-- He was an actor, probably best known for playing Alan Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune. But for me, he is best known for playing Bruno Gianelli on The West Wing. He was clearly a gifted actor, and it seems like he was a passionate activist, too. (How he was able to work on the set of TWW and be a Republican is beyond me, but I digress...) The thing that struck me about his passing was, again, the silencing of that voice. He had a great voice-- low, kind of menacing, pretty sexy, and he had a very specific enunciation. It's a gift that he was a professional actor because I can listen to his voice by simply pressing "play", but it totally sucks that we can't hear anything new. (I just watched the episode of TWW last night called "Isaac and Ishmael", the teleplay they did at the beginning of season 3 as a sort of homage to the victims of 9/11, and before the show starts, the cast did a brief introduction. And I absolutely started crying when [the late] John Spencer's part came up...because it was HIM talking, not Leo McGarry, and he, too, had a great voice. I'd listen to a recording of John Spencer reading the dictionary if I could.)

3. Bea Arthur-- Betty White wrote the little tribute blurb, and she mentioned instances of being on set with Bea, and how often they'd crack up laughing. It's so great that these ballsy and brilliant comediennes were so quick to laugh-- I'd have thought that they'd be masters of keeping a straight face. I like hearing that Bea enjoyed her gig so much. Plus, she was a pioneer-- aside from the social commentary offered by Maude, she also offered this alternative to the girly-girly, pretty-pretty actresses. She was tall and broad, and had that deep, smoky voice. I love that. What a cool lady.

Anyway-- I guess there's not much of a thesis to this entry. I definitely pay attention to little things in the way people talk, and it really colors how I see them and how I remember them. Like the way my boss Lisa says certain words [she says "produck" instead of "product", while saying "Compaqt" instead of "Compaq"-- seriously, it's the oddest thing]; how my brother has developed an accent since moving to California; how radically different my friend Melissa sounded today when I talked to her [she has a wicked bad cold]; how BFF Katie used to have a serious Michigan accent and doesn't anymore; how my sister Jennie changes the tone of her voice when she starts to exaggerate a story; how my dad pluralizes the word "anywhere" for some reason; how my grandma has the oddest way of saying the word "dog" [I think it's a Kentuckian accent, but I have no idea]; how my other grandma puts a 't' instead of a 'd' at the end of "salad"; how my aunt Mary used to say this one jibberish word to me when I was little and for some reason, it was the funniest thing [I think I wrote about it last year, but the word was pronounced as "JUM-bohhhh-laaaaaahhhhh"-- totally weird, completely captivating to mini-Dana]. I could go on and on. I feel like we focus very easily on how people look, and we have mental pictures of them, and we remember specific facial expressions they made; but it bears mentioning that the mental audio-clips are just as valuable. (My friend Alison, the one who is getting married in March, has one of the best laughs-- back in the day, depending on the circumstances of what made her laugh, she'd bust out with this chortle/guffaw that sort of sounded like Goofy. If I could approximate the sound in written characters, I would, but it's beyond my grasp. I am so looking forward to seeing her because I might get to hear that sound again and it is a total gift, if for nothing else than for the pants-wetting laughter it will elicit in me. Either way, I will always have that sound in my head, and whenever I think of it, it's always entertaining. Much like the Jelly of the Month Club from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, it's the gift that keeps on giving.)