Spending Father's Day Casting Nasturtiums On His Good Name

I can’t resist re-posting this. Today would have been my father’s 84th birthday. I’m spending the day writing, Dad, and tonight we’ll drink a glass of red wine in your honour.

My father loved words, sounds, and language. I guess I’ll always feel that he played a role in setting me on my voice training path.

I remember back when I was working as a text coach for a production of ‘Medea’ at UBC, I’d discuss Greek pronunciations with him - did he think ‘Glauce’ should be pronounced ‘Glau - say’ or ‘Glau - kay’’, and so on. Dad was emphatic about the muscular sounds of the Greek language, insisting that “the vowels are long, the consonants are hard! It’s always ‘KUH, not ‘SUH’!” I’m not sure he was right about that, but it wasn’t about scholarly precision. He loved the vigour and vitality of those sounds. 

He felt the connection between characters and their utterances.  He once gleefully told me about a woman waiting in the line at the bank who, needing to sign a paper, had turned to him and asked, “can I borrow your paaaaaan?” From this articulation, Dad created an entire character.

He kept note of what he called “howlers” – warped expressions and malapropisms - whenever he heard them. Like the sailor “changing his tact”, or someone “casting nasturtiums on his good name”. Or typos - he took the time to clip an article out of the newspaper and mail it to me just so I could see that the headline read, “Detainee Welcomes a Pubic Inquiry”. Scrawled on the side of the paper was Dad’s voice: “Look at his big smile! And the wife’s expression!”

 At a launch party for ‘Piccolo Mondo’ he said, “Writing began for me in Grade Eleven…It continued at UBC where I sat in the basement of the student newspaper office every Thursday slowly clicking my loves and hates into a Remington typewriter and onto a column of arts criticism…What I loved most dearly, though, was reading poems to audiences, showing off...I’ve always loved having an audience. Lend me your ears.”

What I remember about him, and what guides me, is the way he spanned a continuum of physical, vocal, verbal, and written expression. He embodied words - reaching across, darting through, dancing along breath, muscle, sound, typeset, and ink. For him, sounds, speech, words and text merged in a way that is rare – a way that I will likely spend my whole life trying to understand.

To me, his sound and fury signified everything. 

Spending Father's Day Casting Nasturtiums On His Good Name

My father loved words, sounds, and language. I guess I’ll always feel that he played a role in setting me on my voice training path.

I remember back when I was working as a text coach for a production of ‘Medea’ at UBC, I’d discuss Greek pronunciations with him - did he think ‘Glauce’ should be pronounced ‘Glau - say’ or ‘Glau - kay’’, and so on. Dad was emphatic about the muscular sounds of the Greek language, insisting that “the vowels are long, the consonants are hard! It’s always ‘KUH, not ‘SUH’!” I’m not sure he was right about that, but it wasn’t about scholarly precision. He loved the vigour and vitality of those sounds. 

He felt the connection between characters and their utterances.  He once gleefully told me about a woman waiting in the line at the bank who, needing to sign a paper, had turned to him and asked, “can I borrow your paaaaaan?” From this articulation, Dad created an entire character.

He kept note of what he called “howlers” – warped expressions and malapropisms - whenever he heard them. Like the sailor “changing his tact”, or someone “casting nasturtiums on his good name”. Or typos - he took the time to clip an article out of the newspaper and mail it to me just so I could see that the headline read, “Detainee Welcomes a Pubic Inquiry”. Scrawled on the side of the paper was Dad’s voice: “Look at his big smile! And the wife’s expression!”

 At a launch party for ‘Piccolo Mondo’ he said, “Writing began for me in Grade Eleven…It continued at UBC where I sat in the basement of the student newspaper office every Thursday slowly clicking my loves and hates into a Remington typewriter and onto a column of arts criticism…What I loved most dearly, though, was reading poems to audiences, showing off...I’ve always loved having an audience. Lend me your ears.”

What I remember about him, and what guides me, is the way he spanned a continuum of physical, vocal, verbal, and written expression. He embodied words - reaching across, darting through, dancing along breath, muscle, sound, typeset, and ink. For him, sounds, speech, words and text merged in a way that is rare – a way that I will likely spend my whole life trying to understand.

To me, his sound and fury signified everything. 

The F Word

The English lexicographer and etymologist Susie Dent was asked online to confirm an old story: that the word “fuck” originated from ancient times when sex was outlawed unless there was explicit consent from the monarch. The decree of “Fornication Under Consent of the King” became “F.U.C.K.”. And thereby hangs a tail.

Dent’s reply: “Sadly, Fornication Under Command/Consent of the King is a much later backronym. The history of fuck is tricksy, but it might be a much-altered version of the Latin ‘pugnare’, to hit or beat - for centuries kestrels were called ‘windfuckers’ because their wings strike the wind.”

I like the Latin origin story way more than the backronym. Kestrels are such romantic, medieval birds to me, and the idea of calling them windfuckers cracks me up. But Dent seemed to sense that her answer might disappoint some of her readers. Acronyms are fun, and “F.U.C.K.” is especially tempting. Because it’s funny to imagine people in Olde Englande going to some crown-wearer to ask for permission to have sex? Or because it’s appealing to think of people resorting to this simple codeword, this quickie, instead of a lengthy royal dictate?

Acronyms are visual engagements with language. They can be fun like codewords are fun. But “fuck” is more likely an old word expressing a physical action or movement whose sound has changed as pronunciations shift and slide around. The engagement is kinesthetic. It is aural; tactile; visceral. We express it in moments of heightened emotion, and research suggests that our impulse to do so comes from the same part of the brain that releases endorphins. Schitt’s Creek’s Moira Rose, after struggling too many times to articulate the name “Herb Ertlinger”, finally bursts out with “BINGO LINGFUCKER!” and we feel her satisfaction. Many, many articles have been written about what happens in the brain when we say the word; or about how saying the word makes us smarter, funnier, better dressed - who knows. But EXPRESSING it, not looking at it.

From the friction of the ‘fff’, to the open vowel, through to that explosive ‘k’. It’s all there. No decoder ring required.

Written in the Body

When I was completing my master’s degree, my advisor told me that her wish for me going forward was “that you spend time every day just being in your body.” She had noticed my habit of intellectualizing voice work. I believe this can be a strength for a coach: investigating the structure of languages and researching the meanings of words. I value the clear articulation of complex thoughts through the spoken word.

But the human voice is bodily process, a physical action. I do now spend time every day being in my body, and I seek new ways of developing and honouring this physical side of voice and text work.

Recently, I had an opportunity to work with Deaf artists on Shakespeare text. This extraordinary group of performers challenged my traditional approaches to text work, executing exercises in ways that were completely different from what I’d experienced before, adding new meaning and resonance to the texts. As I perceived through interpreters, the signed languages were communicating something far beyond a literal meaning. And this turned my phonocentric exercises - used by hearing actors to uncover layers of deeper meanings - into something of a game of catch-up.

My sense is that ASL expresses, through the body, not only poetic structures, grammar, and images, but even metaphor, temporal aspects, or emotional states. Of course this is particularly exciting in Shakespeare performance, which is always a process of interpretation – there is no objective ‘Hamlet’.

For me, it’s also a fitting reminder that words and ideas don’t reside solely in the brain. I have often thought of words being physical: muscular and filled with kinetic energy. But it’s also true that our bodies are linguistic. Now I find myself circling back to hear my mentor’s voice, “be in your body”. So maybe that’s my homework: investigating the structure and meaning and signs in the language of the body.