Read Online A Field Guide to Awkward Silences by Alexandra Petri - Free Book Online
Authors: Alexandra Petri
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stoplights. There was a good coffee shop/bookstore that had a nice display out to celebrate Gay History Month, which, in my naive way, was not what I had expected of Louisburg, North Carolina.
Doris crept onstage with a harp. Her demeanor at all times was that of someone trying to avoid waking a person sleeping in the next room.
She plucked the harp. Twang dinkle twangle twang-tringgggg twingle. (That was my attempt to write how the harp sounded. William Shakespeare, eat your onomatopoeic heart out!) “Do you hear the Autoharp?” Doris asked. Twingle tring tring tring tringggg.
“Yes,” we said. We heard the Autoharp. Doris proceeded to whistle a lugubrious French song, tinkling along on the Autoharp. It had that characteristic of obscure French songs of seeming to go on a lot longer than it actually did and having no discernible tune. I mean itin the best possible way when I say that her whistling sounded like a seasick theremin. I think that was what she was going for.
By the time it was over I felt a faint buzzing at my temples. This, it turned out, only intensified as the three days of whistling got under way. There is a very, very specific kind of headache that only comes from three days of whistling, similar, I assume, to the kind of hangover you get from drinking only single-malt scotch. You have to really seek it out, but it’s a doozy.
It wasn’t that the whistling was bad. It was that there was so much of it. Also, some of it was bad. Some of it was awful, actually.
• • •
To really immerse myself in the experience, I had decided to compete. To prove you were serious, you had to send in an audition tape. I recorded mine in the women’s restroom at the
Washington Post
, where the acoustics were almost great. I say “almost” because the toilets were motion-operated. If you got particularly emotive, they flushed, instantly ruining the recording. Also people kept coming in. I wonder how they explained to themselves the sound of someone slowly and intently whistling “Princess Leia’s Theme” in the end stall, followed by the sound of flushing, then a voice saying, “Not again!”
Eventually I managed to cobble together a whistling sample that didn’t have flushing noises on it, which I mailed in. When I heard that I was accepted, I guessed that the bar must be pretty low.
When I arrived I was positive.
There was, for instance, one guy with sharp, pointed fingernails who showed up at the Allied Arts competition in one of those newsboy caps that old men wear to disguise or advertise the fact that they are balding, shut his eyes, and proceeded to whistle tunelessly for several minutes to the accompaniment of what sounded like spa music, flapping his arms in a soulful manner.
“Your performance was really something,” I told him, afterward.
“Thank you,” he said. “I call it the Nightingale in Paradise. It is a Baha’i allegory.”
“Oh,” I said. “I see. Why were you flapping?”
He smiled coyly. “Oh, that just came to me. Choreo.”
• • •
If you ever find yourself in Louisburg during whistling season, I recommend without a moment’s hesitation that you go to the Allied Arts competition. There were people who whistled while playing the guitar, people who whistled while folding origami, people who whistled while fighting with ninja throwing stars, people who whistled while feuding with a large woodwind. I am not making any of this up.
The real star of this event was a guy named Roy. Last year, everyone said in hushed tones, Roy had dressed up as Lady Gaga in full lace Red Queen regalia and played the piano while whistling. There was no telling what Roy would do this year. Roy was expected to escalate. Roy was a wild card. We knew he would be whistling, but that was all we knew for sure!
Roy showed up with something that resembled a gigantic James Bond poster. He proceeded to whistle and play piano and sing to a long medley of Bond songs, donning an
Doris crept onstage with a harp. Her demeanor at all times was that of someone trying to avoid waking a person sleeping in the next room.
She plucked the harp. Twang dinkle twangle twang-tringgggg twingle. (That was my attempt to write how the harp sounded. William Shakespeare, eat your onomatopoeic heart out!) “Do you hear the Autoharp?” Doris asked. Twingle tring tring tring tringggg.
“Yes,” we said. We heard the Autoharp. Doris proceeded to whistle a lugubrious French song, tinkling along on the Autoharp. It had that characteristic of obscure French songs of seeming to go on a lot longer than it actually did and having no discernible tune. I mean itin the best possible way when I say that her whistling sounded like a seasick theremin. I think that was what she was going for.
By the time it was over I felt a faint buzzing at my temples. This, it turned out, only intensified as the three days of whistling got under way. There is a very, very specific kind of headache that only comes from three days of whistling, similar, I assume, to the kind of hangover you get from drinking only single-malt scotch. You have to really seek it out, but it’s a doozy.
It wasn’t that the whistling was bad. It was that there was so much of it. Also, some of it was bad. Some of it was awful, actually.
• • •
To really immerse myself in the experience, I had decided to compete. To prove you were serious, you had to send in an audition tape. I recorded mine in the women’s restroom at the
Washington Post
, where the acoustics were almost great. I say “almost” because the toilets were motion-operated. If you got particularly emotive, they flushed, instantly ruining the recording. Also people kept coming in. I wonder how they explained to themselves the sound of someone slowly and intently whistling “Princess Leia’s Theme” in the end stall, followed by the sound of flushing, then a voice saying, “Not again!”
Eventually I managed to cobble together a whistling sample that didn’t have flushing noises on it, which I mailed in. When I heard that I was accepted, I guessed that the bar must be pretty low.
When I arrived I was positive.
There was, for instance, one guy with sharp, pointed fingernails who showed up at the Allied Arts competition in one of those newsboy caps that old men wear to disguise or advertise the fact that they are balding, shut his eyes, and proceeded to whistle tunelessly for several minutes to the accompaniment of what sounded like spa music, flapping his arms in a soulful manner.
“Your performance was really something,” I told him, afterward.
“Thank you,” he said. “I call it the Nightingale in Paradise. It is a Baha’i allegory.”
“Oh,” I said. “I see. Why were you flapping?”
He smiled coyly. “Oh, that just came to me. Choreo.”
• • •
If you ever find yourself in Louisburg during whistling season, I recommend without a moment’s hesitation that you go to the Allied Arts competition. There were people who whistled while playing the guitar, people who whistled while folding origami, people who whistled while fighting with ninja throwing stars, people who whistled while feuding with a large woodwind. I am not making any of this up.
The real star of this event was a guy named Roy. Last year, everyone said in hushed tones, Roy had dressed up as Lady Gaga in full lace Red Queen regalia and played the piano while whistling. There was no telling what Roy would do this year. Roy was expected to escalate. Roy was a wild card. We knew he would be whistling, but that was all we knew for sure!
Roy showed up with something that resembled a gigantic James Bond poster. He proceeded to whistle and play piano and sing to a long medley of Bond songs, donning an
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