101 Ways to Describe Casey Affleck's Voice
by DURGA CHEW-BOSE
1. near-caterwaul
2. a kid whose lunch is being tossed back and forth between bullies
3. a screech
4. half-grieving, half-reveling
5. like it’s quarreling with itself
6. a voice that’s still trying to find its sweet spot
7. velcro
8. sinuous
9. very earnest
10. a straw scraping the bottom of an empty can of Coke
11. distended
12. dehydrated
13. scraggly
14. weepy
15. a cursive lower-cased L drawn with one’s nails on a chalkboard
16. Macy Gray-ish
17. what the guys in Archie Comics must sound like, especially Jughead
18. a scared Boy Scout
19. corkscrewed
20. teeming
21. curvilinear
22. someone whose joke doesn’t land and is quickly trying explain the punch line
23. a yowl followed by a yip
24. a flutter
25. oxidized
26. the leftover voice after a long sob
27. itchy
28. frenzied
29. rippling
30. meandering yet determined, both
31. sweet but shrill
32. frustrated
33. like there’s spit forever in the corners of his lips
34. a hungry cartoon mouse
35. a cartoon squirrel
36. a cartoon whose catchphrase is “Ack!”
37. the guy in the horror movie who’s watched all the horror movies and knows all the plot twists
38. the voice of someone who perpetually smells like lozenges
39. like a boy from The Sandlot
40. a squall
41. a brooding squall
42. nasally
43. the voice of someone with unusually long limbs
44. cracked
45. a canoe when it scrapes over shallow rocks
46. frail
47. betwixt and between
48. mewling
49. a gradual screech
50. reedy
51. a bicycle with uneven training wheels that make the sound of loose-screws when the wheels turn
52. an old stool that doesn’t quite swivel like it’s meant to
53. a sidekick’s voice
54. a kid who’s just eaten all his Halloween candy and is simultaneously hyper and puke-y, and drowsy
55. a banjo of a voice
56. fretful
57. the voice of an adult who wears Airwalks
58. a far-off sound someone from the city might hear when camping in the woods for the first time
59. flu-ish
60. an underdog
61. an unlikely hero
62. a swing in a park on a windy autumn night
63. Ben Affleck with a cold
64. the sort of person who loses his voice on the happiest day of his life
65. off-key
66. weather-beaten
67. a character from The Brave Little Toaster
68. the friend who always loses the bet
69. the friend who, regardless, always says, “wanna bet?”
70. acute
71. sprightly
72. like someone with a clothespin on his nose
73. thin and spindly
74. a kid flexing his muscles in the mirror before the first day of school
75. someone who is especially physically demonstrative when exasperated
76. uppity
77. a video store clerk
78. someone who is always pulling up his pants
79. squiggly
80. heartsick
81. acrid
82. quaking
83. post concert-voice
84. a confident class clown
85. someone who’s been walking in the desert for days
86. someone who says, “I’m feeling lousy”
87. a low-mumbling marble-like Marlon Brando (only in some roles!)
88. trembling
89. the voice of a paranoid conspiracy theorist
90. gravel falling on a pane of glass
91. iffy
92. a bit blotchy
93. someone who is suddenly truly thrilled because he just remembered he had a chocolate bar in his backpack
94. metal-y
95. a violin with rosin residue
96. husky
97. perplexing
98. high timbre
99. creaking attic floorboards
100. skittish
101. a teenager who just got his braces tightened
Durga Chew-Bose is the senior editor of This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. She twitters here and tumbls here. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here. She last wrote in these pages about the kittens.
"In the Name of Revenge" - Beautiful Small Machines (mp3)
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The new album from Beautiful Small Machines is entitled The DJ Stayed Home and it was released on November 10th.
