In Which We Hear His Voice In Our Waking Dreams

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.

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In Which Black Is Generally The Color Of My True Love's Hair

In the Dark

by ALEX CARNEVALE

Ain't Them Bodies Saints
dir. David Lowery
96 minutes

Casey Affleck has taken another job. Someone, we will get to who, has cast him as a savage but moral outlaw. His love for Rooney Mara is eternal, even though she is kind of blah. Still, he claims that a police officer she murders was felled by his bullet, his gun.

A shootout, freely violated by bystanders and policemen, is the center of Ain't Them Bodies Saints. You wouldn't think there would be enough time for musing and remembrance during this kind of an event, but you have not been to a slaughter emceed by Casey Affleck. Everyone was having too much fun to stop shooting their handguns.

with the director

Black is David Lowery's favorite color, a deep black that a regular television set can't even render. You have to be on his level to even see the movie. What you don't see, some of it you hear. On occasion, young mothers (Rooney Mara) will monologue, usually after her six year old daughter asks a question such as, "How long will my braids last?" or "What's a convict, Mommy?" Such things are routinely said if you are waiting for your husband to break out of prison.

God (Casey Affleck) is a vengeful criminal. He plans to return for his wife and daughter pending his escape from the penitentiary. Here we have the basic, exciting elements of a story, but wound around each other such as they are in a music video. This is to ensure the same predictable satisfactions will not happen on Casey Affleck's watch. Oh, our God is a vengeful God!

Before returning for his family, Affleck heads over to Keith Carradine's to let him know the plan. Keith's moustache is very upset by this, but he manages to keep his shit together. You know the kind of person who always says one more thing, beyond the thing you wanted them to say? That's Keith Carradine in every single one of his roles.

For her part, Mara passes the time with a deputy of the police force (Ben Foster). From all evidence he is kinder to both of them than they are to each other. He plans to defend them from Casey Affleck, but how well did that work out for Abraham? (Casey Affleck possesses his own bible, it is the manual you get on airplanes to teach you how to open the doors.)

You know what Bonnie & Clyde didn't do? They didn't whine about it. Actually, they did, nevermind.

The swirling sound of Aint Them Bodies Saints is the only highlight, since Rooney Mara is basically placid throughout all of this. Since crying would be a cliche, she cannot cry. Since acting anxious, in the manner of Kirsten Dunst on a Tuesday, would make her seem like she is on drugs, that's out as well. Maybe she does something unusual in the dark part of the frame that we can't see. Something may happen to her there.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.

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