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That’s So Marceau!

38 Comments

It goes without saying that today is the birthday of revered mime Marcel Marceau.

I’ll be celebrating Marceau Day as I and my friends always do, quietly and under thick layers of whiteface, alternately pouting and smiling while my hands occasionally and inexplicably flutter about my head like a cloud of manic butterflies.

Signifying what?

Yes, exactly.

But then we’re all wild for Marceau, eh? I think it’s no surprise that our culture embraces mimes and celebrates their art. Why? Because we are a people who love ambiguity. We are enthralled with wordless expressions of intense beauty and excruciating pain – feelings that define the lives of kings and clowns alike. Nothing could be more American. This is second nature to us. And of course we all look fantastic in horizontal stripes.

But it is our legendary patience that makes us so open to the silent arts.

All you have to do is watch a little bit of the Super Bowl, a rap video or any show on prime time TV to know that Americans delight in taking the time to observe a slowly developing series of carefully calibrated movements. We’re curious about meaning but content to let the artist tell us a story at his own pace, in much the same way a leaky faucet tells us the unassailable truth of a worn bushing with a steady drip, drip, drip of identical gestures that ultimately brings us to a moment of shocking clarity when we realize with a start that something in this room is driving us absolutely crazy.

How wonderfully satisfying is that moment of exasperation!

But I don’t have to tell you how wrong it is to employ so many words to try to capture the essence of Marceau Day. As Marceau himself famously said, “Never get a mime talking. He won’t stop.”

http://youtu.be/ZKwHVgey2-8

How comfortable are you with silence?

38 thoughts on “That’s So Marceau!”

  5. Good morning. I am not good at being silent. I realize that there are times when I should not talk so much. Once I get started I just keep talking and often don’t know when to stop. If I remain silent for too long, people who know me might think that something is wrong with me.

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  6. My reactions are highly mixed. In a social setting, when I am among people, silence can be threatening. When I am outdoors, though, there is no such thing as silence. The natural world is rich in all kinds of sounds we normally don’t hear, so things are almost never silent when you are in the natural world.

    When I was a little kid I read something in Boy’s Life that has stuck with me for all these decades. A city guy was walking with an Indian in the woods, and the Indian suddenly stopped because he was listening to some bird call. The city guy had heard NOTHING, and he was impressed with the Indian’s hearing. They later were walking on a sidewalk when the city guy spun around because he heard the distinctive tinkling of a dime that someone had dropped on the sidewalk. The Indian had heard nothing.

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  7. As much as I love music, by the time I am home from work, I need a bit of quiet. The constant din of the world makes me crave moments of silence whenever and however I can grab them. When I lived alone, I would sometimes turn on the TV or radio for the noise and companionship – it was too quiet being home without another human being – but now…now that silence is rare and sweet.

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  9. No comment….

    (Small joke for a small mind).

    Seriously, I go to the BWCAW every year just to get a few days of the closest thing this planet has to silence anymore–nature doing its thing. I’d probably enjoy one of those sensory deprivation rooms for a few minutes too. Or one of those virtually noiseless rooms that can be made with almost no ambient sound. Alhtough on second thought, my tinnitus would probably sound like standing on a runway listening to 747s take off. So I guess I’ll stick with the Boundary Waters.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. I remember noticing how loud all of the sounds of “civilization” were after being away from those sounds in the Boundary Waters.

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  10. Ah, silence. I always have some music playing in my office or at home whenever possible. Silence in the therapeutic session? Well, that has always been hard for me. It is really hard to sit there in silence and let the client sit there in silence. It doesn’t happpen very often, I am happy to say. In play therapy, on the other hand, I have to talk and reflect constantly. Maybe that is why I like it so much. My trips to Bismarck with daughter either consist of her talking my ear off or her totally ignoring me with her nose in a book. I don’t know which I like better.

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  12. A mime radio show, now there’s an idea for you, Dale! Funny that a guy who does radio for a living should appreciate mimes.

    I’m at home by myself a lot, and I enjoy the peace and quiet. I don’t turn the radio or TV on unless there’s something specific I want to listen to or see. Most days the TV is off until 4:30 PM when I watch Jeopardy for half an hour.

    In social situations, long silences can be awkward, but I find that I don’t enjoy being with someone who compulsively feels the need to prattle on about everything and nothing. Good conversation is stimulating, but mindless chatter gets to me in a hurry.

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    1. If anybody could do a mime radio show, it would be Dale. I remember once on TLGMS, he showed slides of his vacation; if he can do that, why not mime?

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      1. I’m sure some of you remember the radio dare devil skit that Dale and Jim Ed did. I think a radio mime skit would be similar to the dare devil one. The mime would do something that would be interesting to describe over the radio, or there might be some other way Dale could do it. Maybe some sound effects when the mime bumps into something or stumbles.

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        1. I remember some other people who visited your studio from time to time. That studio must have been very crowded at times with four hosts and those other characters.

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  13. I remember as a child always feeling disappointed when I saw that Marceau was to be on a show. I just didn’t see the point of mime. I don’t know if I do now. Does this mean I have no esthetic sense?

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  14. I can often enjoy “companionable silence” with the people I know best – I know them well enough that I don’t go “uh-oh, I should be coming up with something to say”. (The exception to this is with my mother, who feels there should be no airspace left unfilled.) And it’s nice to know someone with whom you can choose a silent activity -say, taking a quiet walk.

    A California friend once visited here after a huge drama with her brother; she was really wiped out. We knew we could spend the evening catching up with our life stories, but she was wise enough to ask if we could just sit together and read. It was one of the nicest evenings I’ve spent.

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    1. Companionable silence is good. Nature hikes are best appreciated with someone who understands that. And, quiet evenings, reading, are the best.

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  15. I frequently crave silence. There is a book of short stories by Raymond Carver entitled Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? That title with its sense of brittle desperation always resonated with me. Some days it’s my unspoken plea to the world.

    Complete silence isn’t always what is required, though. I appreciate conversation punctuated by silences during which you can reflect and listen to the world around you.

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  16. I saw MM in St Paul probably in about 1974. He was wonderful. I have always appreciated mimes and don’t quite understand those who don’t. I suspect it’s because they don’t think they’ll understand what the mime is doing or they’re afraid that the mime will pull them into the imaginary world and they won’t know what to do.

    I went to an event at the Mpls Institute of Arts where a mime used audience members to make tableaux to match what was in various paintings. We stood in front of a grand painting with soldiers on steeds (among other things). The mime selected an audience member and wanted him to mount a horse to imitate one of the soldiers in the painting. The audience guy must have missed the whole concept because, although he was able to mime mounting a horse, he ended up facing in the opposite direction of the man in the painting. To inform audience-guy of his mistake, the mime went in front of AG and mimed picking up the horse’s tail and smelling something unpleasant.

    As I have no fear of making a fool of myself and I think I’m pretty good at figuring out what mime’s are doing, I would be happy to be pulled into one of their acts.

    As for the original question, I don’t think I’m terribly fond of silence. Some people put on the TV for company; I have the radio on ALL the time. I do worry a bit if a conversation flags too much.

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  17. Greetings! I totally enjoy silence. I enjoy some music at times, as well. I work in a big, open office about half the size of a football field lined with rows of desks with dividers, but not walls or cubes. Most everyone is on the phone — tracking, selling, buying, negotiating, etc., so there’s a constant buzz of activity. You can be on one side of room, stand up and see someone on the other side. It’s a fun place to be, but it’s nice to come home to quiet.

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  19. Silence is a missing part of life in this fast paced earphone implanted smart phoned / ipadded world we live in
    In a waiting room full of people you can experience silence as all other contemplation challenged souls check email, Facebook, twitter, text messages, books on line while listening to the 4000 songs they have cataloged in their cloud.
    To duplicate an activity is familiar. To rely on creative juices to kick in, not so much. Are drone pilots the same heros as top guns past? Are people devoid of quiet time ever likely to find their inner voice? I find that even though I value quiet time I choose background music and have note pads at ready to capture fleeting

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    1. Was in a waiting room the other day with my mom, waiting while she got an MRI. TV blasting, I finally asked if I could turn it off and the nurse said yes, she doesn’t even hear it any more.

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  20. my computer is back
    woo hoo
    all lower case. the above on ewas written on the iphone in an area with no access to the internet so here it is alte and with caps. i did a response to clyde about 8 am and was plased to see he and occasionally caroline were kind of on the same page. i was evidently so int the role it even posted silently. its not there. it feels so good to have my old keyboard back….. no more of that being caught up with spell checking and having the damn devicethink it gets a vote in what i am trying to write. see you all tomorrow with a hopeful shot at an entry before my busy saturday deparurre on route to a packed saturday schedule 730 am to 9 pm solid stuff going on in the point a b c and d quest i will be on. fantasy baseball draft day, funeral, daughters performance at childrens theater and put on my usher hat for the performance.
    i think a mime radio makes as much sense as the old edgar bergin radio show of the venrtilaquist with charie mccarthy and mortimer snerd. twhat the heck was that. and then when you did see him in person , his lipsd moved. no wonder they did it on the radio.

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  21. i have sound issues. i am very sensative to sound and sitting in a silent room is fine unless i am sitting in a silent rom with a son of a bitch who cant keep quiet. i was somewhere a week or two ago with everyone signed in and waiting their turn in the waiting room then in comes this hot stuff me me me queen with her cell phone calling her people and trying to tell them how busy she was and how she would try to squeeze them into her busy schedule. it went on and aon and i was very tempted to make some obnoxious noise so that instead of impressing the people on the other end of the phoe with how important she was it would give the impressoon she was in a different sceneario. i was laughing about the scenes i had the options on.
    i have a potato chip or more succinctly a crunching issue. ice is the worst. i react like fingernails on the chalkboard i lose it and have to stick my fingers in my ears and go lalalalalala in order to be able to sit there while ice chewing, hard candy potato chips, in a quiet room smacking mashed potatos can kill me. my idea of hell is to sit in a room with noises toanticipate. i will have my shoulders tense in anticipation of hte next offending intrusion. it would be a long slow death and with the flames burning and steely dan palying in the back gorund you could put bamboo under my fingernails and turn the tazer up to 114 and it would go unnoticed. i am sensative to sound. my family is always very aware and on occasion they will apoligize and ask if the crunching is bothering me and i ge tto laugh and remind them that if i hear it i have no choice but to ask them to stop and if they aske me if it is bothering me i can not pretend i dont have it brought to my attention and i can guarantee it will bother me from now on.
    arent the goats wonderful? old yeller and geisha are priceless. even if biv doesnt have anythign to do with us anymore she still has cute goats.

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  22. “Right now I’m having amnesia and déjà vu at the same time. I think I’ve forgotten this before.”
    ― Steven Wright

    “One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.”
    ― Rita Mae Brown

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