On Lon Chaney

I am reflecting on our cultural debt to Lon Chaney, Sr.

Leonidas Chaney was born on April Fools' Day, 1883, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His parents were both deaf-mute; his father, a barber, was well-loved for his ability to transcend communication barriers and amuse his patrons with his excellent comedic timing. Lon was a native speaker of pantomime, a natural artist in physical and facial communication. Before immersing himself in Vaudeville at age 19, Lon trained in wallpaper, drapery, and carpet installation and worked as a tour guide at Pikes Peak.

Lon Chaney did not consider himself primarily an actor. Instead, he considered his entertainment art to be disguise through makeup. All his appearances are dual performances-- he designed his own makeup, costumes, and contortion equipment The genius of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera are his; and, interestingly, so were their pains. The hunchback's hump weighed in excess of fifty pounds, designed by Lon himself to inspire a tortured performance. In The Penalty, he tied his legs behind his back and used prosthetics below the knee. "The Man With a Thousand Faces," though evidently in favor of a broader approach to representation than simple disguise, was widely recognized as a world expert on makeup; the Encyclopaedia Brittanica reportedly invited him to write its (uncredited and since revised) article on the subject. Such was his reputation for disguise that a friend quipped at a dinner party: "don't step on that spider, it may be Lon Chaney."

As Hollywood transitioned to talkies, Lon mused that his voice was ill-suited to the medium. It may have been false modesty or reflective of an insecurity with voice in general, as he is said to have had a delightful rich baritone, and was known as a Vaudevillian for his singing, dancing, and comedic timing. He starred in only one talkie, but it is tantalizing to think that that it is his voice work in that film which is so notable. Later, he signed a statement saying that he did indeed provide the voices of five characters: a ventriloquist and his dummy, an old woman, a girl, and a parrot. The performances were convincing enough, I suppose, to warrant the affidavit.

I find it ironic that he died of a throat hemorrhage just months after the release of that film. His voice was apparently an untapped treasure itself; a voice he did not get to show off in his childhood or in his career.

Lon Chaney, my friends.
Celebrate him this Halloween.
I also suggest naming a son Leonidas.

On The Microtragedy of Baked Goods With Insufficient Salt

It is perhaps strange for my inaugural blog post to be about something so drearily commonplace as undersalted baked goods. But I suppose it is as introductory as anything to say what I am thinking about at this the inaugural moment.

It is a small tragedy when otherwise delightful and well-constructed baked goods contain insufficient salt. Some time ago I was eating pumpkin bread of a gorgeous russet color and tender, rich crumb. The bread, while spiced well and baked to perfection, was a total waste. The flavor was bland and indistinct, the sweetness unchecked. The spices I saw suspended in the matrix registered only fleetingly and furtively, incapable of acting to half their potential. The loaf probably had inherent in it a great depth of flavor which I could not access for the lack of salt.

In elementary school, I was assigned to participate in "Junior Great Books," a sort of excuse for a gifted-and-talented program. One selection was a working of a fairy tale. It involved a king who, in a fit of unchecked narcissism, asked his daughters how much they loved him. Each answered in turn: "more than all the jewels in the world," "more than life itself," and the like, until it was the youngest's turn; this wise lass replied: "I love you more than meat loves salt." The fair ingenue is banished to work in a distant kingdom as a scullery maid.* Eventually she is brought to the castle on the night of a feast to help with the cooking, and, no longer 'artless,' ensures that all the food lacks salt. The king, repulsed by the disingenuous blandness of the splendorous feast, realizes his great wickedness and sends for his ever-loving daughter. They are reunited, and l.h.e.a.

The third-grade discussion was respectable, but even then I looked around the group with meta-eyes. Of course the children hated the story. Here they were made to read an over-long recitation of a stuffy, obscure fairy tale which relied on geriatric, questionable-at-best metaphors. My classmates did say appropriately insightful things, like "it's not just the taste thing, yuck, but, like they didn't have fridges, and meat would rot and stuff." But ultimately we were just saying what we knew we had to before we could be dismissed. In my own corner of the third-grade circle, I saw the discussion as another application of the story's metaphor; we knew there must be something to the tale, else why was it a "Great Book"?, but we didn't care, so we were instead cynical of it and banished it from our fondnesses. But what is meat without a little salt, and life without some thoughtful metaphors and far-fetched storytalk?

Our meat no longer rots without salt (props to Alexander Twining), and I don't think our pumpkin bread is endangered by maggots anyway. But it is this sense of half-capacity that I get from the loaf, the squandered opportunity, the ingredients that were used but not quite utilized-- that is the micro-tragedy. It is microtragic, too, that there are bakers out there who otherwise perfect their craft and never venture to give another shake from the shaker. Were I to love somebody "as [meat] loves salt," I would speak of their ability to make me live and feel to capacity, their way of making the flavors sometimes dormant in my character shine. And that would be a true love.


*I've loved the term "scullery maid" ever since, and use it as a mental self-descriptor when doing roommates' dishes sans charitable intent.

Salt shaker painting from jeffhayesfineart.blogspot.com-- the man creates a painting every day. I respect that.