W. B. Yeats

“We Return.” Letter H

Mel Blanc was a man who started his career in radio. Upon his death in 1989 he had become the voice of many iconic cartoon characters; Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and numerous others. A few days after his death, I remember seeing an editorial comic; it showed a large group of the cartoon characters he provide the voice for, standing over his grave site. With the standard large circle symbolizing speech in comics, coming from the their mouths, the area inside the black cloud-like space was empty, blank (no pun intended), void of words.

Yea, we get it. Were not talking about some deep existential epiphany here; You can’t have Bugs Bunny without Mel Blanc; the voice behind the character. This duel concept isn’t a lot different from “real TV,” the movies, or even a book. Oddly enough, this symbiotic relationship works the best, not when we remember the person behind the character, mainly the writer; it’s when we forget such people exist at all (“sorry” to all my literary friends). I won’t list all kinds of actor quotes here, but most of us want to believe when watching our favorite movies, or TV shows, or reading our favorite book character, that the spoken and written words we “hear,” are the words from that character, be it Doctor Hawkeye Pierce, Doctor Who, or Doctor “Doc” Daneeka, from “Catch-22.” In our minds, these people said it………and that’s it.

Recently, I’ve enjoyed a third added dimension on TV (usually through reruns on Netflix). It’s a character speaking the words, written by a writer, who’s taken the words from another writer of literature. Sometimes the show might be a little corny, or on the surface “simplistic,” but, it’s made me dig out some of that literature and read the original work or subsequent information. I’ll admit, when reading the original works, I don’t get all starry eyed and proclaim a life-altering renaissance (I save that for reading my own ZD45 blogs), but it just sounded so cool, and surprisingly pleasant. Lets run down a few of them.

1. Faith—is the Pierless Bridge
   Supporting what We see
   Unto the Scene that We do not—
   Too slender for the eye.

Poet Emily Dickerson; as told to us from from the character of God, speaking to Joan Girardi.

Joan of Arcadia.

2.   “In the middle of the journey of our life
       I found myself astray in a dark wood
       where the straight road had been lost.“

From Italian poet Dante. Dante’s Inferno; describing his journey through Hell. Spoken by the character Chakotay to Captain Janeway.

Star Trek Voyager……..For you Artie, and my High School Home Room Teacher (Junior Year) who talked about it constantly……..Dante, not Voyager!

3.   “As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”

Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden; as quoted several times on an episode of “Ed.”

In the spirit of Thoreau and his advise to simplify; a side note for writer Martha Reynolds, as given to us from the character Mrs. Kim on the Gilmore Girls……..”Stuff! What Stuff? People have too much stuff!”

4.     “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
        The ceremony of innocence is drowned.”

Irish poet W.B Yeats from his work, The Second Coming. A poem about the Apocalypse.  Spoken from the character Jacob Stone in an Oklahoma red-neck bar on the TV show “The Librarians.”