My mother’s voicemails are famous amongst my friends and family. It has been suggested that they be turned into sleep tapes or motivation lectures. Sometimes she’ll give me relationship advice, or read me my horoscope from two different newspapers. Mostly, my mother’s voicemails are timeless art forms. She recently left a four-minute voicemail describing her view of a daddy longlegs dancing inside a paper bag. She reviewed the weather by telling me how many kites she can see in the park (only one kite = bad weather).
My mother is an actress and grew up in Queens with the likes of Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. She moved to London to be with my dad in the ’70s but she is still very much connected to the theater and movie scene. They go to the movies religiously and find out about all the latest releases from the Financial Times movie review page…for some reason. When my mother asked me if Get Out would be scary, I told her she should be fine, as her favorite film is Jaws. After the movie, my father berated me for that advice:
“Just got back from Get Out. You should have warned me not to go with Ma! Much v loud screaming. V embarrassing! Dad Xx”
Though movies are often reviewed on my voicemail, she rarely leaves one as in depth as this, and I thought it was worth sharing with Talkhouse.