Althouse: "'Stop talking over your brother,' they’d chide. 'I asked him a question.' And I would quieten down, shamed."

July 7, 2025

"'Stop talking over your brother,' they’d chide. 'I asked him a question.' And I would quieten down, shamed."

"My brother would say nothing, but entreat me with frightened eyes to step in. As a small child, I felt my brother spoke without language. I heard his voice in my head, and I believed I was his translator. To me, this felt natural. It’s easy to scoff – the delusions of childhood – but as toddlers we read everything around us.... Maybe, my brother’s non verbal cues felt like language to me. So much of what is communicated between people involves attunement, a subtle reading of one another’s emotional states, micro-expressions and non verbal cues. Perhaps I just hadn’t learned to distinguish...."

Writes Jessie Cole, in "I spoke for my brother when he was too afraid to answer — now, he speaks in melodies, and I have learned to listen" (Guardian).

Jessie Cole is a writer. Her brother, Jacob Cole, is a guitarist. I'm listening on Spotify, here.

7 comments:

rhhardin said...: Should old acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind
The blasted cook fell overboard
And is twenty miles behind

- guy who could only talk by singing joke; 7/7/25, 5:21 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: I'm told that I was virtually mute or at least unintelligible until I was a bit more than four years old. My brother was 11 months younger than me. From the time he was two he "interpreted" for me for a year and a half or more telling my parents and older sister what I'd said or was trying to say.

Sibling communication is a world all its own.; 7/7/25, 5:24 PM
Iman said...: Please advise when guitar is gently weeping.; 7/7/25, 6:22 PM
Old and slow said...: The Guardian may be predictably leftist, but they have some good writing.

I installed an 80 inch plasma screen in their lobby in the East End back in around 1999 when this was a big money item. Before we had even left the building, some wag in IT had connected to it and started streaming hard core porn. Oh how we laughed...; 7/7/25, 6:29 PM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: Turns out "Silence is Golden" was by a band called The Tremeloes and it came out in 1967.; 7/8/25, 5:57 AM
Wince said...: I found his music hard to listen to. And she’s still putting words in his mouth.

The more things change, the more they stay the same?; 7/8/25, 7:16 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Turns out "Silence is Golden" was by a band called The Tremeloes and it came out in 1967."

I know "Silence Is Golden" as the B-Side to "Rag Doll" (Four Seasons, 1964). I idolized The Four Seasons back then, when I was 13.; 7/8/25, 8:35 AM