Madame Psychosis's voice

Madame Psychosis's voice is defined entirely by what it is not — "not bored or laconic or ironic or tongue-in-cheek," "reflective but not judgmental," possessed of "an unironic but generally gloomy outlook." In a culture whose default vocal register is ironic detachment, her power is a via negativa: she is the one broadcast voice with the irony subtracted, and that subtraction is precisely what Mario — "the least cynical person in the history of Enfield MA," "listening faithfully" across the river — hears and finds, "for all its black cynicism, terribly compelling." Two un-ironic sensibilities meet over the air: a voice that has removed the ironic reflex and the one listener who has no ironic reflex to remove. (The radio/M.I.T.-cortex/filmography apparatus is film-optics'; pairs directly with rostered 117.)