Miscellaneous
Quiet, please!
Noise pollution can damage your health and shatter your peace of mind. Here’s how to turn it down. Mary Desmond Pinkowish | July 2008 issue A leaf blower, snow blower, lawn mower and two huge dogs—Peter D’Epiro can describe in excruciating detail how his neighbour’s lawn equipment and pets Read More...
Beyond words
Often, simply being there is what really matters. David Servan-Schreiber | July 2008 issue The love we bear for our nearest and dearest is repeatedly put to the test. Tested further than we thought possible. Yet it’s at these extreme moments that love rescues us from the most desperate Read More...
listening is worship
Gordon Hempton is fighting to save the sounds of silence in Washington state’s Olympic National Park — one square inch at a time. Diane Daniel | July 2008 issue Hearing the chirp of a bird in the distance, I expect our unofficial park guide to identify another animal resident here in Read More...
The sound of a Sitka spruce
Audio ecologist Gordon Hempton says Rialto Beach in Washington state is the world’s most musical beach. So Diane Daniel, who writes about his life’s work preserving “One Square Inch of Silence” tried to cipher the symphony by poking her head into the hollowed-out driftwood logs there. What Read More...
Silent spring, again
Speaking up to protect the voices of the wilderness. Amy Domini | July 2008 issue Silence can be a source of healing, a refuge from the stress of modern life, a pathway to enlightenment. Or it can have a more sinister meaning. In 1962, Rachel Carson, an accomplished biologist and popular writer, Read More...
What price peace and quiet?
More and more companies see silence as a golden business opportunity. Janet Paskin | July 2008 issue In search of silence in midtown Manhattan, I’ve landed myself head down and knees up, horizontal in a “nap pod.” For $18 and 25 minutes, I’ll be covered by a blanket and bathed in low blue Read More...
Soft machines
New technologies can help lessen the sonic impact of generating and consuming energy. Marc van Dinther | July 2008 issue Just name the noise, and chances are someone somewhere has launched a campaign to tone it down. Don't like the sound of lawn mowers? Call in the California firm Goats R Us, Read More...
less than zero
What does silence really sound like? Step inside an anechoic chamber to find out. Marisa Taylor | July 2008 issue The sky is bright and cloudless: another perfect day in the San Francisco Bay Area. But I’m about to spend part of it inside a windowless, soundless room called an anechoic chamber Read More...
Because God whispers
Being silent means more than just holding your tongue. It means listening for the softest, most subtle sound of all - the sound of the soul. Tijn Touber | July 2008 issue I’m not listening. “Hurry up, sir. You have just half an hour to reach the hotel. After that the whole island becomes Read More...
In the land of the hearing
How the deaf have mastered the art of silent communication. Ronald Ligtenberg | July 2008 issue In The Country of The Blind, the classic book by H.G. Wells, a seeing man isn’t accepted by a society of blind people. He makes every effort to prove he can do things the others can’t, but the blind Read More...