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July 18 is World Listening Day

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world listening day

Nice work, if you can get it.

Today is World Listening Day. It honors the birth on July 18, 1933, of Raymond Murray Schafer, the Canadian composer, teacher and environmentalist who invented the study of acoustic ecology at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University in the late 1960s.

Acoustic ecology uses field recordings to create and preserve the planet’s disappearing soundscapes while battling schizophonia, a word Schafer coined to define a unique medical condition. “We have split the sound from the maker of the sound,” Schafer explained.

“Sounds have been torn from their natural sockets and given an amplified and independent existence. Vocal sound, for instance, is no longer tied to a hole in the head but is free to issue from anywhere in the landscape.” We have a strong sensory response to this: it smells like feces and sounds like tenure.

The first World Soundscape Project was born from Schafer’s annoyance at the noise pollution he felt was ruining beautiful Vancouver.  It has evolved into a serious course of study. This business of listening seems to rely on a whole lot of talking.

The World Listening Project (WLP) was created in 2008 as a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization dedicated to understanding societies, cultures and environments by listening and preserving audio. Finally, someone has found a way to achieve tax-exempt status for recording a garage band or just the sound a garage makes.

WLP and the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology (MSE), under the auspices of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology (ASAE), created World Listening Day in 2010. Why? Per its site:

Cities’ sonic identities are continually fluctuating as residential and commercial infrastructures develop. The resultant social dynamics of industrialization and gentrification sponsor variegated relationships between people and the public and private places they occupy.

“…sponsor variegated relationships”? It looks like a thesaurus bled out all over an SAT. We get it: change sucks. Why can’t everything be like yesterday? If only we had a way to preserve it forever, like on DVD, but without the pesky visuals.

The theme of World Listening Day 2016 is “Sounds Lost and Found.” Per the organizers:

[W]e invite you to dig into crates of vinyl and cassettes, dive into digital archives, and engage deeply with memories and unheard languages to rediscover or identify these “lost sounds.”

While we agree that listening is an essential and underappreciated art, we don’t understand the need to starve other senses like sight to do it; we aren’t sure we can engage deeply with an unheard language. But maybe we weren’t listening closely enough. Would you mind repeating it?

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

Polar Bear Swim

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June 18, 2016, marks the 42nd annual Polar Bear Swim, celebrated in Nome, Alaska. Unlike many places in the USA’s lower 48 states (and Hawaii, of course), where taking a dip in the middle of June is a pleasure, splashing in the Bering Sea is not for the faint of heart.

polar bear swim nome

The water is barely above freezing. In fact, in some years, the swim has been rescheduled because the ice hasn’t broken up enough to allow participants to wade in from Nome’s East End Beach. (Rush in and rush right back out is a more accurate description.)

The Polar Bear Swim is part of the Midnight Sun Festival, held in Nome during its summer solstice, when the sun shines 22 hours of the day. Other festival events include the Gold Dust Dash, a four-mile foot race to win a gold nugget; the Midnight Sun Parade, with prizes for the best floats; and the Midnight Sun Annual Bank Robbery, a mock holdup of Wells Fargo Bank at high noon by gunslinging outlaws.

At 2 pm, roughly 100 people are expected to brave the icy water in bikinis, Speedos and various costumes. A bonfire will be built on the beach so everyone can warm up quickly after leaving the water. All swimmers will receive a certificate of achievement and join the ranks of people who’ve taken the plunge since 1975.

Whether it sounds like a rollicking good time or makes you want to dive under an electric blanket, there’s no doubt Nome’s Polar Bear Swim is a wacky holiday to rival Canada’s International Hair Freezing Day.

So jump in and tell your friends, “Come on in, the water’s f-f-f-freezing!”

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

Buzzard Day 2016

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June 11, 2016, is Buzzard Day in Glendive, Montana, and neighboring Makoshika, the state’s largest park, which covers 11,538 acres at an elevation of 2,415 feet above sea level. It falls on the second Saturday of June and celebrates the return of turkey vultures to eastern Montana.

Buzzard Day

The name Makoshika (Ma-ko’-shi-ka) is derived from a Lakota phrase meaning bad land or bad earth. The park contains rock formations, the fossil remains of Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops and miles of hiking trails and scenic drives.

Buzzard Day
Today’s main event is Montana’s toughest 10k run. There will also be a 5k run and a disc golf tournament. Kids can participate in a fun run/walk, play miniature golf and jump in a bouncy house. Lurch, a turkey vulture, will visit from ZooMontana, a 70-acre wildlife park in Billings that is the state’s only zoo.

buzzard day

Lurch

A “Native American Heritage Display” will be on view. Since the 2010 census showed that only 2.4% of Glendive’s 4,935 residents were Native American (94.4% Caucasian, 0.5% African-American, 0.4% Asian, 2.3% other), we’re guessing there won’t be many Lakota on hand to man the booth.

Makoshika State Park’s newly renovated visitor center houses a Triceratops skull, other kid-friendly exhibits and, of course, a gift shop. Pick up souvenirs of your visit and learn about other park events including March for Parks, Montana Shakespeare in the Park and a summer youth program.

Happy Buzzard Day! Say hi to Lurch for us!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

May 7 is Mother Ocean Day

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mother ocean dayToday is the fourth annual Mother Ocean Day. It takes place on the day before Mother’s Day and spotlights the magnificent bodies of water that make life on Earth possible.

Begun in 2013 in Miami, Florida, the holiday’s goal is to bring attention to the challenges we face as a consequence of  our use and abuse of the planet.

Participants observe this day by tossing roses on the water, from the shore or sea vessels. While throwing things into the ocean to raise awareness of the dangers of pollution may seem a bit wrongheaded, at least the flowers are biodegradable. It is also a tradition associated with memorializing the dead and the oceans are still alive, for now.

Coral reefs are the proverbial canary in a coal mine, fragile ecosystems that cannot withstand changes of more than  2° Celsius. With sea temperatures and acidification on the rise due to manmade CO2 emissions, reefs around the world are beginning to die of a process called bleaching.

This may seem a problem only for scuba divers and underwater nature photographers but it is of importance to us all. Reefs protect coastlines, shelter 25% of ocean-dwelling species and support the fishing and tourism industries.

In the future, perhaps a more fitting tribute would be tossing ice cubes into the water.  However you decide to celebrate, have a very happy Mother Ocean Day!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays