Jul

Let a Tune Transport You!

by Joyce McGreevy on July 28, 2020

“Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?” Hearing zydeco takes me right back.
© Joyce McGreevy

Travel Memories Inspired by Music

Imagine a melody with the power to recreate worlds. The cocoa-butter scented breeze of a beach in Maui in 1979—when it’s 2020 and you’re in Montréal. The soaring elegance of a train station in Leipzig—as you drift off to sleep in Lincoln City.

That’s what happens when a tune, any tune, becomes travel music. Oh, I see: When it comes to modes of travel, nothing transports us like music.

The influence of music on our memories has long been established by science. Music lights up the visual cortex like a rainbow-colored disco ball, spinning emotions into motion. One moment you’re pushing a shopping cart down a grocery aisle, the next moment you hear that song—and suddenly travel memories inspired by music come dancing out, whirling you along with them.

A woman exuberantly enjoying the beach reminds the author of the transportive power of travel memories inspired by music. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

At the office in January you hear a certain song, and suddenly it’s summer
and you’re barefoot on a beach in July.
© Joyce McGreevy

“Magical Mystery Tour”

Travel music can be a trickster. Like the time a song from a passing car in Chicago whisked me back to a village in France.

A basket of croissants symbolizes the way travel memories inspired by music often include vivid sensory details. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

One chorus and I recalled the taste of fresh croissants in Port Launay.
© Joyce McGreevy

So what was the song? Something iconic like “La Vie en Rose”? Pas du tout.

It was “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes, an alternative rock band from San Francisco.

But to memory, none of that matters. Because of where and when I heard the song, the Jukebox of Memory selected it for my subconscious travel music playlist. Hearing it again, I’m instantly back in Port Launay in 1993:

I taste buttery, cloud-like croissants—croissants so marvelous that I show up at the boulangerie each morning before sunup.
I feel the thrum of my rented Citroën zipping over the back roads—I who haven’t driven in years.
I see primroses around the cottage where my young son and I sit by the fire, reading Breton tales of the sea.

All that joie de vivre and Breton beauty magically preserved in an angsty California rock song. This kind of travel music mismatch, it turns out, is surprisingly common.

A jazz trio in Denmark symbolize why travel memories inspired by music make us feel as if we are re-living, not just recalling, an experience. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

You turn on the radio in Des Moines and suddenly you’re in that little jazz club in Denmark . . .
© Joyce McGreevy

“Come Fly With Me” (and other musical flights of fancy)

Of course, some travel songs are on the nose. And by “nose” I mean the nose cone of a Boeing 707 pointing up at a big blue sky. That’s where I’m transported whenever I hear “Up, Up, and Away.”

Written by Jimmy Webb and popularized by The Fifth Dimension, it became Trans World Airlines’ theme song in 1968. Five notes in, I can practically smell the jet fuel, so vividly does this tune recall the joy of a travel adventure’s beginning.

Oh, I have a whole catalog in my head labeled Travel Music Linked to Airplanes. It’s where I keep travel memories that are . .

Ecstatic: Art Garfunkel singing “Break Away, fly across your ocean . . . to awaken in another country.”
Glamorous: Joe Sample’s jazz classic “Night Flight.”
Wistful: Peter, Paul, and Mary’s “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane.”

Name any mode of transport and you’ll find travel songs for it. “Night Boat to Cairo,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe” to name but a few. Some travel songs, like “Let’s Get Away from It All,” with its boat to Bermuda, plane to Saint Paul and kayak to Quincy or Nyack, pack in every means of travel but the pogo stick.

“They Call Me the Wanderer”

Some music makes you want to travel somewhere, anywhere, even when you’re toolin’ around town on errands. Many a mild-mannered commuter has experienced raw wanderlust at hearing a classic road trip song like “Route 66” or “Born to Be Wild.”

Then there are songs that evoke longings for places we’ve never been. Like the Faroe Islands, which I researched obsessively after hearing Faroese singer-songwriter, Teitur. Indeed, millions of music lovers felt wanderlust for Cuba the first time they heard Buena Vista Social Club, the musical ensemble celebrated in the documentary of the same name.

“Summer in the City”

You could fill a library with songs about cities—from “Istanbul, Not Constantinople” and “New York State of Mind,” to two entirely different songs with the title “Galway Girl.”

A concert at Lollapalooza taken before the pandemic reminds that author that travel memories inspired by music can be comforting now that such popular events have been canceled. (Image © by Julie Larkin)

With most destination concerts canceled in 2020, we travel via musical memories.
Above: Lollapalooza, Chicago in 2017.
© Julie Larkin

Great cities, in turn, send you home with memories to unpack musically. Any song by the late, great Alain Toussaint or young visionary Trombone Shorty takes me back to New Orleans—wherever I am. And this recently released music video stirs this traveler’s fond memories of a favorite U.S. city, Chicago. Let’s go!

“Take Me Home, Country Roads”

And sometimes travel music takes me all the way home. Home, where childhood memories and my love of travel began. Where my late parents spent evenings planning family travel adventures, as popular French songs floated up from the RCA record player, those Gallic melodies mixing with the aroma of Boeuf Bourguinon from the kitchen.

That’s why whenever I hear “La Vie en Rose” I’m instantly transported . . . to Syosset, Long Island.

To quote French cabaret singer Maurice Chevalier, “Ah yes, I remember it well!” Whether your travel memories inspired by music transport you to a favorite destination or to the land of childhood, the common “chord” is magic—the magic that occurs when travel memories have a soundtrack.

What’s on your travel music playlist? Share a favorite tune and the travel memories it evokes for you in the comments below.

Comment on the post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy Comments

The World's Music/Travels to the Past/Worldwide Sites

Jul

Crossing Cultures in an Urban Garden

by Meredith Mullins on July 20, 2020

A cultural exchange via the sweet potato
© Meredith Mullins

A Tribute to Satsuma-imo: The Mighty Japanese Sweet Potato

“In Japan, in autumn, it is customary to collect fallen leaves, put sweet potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil in the leaves, and light the fallen leaves to bake them,” remembers Chiharu. “When I was a child I did this at my grandparents’ home. It was a special time of cooking and eating together.”

“Instead of ice cream trucks circling the neighborhoods to offer treats, we had stone-roasted sweet potato trucks,” says Midori of her childhood in Japan.

Stone roasted sweet potatoes
© iStock/kendoNice

Manami remembers planting sweet potatoes in elementary school and being excited when it was time to harvest the tiny schoolroom crop. And Hisako looked forward to sweet potatoes at snack time. “They warmed my body and my spirit,” she recalls.

Memories of the traditional Japanese sweet potato snack
© iStock/LewisTsePuiLung

Sweet Memories

What unites these memories of sweet potatoes is more than just nostalgia for Japanese culture. This team of Paris-based Japanese garden-lovers are all working in “Le Nid de l’Ortolan” — crossing cultures in a community garden in the heart of Paris.

A team of community gardeners at the rooftop Le Nid de l’Ortolan garden
© Jean Auvray

And thanks to an innovative, cross-cultural idea from garden organizer Julien Chameroy, sweet potatoes are the focus of the moment (as well as a unique opportunity for a Japanese/French liaison project).

Patate douce/Sweet Potato/Satsuma-imo
© Julien Chameroy

Julien, too, had memories of sweet potatoes from his time living in Japan—hearing street vendors hawking grilled sweet potatoes and seeing people hurrying through the streets while taking bites of the warm, sweet treat.

Satsuma-imo: the delicious and nutritious Japanese sweet potato
© iStock/kuppa_rock

More than those memories, though, the Frenchman believes the sweet potato is a nutrient-rich vegetable that should have a place in the Paris community garden. And, he believes that learning about a plant—how it grows and what it needs in order to flourish—are all a part of the connection to nature.

Does food taste different when you grow it yourself?
© Meredith Mullins

His garden mantra: “The more you know about a vegetable, the better it tastes.”

Thus, the Satsuma-imo project was born, with a group of passionate Japanese amateur gardeners at the ready.

The team is ready for the life cycle of the sweet potato (satsuma-imo).
© Meredith Mullins

But First Some History: Le Nid de l’Ortolan

The site of the Satsuma-imo project, Le Nid de l’Ortolan, is a community garden born in 2017—a “nest” perched atop a gymnasium in the 5^tharrondissement of Paris (near rue Mouffetard).

The shared garden idea was seeded a few years earlier when founders Julien Chameroy and Joyce Sasse were working in a community garden in the 4^tharrondissement and realized there was no such jardin partagé in the 5^th.

The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye (well, a small elephant).
© Meredith Mullins

They found the unused plot of “roof” land and went through all the phases of joining the Charte Main Verte (literally translated to Green Hand, but, in English, think Green Thumb).

This city organization of now more than 70 neighborhood gardens in almost all the arrondissements was created to encourage urban gardening, to support education about nature and the environment, and to bring communities together in a more social way.

The “Nid” sits on a gym rooftop and is guarded by a retirement home,
whose residents also participate in the garden activities.
© Meredith Mullins

All of these goals also support Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s ever present plan for the “greening of Paris.”

The “Nid” has about 50 members divided into teams that rotate each year so everyone gets to know everyone. Since the “Nid” sits next to a retirement home, the members of that community are invited to participate also.

The teams decide in January what to plant, and the 240-square-meter space currently hosts beans, chard, squash, spinach, cucumbers, sunflowers strawberries, potatoes, artichokes, rhubarb, peppers, garlic, lettuce, broccoli, herbs of all kinds, and much more.

The telltale signs of squash to come
© Meredith Mullins

The Satsuma-imo Japanese Team

Each member of the Japanese sweet potato team seems to share the overarching goals of the community garden. They all want to see more green spaces in urban areas, particularly in Paris. And they all want to spend more time close to nature.

In the process of the Satsuma-imo project, they are learning about the variety of plants grown in France and the different ways these plants are consumed in France and Japan.

The Paris garden is growing crosnes, also known as a Japanese artichoke.
It’s a forgotten root vegetable that some chefs call the homely tuber.
© Meredith Mullins

You could tell by watching them work that they love touching the earth and feeling a part of the growing cycle. As Chiharu says, “Just thinking about this garden brightens my heart.”

Feeling a connection to the earth
© Meredith Mullins

The Sweet Potato Project

The satsuma-imo project began at a challenging time. Just after the start of the project, France went into a two-month corona confinement period. However, the timing proved serendipitous, as sweet potato seedlings must grow for at least a month to become ready for planting.

Chiharu shows off her sweet potato seedling “children.”
© Meredith Mullins

The seedlings were closely watched in the homes of the gardeners, a small pleasure during a time of little external stimulus.

“They took care of those seedlings as if they were their own children,” Julien says proudly. “And, when it comes to a plant, that makes a difference.”

Midori’s “confinement” seedlings were finally ready.
© Meredith Mullins

The Garden After Lockdown

When lockdown was finally lifted, the garden needed serious tending. First, the battle of the weeds took place (the weeds lost).

The battle of the weeds (the weeds lost)
© Meredith Mullins

Then, it was time to ready the soil for the planting of the sweet potato seedlings.

Choosing the best spots for the satsuma-imo seedlings
© Meredith Mullins

All systems were go. “The team was exceptional, always positive and humble,” Julien said. “It was not a case of ‘me, myself, and I,’ it was ‘what can WE do together to make this work.’”

The plants are now settling in to the warmth of the summer sun and will be ready for a late September or early October harvest.

The sweet potatoes have been gently planted and are now settling in for summer sun.
© Meredith Mullins

The Next Chapter

Aside from having the chance to speak in Japanese for a few hours every week and have a sweet potato harvest party in September, the real raison d’etre of all the Japanese community gardeners is to be close to nature.

“We need to re-create the bond we lost with nature as a whole and between ourselves. Nature has an incredible power to heal.” Julien believes. “We must work with nature, not against it.”

Working with nature, not against it
© Meredith Mullins

And so, after the sweet potato harvest in September—and a celebration of Satsuma-imo memories past and present—the team will plant fava beans immediately—to give back to the soil what the sweet potatoes needed to take.

Oh, I see. Crossing cultures continues on many levels . . . for humans and nature. The cycle continues in this urban garden, and life goes on.

Part of the Satsuma-imo Team (Julien, Manami, Midori, Hisako, and Chiharu)
© Meredith Mullins

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

For more information about Le Nid de l’Ortolan, visit their Facebook page. For more information about the Paris urban gardens, visit Charte Main Verte/Jardins Partagé.

Meredith Mullins 2 Comments

Crossing Cultures/France/Japan/Nature Discovery

Jul

An Audible Feast for the Global Community

by Joyce McGreevy on July 13, 2020

Hands painted to show a world map remind the author that as our global community celebrates World Listening Day, we have a world of sounds at our fingertips, online and in our physical environment. (Image by Pxhere)

Lend an ear to the world of sounds at your fingertips!

Have You Heard? World Listening Day Honors the “Hear” and Now.

Listen…do you hear that? It’s the sound of your world. From a cat’s purr to an elevator’s hum to human voices, sound is an important element of our natural and cultural environment. Shh…do you hear this? It’s the sound of people across six continents inviting you to World Listening Day, an annual event that will unite the global community this Saturday, July 18.

World Listening Day? What’s that?

I’m glad you asked. Listen closely and I’ll tell you.

A sign for Quiet Street in Bath, England sets the tone for mindful listening with the global community on World Listening Day July 18. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

It started—quietly enough—in the 1970s with a Canadian composer named Raymond Murray Schafer. His World Soundscape Project developed the fundamentals of acoustic ecology, the study of the relationship in sound between human beings and their environment.

“When you listen carefully to the soundscape,” said Schafer, “it becomes quite miraculous.”

Schafer’s ideas struck a chord with so many people around the world that in 2010, World Listening Day was founded. It falls on July 18 to honor Schafer’s birthday.

A jackrabbit with ears alert to the least sound reminds the author that listening to nature is one aspect of the mindful listening celebrated by the community on World Listening Day July 18. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

Now Hear This

This year, communities around the globe will be participating in listening events hosted by the World Listening Project. This year’s theme, created by Wildlife Sanctuary Vice President Katherine Krause is The Collective Field.

“Current times have asked each of us, individually and in concert, to retreat, reflect, and rethink the world we thought we knew,” says Krause. And so, on this international day of awareness, Krause asks us to still the noise in our head and to listen—really, listen—to the “collective field” of overlapping environments:

the natural world of animals, plants, land, water, and weather.
the human-built soundscape of traffic, machinery, and even architecture.
the cultural environment—the voices we hear, and the voices we “tune out.”

Soundwaves evoke the soundscapes that the global community will tune into on World Listening Day July 18. (Image by Pixabay)

What enhances or hinders our ability to tune in to the world’s wavelengths?

Say, What?

We’ll look at—I mean “listen to”—each environment in a moment. But first, I swear I can hear what you’re thinking: Isn’t listening something we do every day?

Yes, but mostly we hear passively. Most sounds blend and wash over us, whether we’re on a conference call or a beautiful island. At other times, we focus on one particular sound, whether it’s the warble of a bird or the whine of a leaf-blower. Sound experts call this directed listening.

Active listening is when we notice how sounds affect each other, our environment, ourselves, and others. During a “quiet” walk on a beach, for example, we might hear not only seagull cries and the whoosh of the waves, but also the light drum of our footfall on firm sand, the jingling collar of a playful dog, and in the distance, scattered outbreaks of faint voices and car radio music.

Listening as a Global Community

On July 18, thousands of people around the world will participate in a wide variety of listening activities. Here are just a few suggestions.

Take a soundwalk. This is any excursion whose main purpose is listening to the environment. It is exposing our ears to every sound around us no matter where we are.

People taking an urban soundwalk, one of the best ways the global community can celebrate World Listening Day. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

Before COVID, cities from Chicago to Sydney regularly offered guided soundwalks for small groups. Today you can still glean much from a solo or shared soundwalk of your own.

Walk in silence in an area that you think you know well, such as your own neighborhood. Listen attentively for as many sounds as possible. If walking with another, pause occasionally to compare what you’ve noticed. (Consider using breaks to jot down lists and exchange them in silence to stay in “listening mode.” )

Map the sounds of nature. Listen to the sounds of nature—even if you’re self-isolating. Nature Sound Map (see screenshot from website below) lets you travel the world, discovering soundscapes of our planet’s wildlife, oceans, and other natural phenomena.

Map of Australia with pinpoints of recorded sounds made accessible to the global community by the Nature Soundmap website.

Be sure to check out World Sounds (see screenshot from website below), too. This global archive offers both human-built and natural soundscapes. What would you hear on a walk through a market in London—or in Kampong Cham, Cambodia? What does the Eiffel Tower sound like? Find out on . . .

Screenshot from the World Sounds website that makes soundscapes recorded around the world accessible to the global community

Hear the sounds of urban life, markets, religious centers, and more nature soundscapes
on the World Sounds website. © World Sounds

Describe your day in sound. We each have a unique soundtrack that plays behind our day. As I write in my apartment, I hear the tapping of the keyboard under my fingers, the click and clink of ice in a thin glass of water, the murmur of an old refrigerator.

Sounds of the neighborhood filter in through the open window: the flute-like call of a western meadowlark, a breeze rustling Ponderosa pines, delivery trucks pulling into the parking lot, two girls discussing ice cream, and one block away, the cheers of peaceful protestors as passing drivers sound their car horns.

These sounds encapsulate not only nature and the built environment, but also several clues about the time, place, and culture in which I live. What does your day sound like? Describe it in a brief social media post or email and invite friends to respond with the sounds of their day.

Listen to others. Part of honoring the “hear” and now is to listen mindfully to people around us, gaining insight into each other’s experiences, viewpoints, and insights. This isn’t always easy. When we’re too reactive, too dismissive, or simply unaware, it’s as if the noise of our own conditioning drowns out what others are trying to say.

A crowd at a busy airport in various modes of listening or tuning out remind the author why we need World Listening Day to reunite our global community in the act of mindful listening. (Image by Pixabay)

The good news is that we can change this in a moment. We can break a “loud” habit by simply listening. We can quell the urge to instantly shut down a different opinion. We can stop one-upping a friend’s account of a significant personal experience with an oft-told tale of our own. We can refrain from retorting defensively, “Well, I’M not like that!” when someone opens up about experiencing racism, stereotyping, or other forms of bias.

Oh, I see: To hear the world clearly, we must first reckon with our own interruptions.

A man sits by the water, listening but also wearing earphones, a reminder of why we need World Listening Day to reunite our global community in the act of mindful listening. (Image by Pixabay)

Listening to the World

Wherever you are this Saturday, July 18, you can take part in World Listening Day. Whether you listen to nature, the human-built soundscape, the environment of cultural discourse, or all three, you’re sure to experience an aha moment. Now that’s a sound idea.

Find events specific to your country and join the global community for World Listening Day, here.

Sound expert Julian Treasure shares 5 ways to “re-tune” your ears for better listening, here.

“Being Hear,” by Emmy-winning acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, is a 10-minute treat for the senses, here.