In Pursuit of Silence

by George Prochnik

  With respect to the effects of silent meditation and silence on the brain, Lidia Glodzik-Sobanska helped me begin to understand the relevant neurological processes. The research findings of Vinod Menon were critical to the initial development of my argument. I’d also like to thank his colleague at Stanford Jonathan Berger. David Huron, Julie Brefczynski-Lewis, and Mony de Leon were additional important sources of insight. I’m grateful to Nadine Woloshin for having connected me with the Center for Brain Health at the New York City University School of Medicine. Mark Rosekind gave me grounding in the potential affinities between certain stages of sleep and silence from a neurological perspective.

  My education into acoustics, the physics of sound, and the relationship of music to the ideas of noise and silence began with several compelling lessons from Daniel Gaydos. Tomlinson Holman, Nico Muhly, Roger Morgan, Christopher Jaffe, Otts Munderloh, Jim Holt, Gregory Stanford, David Sonneschein, Leanne Flask, Doug Manvell, Wade Bray, Karl Luttinger, Jim Weir, William Egan, and Richard Danielson also contributed to my thoughts in this area.

  Many people in Florida and elsewhere around the country helped me fathom the logistics and lure of car audio competition. I want to thank in particular Buzz Thompson, Casey Sullivan, Robin Butler, Tommy McKinnie, Chris Hayes, and Jean Hayes. Amy Grace Loyd and Bryan Abrams helped me shape and fact check an earlier draft of my account of the Memorial Day competition at Explosive Sound and Video.

  In exploring the world of noise policy, antinoise activism, and the new medical research that helps to fuel these initiatives, I’m thankful for the incisive help given me by Rokhu Kim, Colin Nugent, John Hinton, Arline Bronzaft, Catrice Jefferson, Val Wheedon, Irene van Kamp, and Christian Popp. Wolfgang Babisch, Michael Jasny, Michael Saucier, Dieter Schwela, and Ken Feith also broadened my understanding of core noise policy and noise health issues. I want to thank the organizers of Noise-Con 2008 (sponsored by INCE, the Institute of Noise Control Engineering), and ICBEN (the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Noise) 2008 Congress, for helping to facilitate my participation in these events. Thanks, as well, to Carol Hurley and Robert King.

  In the realm of soundscaping and quiet space initiatives I benefited immeasurably from Max Dixon’s depth of understanding and experience in the field. I’m also grateful to Colin Grimshaw, who first spoke to me about quiet space projects in England. Together with his very helpful colleague Claire Shepherd, Colin arranged an enlightening tour of London soundscapes, as well as a fascinating discussion under the auspices of the Greater London Authority with Max Dixon and others working to improve the soundscape in different London boroughs. I’m grateful to Yvette Bosworth for putting me in contact with Colin. Paul Jennings also gave me insights into the relationship between soundscaping and industry.

  Andrew Pollack, Jason Everman, John Spencer, Suni Williams, and Robert Hayes Parton each kindly shared compelling stories of their own experiences with noise and silence that found their way into the book. I’m grateful to David Kaiser for having brought my interest in silence to the attention of Robert Hayes Parton.

  Alfonse Borysewickz not only introduced me to many ideas of Christianity and silence, and shared personal stories with me, but was also my link to Father Alberic Farbolin and New Melleray. Father Alberic gave graciously of his time and insights into the theological significance of silence in general, and silence in the monastic experience in particular, while I was staying at New Melleray. I also want to thank at New Melleray, in particular, Father Brendan Freeman (Abbot), Father Neil Paquette, Father Paul Andrews Tanner, and Brother Felix Leja. Father David Fleming and Brother Stephen Markham, both of whom work in the community beyond New Melleray, also gave me valuable insights.

  Many thanks to Nancy Black and the other participants in the Brooklyn Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends whom I had the good fortune to meet. I also appreciate the hospitality extended me by the monks of Little Portion Friary, where I stayed early in my research.

  Marco Roth was one of the first people to help me find a foothold in understanding the place of Zen Buddhism in contemporary American society. Gene Lushtak, Kris Bailey, Amber Vovola, Joan Suval, and the participants in the silent retreat she conducted at Ananda Ashram expanded my knowledge of the practice and potential of Zen and silent meditation. I’m deeply grateful to Virginia Harmon for introducing me to the place of silence in Zen gardens. David MacLaren helped me understand the creation of these gardens from a practical standpoint.

  Hansel Bauman and Robert Sirvage gave me many critical insights into the Deaf experience of architecture in general and the aspirations of Deaf Space in particular. Also at Gallaudet, Dirk Bauman and Ben Bahan both expanded my knowledge of the rich context for ideas I was beginning to explore in relationship to the Deaf community and the cultural significance of Deaf visual acuity. I’m also thankful for the comments of Fred Weiner, Summer Crider, Josh Swiller, Michael Chorost, Erin Kelly, Adam Greenleaf, and Michael Hubbs. Nancy O’Donnell kindly arranged my initial visit to the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults, which was my entry point into the world of Deaf experience. I’m grateful for the time and insights given me there by James Feldmann, Kathy Anello, Don Duvo, and Susan Shapiro. Susan put me in touch with Toni Lacolucci, whose inspiring strength of character and compelling thoughts on the experience of noise and silence, both when she was hearing and after she became Deaf, were vital to this book.

  Claire Benard was the ideal guide to the world of noise and silence in the laboratory, and the quiet enthusiasm of her colleague, Luisa Cochella, for the sounds of their exacting work helped define this moment for me.

  My education into the problem of noise in the education system and the potential of silence in the classroom was facilitated by the unstinting assistance of Lyman Casey. I’m also grateful to the many colleagues of Lyman who weighed in on their own experiences of the noise problem in the public schools. Jonathan Edmonds provided important viewpoints on this subject from the perspective of the Quaker education system. Above all I want to thank the students of Brooklyn Preparatory High School who shared their poignant stories with a candor and immediacy that brought home to me the imperative of extending the “right to silence” beyond those environments in which silence is customarily nurtured today.

  In thinking about the relevance of Theodor Lessing’s work to our contemporary noise dilemma, I was greatly helped by the generosity and scholarship of John Goodyear, who uncovered evidence that Lessing offered Rice the leadership of his organization. Paul Reitter also contributed to my understanding of Lessing’s work.

  Many friends told wonderful stories of their own experiences with noise and silence, in addition to giving me books to read and pointing me in important directions for further research. I’m especially grateful to Adam Cvijanovic, Frederick Kaufman, Elizabeth Berger, Lawrence Osborne, Paul Holdengraber, Barbara Wansbrough, Alexandra deSousa, Wayne Koestenbaum, Steve Marchetti, Shari Spiegel, Alan Berliner, Laura Kipnis, Richard Cohen, Anne LaFond, Tim Gilman, Arnon Grunberg, Inigo Thomas, Katherine Barrett, Benjamin Swett, Jonathan Nossiter, Michael Greenberg, Danielle McConnell, Christopher McConnell, Jenifer Nields, Nila Friedberg, Jim Holt, Raymond Teets, Wolfgang Schivelbusch, William Kolbrenner, Sina Najafi, Sandra Kogut, and Tom Levin. Thanks, also, to Julie Goldberg.

  My family all gave me unflagging support throughout the long spells of silence and of noise in which the book was gestating. Ethan Prochnik, James Jodha-Prochnik, Samoa Jodha, and Elisabeth Prochnik each opened my eyes to pertinent subjects that deepened the book. Barbara and Brian Mead taught me much about the quiet refuge that can still be found in the English seaside. My parents, Marian and Martin Prochnik, offered the profound encouragement and love that nourishes all my writing. My children, Yona, Tzvi, Zach, and Rafael are an unremitting source of inspiration—and perspective. Watching them grow up concretizes my thoughts on the boundless possibility of the unknown.

  My wife, Rebecca Mead, kept up a sustaining fa
ith throughout the writing of this book that surpasses expression. Her editorial acumen sharpened and enriched the book throughout, just as her enthusiasm for the project made the writing of it possible. Her love gives pause to all the noise.

  Notes

  Introduction

  “The men whose labors”: Saia v. People of State of New York, 334 U.S. 558 (1948), http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=334&invol=558.

  “sometimes you feel everyone”: Dr. Nancy Black and other members of the Brooklyn Friends Society at the Meeting House, interviews by author, spring 2008.

  “thin voice of silence”: 1 Kings 19:11–12.

  “and when you have”: Sunita L. Williams, interview by author, spring 2008.

  The night pass is: Williams, e-mail to author.

  “the valleys echoed the sound”: Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Robert F. Sayer, ed. (New York: Literary Classics of America, Inc., 1985), 317–18.

  “Here, I can show you”: Dr. Mario Svirsky, interview by author, summer 2008. I interviewed Svirsky on several occasions and he broadened my understanding both of how we process speech and of the complex history of cochlear implants.

  The roots of our English term: John Ayto, Dictionary of Word Origins (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1990), 477.

  “Sound imposes a narrative”: Adam Cvijanovic, interview by author, summer 2008.

  Recent studies using fMRI: J. A. Brefczynski-Lewis et al., “Neural Correlates of Attentional Expertise in Long-term Meditation Practitioners,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, 27 (July 3, 2007).

  Neuroscientists at Stanford: Devarajan Sridharan et al., “Neural Dynamics of Event Segmentation in Music: Converging Evidence for Dissociable Ventral and Dorsal Networks,” Neuron 55, 3 (August 2, 2007).

  affinities between certain stages: Mark Rosekind, e-mail to author, winter 2009.

  45,000 fatal heart attacks: Dieter Schwela, e-mail to author, fall 2009.

  A study released by the Johns Hopkins University: Andrew Stern, “U.S. Facing Possible Hearing Loss Epidemic,” Reuters, July 28, 2008.

  “Anytime you can hear”: Tom Roland, interview by author, winter 2008. Roland met with me on several occasions and he vastly expanded my knowledge of the mechanism of human hearing, hearing loss, and cochlear implants.

  You can buy a Hannah Montana: Today@UCI, “Greater Parental Guidance Suggested for Noisy Toy Use,” http://archive.today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1702.

  one summer weekend: John Spencer, interview by author, June 27, 2008.

  “Silence is not a function”: Gene Lushtak, interviews by author, summer and fall 2008.

  Chapter One: Listening for the Unknown

  “to be silent and listen”: Saint Benedict, The Rule of Saint Benedict, Timothy Fry, ed. (New York: Vintage, 1998), 16.

  “entered the monastery to stay”: Brother Alberic, interview by author. Alberic received permission from the abbot to speak with me over the course of my stay at the monastery in the winter of 2008—and gave generously of his time. I also engaged in a lengthy e-mail exchange with him after I left New Melleray.

  at least one interfaith: Integral Yoga Programs, “Ten-Day Silent Retreat: Awakening to the Inner Light,” http://www.integralyogaprograms.org/product_info.php?products_id=309.

  “Soothe the spirit”: Spa at the Cove, http://www.spaatthecove.com/.

  Gene Lushtak and: Gene Lushtak, interview by author, summer 2008.

  in the Bay Area: Patricia Leigh Brown, “In the Classroom, a New Focus on Quieting the Mind,” New York Times, June 16, 2007.

  When I called her: Kris Bailey, interview by author, winter 2009.

  “to place himself more intensely”: André Louf, The Cistercian Way (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, Inc., 1983), 60.

  “Just as, if you”: Peter France, Hermits: The Insights of Solitude (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 29.

  spent three years: Benedicta Ward, The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, revised edition (New York: Penguin Classics, 2003), 2.

  “Go and sit in thy cell”: Ibid., 27.

  A sniper named Robert: Robert Hayes Parton, e-mail to David Kaiser, winter 2009.

  doctrine of tsimtsum: Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Schocken Books, 1965), 110–11.

  guardian angels used: Avraham Yaakov Finkel, Kabbalah: Selections from Classic Kabbalistic Works from Raziel HaMalach to the Present Day (Southfield, MI: Targum Press, Inc., 2002), 203–7.

  “I can hardly open up my mouth”: Lawrence Fine, Safed Spirituality: Rules of Mystical Piety, the Beginnings of Wisdom (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1984), 62.

  “How did He produce”: cited by Gershom Scholem in Origins of the Kabbalah, R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, ed., and Allan Arkush, trans. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 450.

  “mazes of silence”: Arthur Green, Tormented Master: The Life and Spiritual Quest of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Printing, 1992), 317.

  “Sometimes when I’m silent”: Alfonse Borysewickz, interview by author, fall 2008. I had multiple interviews and e-mail exchanges with Borysewickz that were important to my understanding of the place of silence in Christian theology.

  “By the end”: Amber Vovola, interview by author, winter 2008.

  “an enormous downstream”: Lidia Glodzik-Sobanska, interview by author, winter 2008. In addition to several interviews with Glodzik-Sobanska, we carried on an e-mail exchange that was critical to my understanding of the neurological effects of silence.

  “allure her, and speak”: Louf, 60.

  Silent Widows: “Women Who Prefer Silence,” New York Times, September 20, 1908.

  Rancé had been a dazzling: Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time to Keep Silence (New York: New York Review Books Classics, 2007), 52–59.

  copying the angels: Scott G. Bruce, Silence and Sign Language in Medieval Monasticism: The Cluniac Tradition. c. 900–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 25–28.

  “As the great clock of St. Mark”: William S. Walsh, Curiosities of Popular Customs and of Rites, Ceremonies, Observances, and Miscellaneous Antiquities (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1897), 190.

  “Glorious and Immortal”: Dr. Adrian Gregory, “The Silence and the History,” in Jonty Semper, Kenotaphion (Charm, 2001). This is an official recording of silent remembrances.

  “Its impressiveness is intensified”: Ibid.

  But an oral history: Benedict Julian Hussman, “Voices from the Cloister; Oral Perspectives on the Recent History of New Melleray Abbey,” master’s thesis (University of Northern Iowa, August 1989).

  75 percent of farmworkers: “Listen to the Warnings,” Missouri Soybean Farmer (January 2004).

  “Let us sacrifice”: Pieter W. van der Horst, “Silent Prayer in Antiquity,” Numen 4 (1994).

  “Whereof one cannot”: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. C. K. Ogden (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1933), 189.

  “Above all, silence about”: Martin Heidegger, On the Way to Language, Peter D. Hertz, trans. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1971), 52.

  “silence points to a state”: Max Picard, The World of Silence, Stanley Godwin, trans. (Wichita, KS: Eighth Day Press, 2002), 20.

  The Apaches, among other: Keith Basso, “‘To Give Up on Words’: Silence in Western Apache Culture,” in A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication: Essential Readings, Leila Monaghan and Jane Goodman, eds. (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 77–87.

  tradition of the “dumb cake”: Walsh, 350–52.

  In the eighteenth-century: Lucinda Lee Orr, Journal of a Young Lady of Virginia (Baltimore, MD: John Murphy and Company, 1871), 44.

  “Dumb Suppers”: Janice Van Cleve, “Traditions of the Dumb Supper,” Widdershins 7, 5 (October 2007), http://www.widdershins.org/vol7iss5/02.htm.

  Menon discovered that: A
ngela Castellanos, “Mapping the Brain’s Response to Music: fMRI Studies of Musical Expectations,” Stanford Scientific Magazine (February 17, 2008).

  “Silence is golden”: Vinod Menon, interview by author at Third Annual Symposium on Music and the Brain, Stanford University, May 16–17, 2008. Interview on May 17.

  Chapter Two: Why We Hear

  “You hear a snap”: Dr. Rickye Heffner, interview by author, spring 2008. I had several phone interviews and multiple e-mail exchanges with Heffner. Her assistance was vital to my understanding of the evolution of hearing in general and sound localization in particular.

  “The Evolution of Human Hearing”: Bruce Masterton, Henry Heffner, and Richard Ravizza, “The Evolution of Human Hearing,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 45, 4 (1969): 966–85.

  “sound shadow”: S. S. Stevens and Fred Warshofsky, Sound and Hearing (New York: Time Incorporated, 1965), 102–3.

  The outer-ear channels: Dr. Tom Roland, interview by author, winter 2009.

  huge “power gain”: Dr. Jim Hudspeth, interview by author, winter 2008.

  “become adjusted to”: Morris Kaplan, “Surgeon to Study Noise-Free Tribe,” New York Times, December 4, 1960.

  “Two Mabaans standing”: Robert E. Tomasson, “Surgeon Suggests Hearing Tests May Help to Diagnose Heart Ills,” New York Times, October 27, 1963.

  “totally tuned in”: Jason Everman, interview by author, winter 2008.

  made a remarkable discovery: Zhe-Xi Luo et al., “A New Eutriconodont Mammal and Evolutionary Development in Early Mammals,” Nature 446 (March 15, 2007), http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7133/full/nature05627.html.

  “What was most revealing”: Zhe-Xi Luo, interview by author, spring 2008.