[A simple electronic melody, alongside a resonant percussive groove elicits a feeling of earnest contemplation. This is the outro music, composed by UCC Harlo.]
What does the act of listening mean to you?
[The music fades to silence. The speech-like sounds of rat communication, followed by the voice of Brian House, enter your foreground.]
[00:51] They have a developed sense of listening that is specific to how they're relating to the other animals in their environment. You know, apart from that, whenever I make a piece or make a recording like this, it keeps teaching me, right? You know, I'm always learning. And that speaks to the fact that, you know, of course, I'm not kind of sole author of this. You know, I'm talking about systems and relationships and whatever else. So it's just finding ways to tap into that and seeing what I can learn, whether that's conscious discursive learning or if that's something on a more embodied level. Ultimately, if we can become more sensitive and in tune with each other, then I think that's a good thing.
[The sounds of rat communication fade to silence. People chat. A saxophone melody fills a jazzy texture. Water steams. And coffee beans grind. The ambient sounds of a coffee shop, followed by the voice of Hannibal Bracey, enter your foreground.]
[2:11] The act of listening is one of the most important aspects. Listening is important when it comes to like the needs of the community. You should listen to the people in the community so that you can stay in touch and interact with them. Because you don't want to be like one of them people out of touch. So you'll become out of touch if you don't listen. I feel like, especially if you are a coffee shop owner. And I'm a very vocal person in general, I was like, no, like, yeah, so... just in general. So it's good to be in tune with your people because I can't just sell coffee and not care what people or whatever. You can't just sell anything and not care about what you're, you know what the people want.
[The ambient sounds of a coffee shop fade to silence. Birds chirp and children play. Someone rakes a piles of leaves. Two volunteer workers converse: “No, I think I just want to get kind of out into a central area. And then I think when we empty the compost bags, then we can put all the leaf litter in here....” The sounds of a compost application work day, followed by the voice of Renée Crowley, enter your foreground.]
[3:30] The act of listening, I feel, is such a core value to the work that we do. Being a community based organization, we listen to our community members about their needs, their wants, their priorities. We listen to our team and our staff. We listen to the city and the policies in the state. And just like policies that are being generated at levels much higher than the city to see how the work we do can further support larger sustainability initiatives. And I think like throughout our work, we're listening to our natural environment. We're listening to the bugs. We're listening to the soil. We're listening to our wildlife. And as we're carrying out these like stewardship activities, we're seeing how our ecology is responding to a compost application event or seeing how our ecology is responding to certain plantings. And so we're always kind of listening and tuning to the way that our natural environment is trying to speak with us as well.
[The ambient sounds of a compost application work day fade to silence. Leaves and grass crunch under the weight of footsteps. An airplane soars above a Bronx park. The ambient sounds of a wildlife tracking, followed by the voice of Jay Simpson, enter your foreground.]
[5:22] Listening to me is about paying attention to the chorus of everything going on around us. There's a brilliant cartography book called Everything Sings. And while it's about map making, I really return to it thinking of what it's like to truly listen to the world around you—to pay attention to the chorus of everything, everywhere, always around us.
[The ambient sounds wildlife tracking fade to silence. Music plays. Vocals sing a duet: “...won't you come between me and my man??... Wow! Thank you! Why thank you! Thank you so much! So three more dollars and we won't continue the show....” Dialogue from a Musical Mondays set at Hush Bar, followed by the voice of Chris Goodrich, enter your foreground.]
[6:21] If you're sitting quietly and someone else is pouring their heart out in a way that vibrates the room. It's really hard not to be affected by it. Maybe it makes you angry. Maybe you don't like it. But you're probably not going to be completely neutral to this event happening in front of you. So listening and being open, to whatever they're doing, can transform you. You will shake whatever way they tell you to and a microscopic level. And that's what it means to really listen to being open to that vibration.
[The set from a Musical Mondays set fades to silence as someone threads a sewing machine. The “whir” of the sewing machine, followed by the voice of Isabelle Levine, enters your foreground.]
[7:23] I am constantly trying to take in all of the information surrounding me in regards to environmentally friendly fashion and the possibilities. I'm listening to what is in the zeitgeist when it comes to desires within fashion. I'm listening to the voices of people within the fashion industry on what strategies can be implemented to improve our relationship with the environment. And most importantly, for me, as a small business owner, I'm listening to my customers. I'm trying to understand what it is they desire from their wardrobe and in many cases from their making process. My customers are like minded people who want to have a better relationship with clothing, who strive to and fast fashion, who want to mend their clothes and alter them to fit better. And ultimately, want to leave the world a better place.
[The “whir” of the sewing machine fades to silence. A brass band plays energetic music as they process down the street. Drums, bells, trombones, and singing, followed by the voice of Felicia Young, enter your foreground.]
[8:58] The act of listening I think goes back to when I develop a project. It only can happen by listening. It's about, I guess, first being curious. Speaking to people. And understanding, you know, what is the story that they have to tell? and there are many stories to tell. And each and every project was only built by talking to people and hearing what they had to say. I didn't start as, "Oh, I have an idea and I'm going to just go and do it by myself." It didn't start. It started by meeting people and hearing what they had to say and what was their story, what was their struggle. And talking to many different people within a community. And then figuring out what we could build together. So I guess to me, that's what listening was.
[The brass band fades to silence. Water begins to lap against a shoreline. An airplane soars high overhead. A car revs. People laugh and chat as someone says, “...but you can’t go in the water.” The East Riverwalk soundscape, followed by the voice of Danielle Isadora Butler, enters your foreground.]
[10:35] The act of listening is to take on a state of being present and open. And that's what this moment in our relationship with the waterway, I think needs. Is, first, the state of openness where you can think, "oh, how could this be different or better?" And that's what the place that we try to take you. How are we trying to take people through our cultural experiences and social infrastructure to a place where you are present and open to possibilities.
[The East Riverwalk soundscape crossfades to the rumbling and churning of the Staten Island Ferry. Then, the voice of ND Austin enters your foreground.]
[11:12] You don't have to care about New York Harbor. You don't have to care about issues. You don't have to care about any of the things we're talking about today. You don't have to care. Your caring is not necessary or required. Soothing Sounds of Superfund Sites is just a beautiful thing to listen to. And that's perfectly, that's perfectly good too. Just more positive experiences is enough, would be enough, on one level. And then if you're interested, you can go deeper. And there's something, there are things here that reward deeper engagement if you're interested. But if you're not interested, you don't have any space in your life for that. No worries! Just listen to the beautiful, soothing sounds. Totally works on that level.
[The sounds of the Staten Island Ferry crossfade to the sounds of Pebble Beach. Waves weave against stones as an elevated subway passes overhead. Then, the voice of Jeremy S. Bloom enters your foreground.]
[11:56] This is something that you become very familiar with when you engage with field recording and record. When you stop in a place and you listen, it really slows things down and allows you to absorb the essence of a place and learn how that place changes over the year, over the tide cycle, over the course of a day. Listening, whether or not you're listening with the purpose of capturing or just the purpose of listening for the sake of listening, it's a really good way to experience a place for for all that it is. And pause for a moment. And I think that's the value.
[The Pebble Beach soundscape fade to silence. Light traffic drones. Bicycle gears “click.” A cyclist breathes deeply. The sound of a solo cyclist enters your foreground, followed by the voice of Bill Di Paola.]
[13:09] The act of listening? I'm really about direct action. I listen enough to get the picture and then I try to put together the whole story quickly because that's the way my mind works. Because some of these things where I had to protect hundreds of people behind me at a demonstration. I had to really kind of suss up the situation very quickly. It helps me to kind of focus on, you know, collecting sound bytes of information, collecting little pieces, and then trying to put together the biggest story.
[The ambient sounds of biking throughout New York City slowly fade to silence.]
