Photo by (cup)cake_eater

From the long, awkward pause to the "silent treatment," a lot can be said when there's no sound. When did you experience a meaningful silence?

 

(Sook-Yin's artistic rendering of silence...)
According to Dutch researchers, four seconds of silence is all it takes for a conversation to become awkward. Is it true? Sook-Yin tries it out.

Broadcasters fear silence so much, they call it "dead air." But some interviewers use silence to their advantage. Sook-Yin will talk with The Current host Anna Maria Tremonti about silence on air.

Rose Simpson's job interview was going so well... until she said the thing that made it come to a screeching, silent halt. She'll tell us what it was.

Some of us are naturally the "silent type" - but when he worked as a cop, Mark Fitzgerald had silence forced on him. He'll tell us about the months he spent not talking after being shot... and how it changed the way he sees the world.

Did you know you can use silence to make people do anything you want? It's pretty much true. Jonathan Torrens comes by to reveal the power of the "dangling so."

What would it take to make you stop talking for 17 years? For John Francis, it was witnessing an environmental disaster... plus an inclination towards arguing. We'll ask the author of Planetwalker: 22 Years of Walking. 17 Years of Silence what prompted his silence... and what made him start speaking out.

Has anyone ever asked you a question that suddenly caused you to go very, very quiet? That happened to Sarah Gilbert when she was 11... and she'll tell us how a big pause by a little girl made for awkward radio silence.

A lot of people shy away from silence...but not Jennifer Egan. Her Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Visit From the Goon Squad features a chapter titled "Great Rock and Roll Pauses." We'll talk about why it's important to observe a few seconds of silence in song. Stream the interview here:

Is it possible to find silence in a world of noise? Sook-Yin will talk with George Prochnik, the author of In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning In a World of Noise, about the most meaningful silence he heard.

What do you do when the person you're talking to answers with silence? If you're a Ph.D. student researching the Rwanda genocide...you wait. Susan Thomson tells us what that long silence yielded.

Paul Karchut figured a bit of silent, alone time was just what he needed to "find himself." But a silent retreat can be tricky when the world doesn't want you to retreat... or be silent...

It's one thing to be given the "silent treatment." But in some Mennonite communities, that idea can be taken to the extreme. It's called "shunning." And it happened over 30 years ago to Rollin Penner, in the small town of Kleefeld, Manitoba. He'll tell us why that shunning created a wound that still hasn't healed.

George Michelsen Foy is a novelist, journalist and creative writing teacher who lives in one of the nosiest cities anywhere...New York. And one morning, when he was standing on a subway platform at 79th and Broadway with his kids, the noise around him reached a new level... and George started to plot his escape. The author of Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute Silence will tell us what he found.


And here's this week's playlist:

The Tremeloes - "Silence Is Golden"
Ruth Moody - "We Can Only Listen"
Bjork - "It's Oh So Quiet"
Tomi Swick - "December Sky"
Nelly Furtado - "...On the Radio (Remember the Days)"
The Police - "Roxanne"
Hush Hush - "Why Should I Lie"
Hinterland - "You Speak, I'm Silent"
Rollin Penner - "Pain of Loving You"