It's to the best of our knowledge from PRX.

I'm Anne Strangeamps, and the world is getting noisier every day.

Cars blaring their owner's favorite music.

Restaurants, bars, coffee shops.

Is there any place left that doesn't play background music?

Loudly?

Well, this hour, we're making the case for more silence. In the silence you meet yourself.

It could be beautiful, but it could also be maybe even sometimes terrifying.

So maybe we pollute the world with sound because we can't stand to hear ourselves thinking.

Also, the wartime experiences of the man who became world famous for not saying a single word,

the great French mime Marcel Marceau.

Sometimes I think that he saw his way of mime as a way of trying to repair the world

after it was so utterly shattered in World War II.

This hour, silence.

Wisconsin Public Radio.

It's to the best of our knowledge from PRX.

I'm Anne Strange Champs.

Do you ever crave silence?

How far would you go to find it?

Antarctica is the quietest place I've ever been.

That's the Norwegian explorer Arlen Kaga.

I've been forced by the company who owned the plane that flew me to bring a radio.

...