One-Minute Vacations

The world makes its own music, but we rarely listen with fresh ears says Aaron Ximm, sound artist, field recordist and founder of quietamerican.org.

His site is filled with audio opportunities to armchair travel: to Osaka, Japan to hear the sweet potato vendor's call; to Calcutta, India, to hear workers musically plucking away at manual typewriters; to Duluth, Minnesota, to hear the frenetic yelps of sled dogs before they settle down into a focused hush. Ximm asks, "Surely you can spare a minute to clean your ears? Sixty seconds of something else. Sixty seconds to be someone else."

We're presenting four joyful One-Minute Vacations, starting with Sweet Potato Vendors / Osaka, Japan. In the words of producer Tim Cabasi, "This snippet was recorded from my third-floor balcony in Momodani, an innercity suburb of Osaka. The sound is from a hot sweet potato (o-imo) van. O-imo and other vendors randomly roam the streets around 10 PM, when most drunken salarymen are stumbling home in need of a quick bite."

For more One-Minute Vacations, see the Extras section below.