“Silence can be a planrigorously executed the blueprint to a life It is a presenceit has a history a form Do not confuse itwith any kind of absence”—Adrienne Rich Orfield Lab’s anechoic chamber, a three-dimensional sound “sponge,” is the quietest place on Earth. It is designed to keep out all external sound and extinguish all reverberation. When immersed in such silence, we hear our heart, breath and blood and conjure up music and voices that …

The irony doesn’t escape me. Our capacities for remote sensing increase daily. Nothing is beyond our digital and disembodied grasp: the floor of the ocean, the depths of Antarctica, the surfaces of Mars, even our own lives, as bots scour the web for information for (and about) us. We are captivated by what we see on the screen. And also, held captive by it—bound and contained in spite of our limitless reach. Forgetting to look …

draw: trace or produce a line or mark; pull or guide; extractdraw: a natural ditch or drain; a shallow valley Last year I drove from Lincoln (Section 52 in my grid) to Scottsbluff (Section 37) to give a workshop as part of Picturing Nebraska. As usual, I took the long way round—3 days and 629 miles. Leaving Sidney (Section 62) for Kimball and going west on Hwy 30, I saw Sidney Draw on the map. …