Exhausted and beat, Noelle and I rolled into Cannes with high spirits. We managed to get to Canne right before the festival wrapped up for the evening, so we headed straight for whatever talks were left for the evening. We didn’t fight this hard to get here to just snooze! Fortunately, we ran into a seminar hosted by one of my favorite Podcast hosts, David Rheinstrom (Secrets, Crimes & Audiotapes). Tragically, the event was Storytelling in the Dark, a session done in complete darkness thanks to complimentary face masks. The talk itself was spectacular. Rheinstrom and the CEO of Wondery Network spoke on “imagination powered by sound”—pure listening creates the most lasting impressions happen when we imagine them ourselves with our own imagination. As they played the crashing of waves over the auditoriums speakers, we were asked cover our eyes with complimentary eye masks and then imagine the most relaxing beach day we’ve ever experience. “Maybe it was your first date with your girlfriend, or just a really lovely family vacation,” they asked us. For me, it was a day I spent at the intercostal in St. Augustine with my friends a few years ago. It was a much more powerful feeling remembering that time than watching some stock video of waves crashing on a cliché looking beach.
The entire affair was, if you will, ear-opening. Tragically, the savory combination of complete darkness and soothing radio voices only augmented our feeble, post-48-hour-trip states of mind. We were drifting off hard, hah.
Hard to complain when you’re snoozin in the Riviera though.
- A.J. :~)