TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

through the looking glass

Samantha Chisholm Hatfield: Combining science with storytelling

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As we edge ever clos­er to our big day, we intro­duce one more per­former and pre­sen­ter for our event: native sto­ry­teller and sci­en­tist Saman­tha Chisholm Hat­field, whose inter­ac­tive sto­ry­telling tech­niques com­bine the oral tra­di­tion­al knowl­edge of Native Amer­i­cans with stan­dard sci­en­tif­ic inquiry to con­vey a fuller pic­ture of the envi­ron­ment.

Dr. Chisholm Hat­field earned her doc­tor­ate from Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty in Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ences, with a focus on the tra­di­tion­al eco­log­i­cal knowl­edge (TEK) of Siletz Trib­al Mem­bers. She is an enrolled mem­ber of the Con­fed­er­at­ed Tribes of Siletz Indi­ans, from the Tutut­ni and Chi­nook bands, and is also Chero­kee.

Dr. Chisholm Hat­field has worked with the Ore­gon Cli­mate Change Research Insti­tute, and has worked to coor­di­nate trib­al par­tic­i­pa­tion in North­west Cli­mate Sci­ence Cen­ter and USGS Cli­mate Boot Camp work­shops. Her dis­ser­ta­tion has been her­ald­ed nation­al­ly by schol­ars as a pio­neer­ing tem­plate for TEK research. She is a Native Amer­i­can Long­house Advi­so­ry Board mem­ber at Ore­gon State, and a fea­tured blog­ger for the Union of Con­cerned Sci­en­tists. She was select­ed as an H.J. Andrews For­est Vis­it­ing Schol­ar, and cho­sen as a Kore­an Foun­da­tion Fel­low­ship Field Research Schol­ar to study TEK in South Korea.

Dr. Chisholm Hat­field talked with us about her per­for­mance, and the val­ue of bring­ing Native per­spec­tives into the study of ecol­o­gy.

TEDxSalem: Talk a lit­tle about your appear­ance at this year’s event.

Saman­tha Chisholm Hat­field: I’m very excit­ed to bring a strong Native voice to offer a per­spec­tive not many have heard, or are even aware is there!

Look­ing through a Native look­ing glass out at the world pro­vides a rich depth and tra­di­tion­al views that are long­stand­ing. I offer a look at what grow­ing up Native “looks” like, what it takes to become an aca­d­e­m­ic pro­fes­sion­al, and why I do the work I do.

Many peo­ple are unaware of the rich­ness that Native Amer­i­can cul­ture brings, as well as the long­stand­ing and cur­rent con­tri­bu­tions that Native cul­ture holds.

TxS: How do you believe it ties in to the theme of the event, “Through the Look­ing Glass?”

SCH: Many times it is assumed that per­spec­tives are all the same, or that a clas­sic stereo­type is cor­rect. Per­spec­tives vary from per­son to per­son when look­ing at the world, and the depth and breadth of cul­ture brings about a beau­ty that many miss when they assume or accept a stereo­type.

A look­ing glass can hold mul­ti­ple facets, depend­ing on the angle, so to [see] the light that shines through a Native “angle” is some­thing most have not had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence. The dom­i­nant world­view most are accus­tomed to see­ing, hear­ing, and believ­ing is not always the only view.

TxS: You’ve men­tioned that there are very few Ph. Ds doing what you do in the Native com­mu­ni­ty. Do you see your­self as a role mod­el for oth­ers Native Amer­i­cans to fol­low?

It’s not up to me to say. I hope to be show­ing a dif­fer­ent way to look at sci­ence and look at native cul­ture. So all peo­ple through TEK can gain anoth­er per­spec­tive, anoth­er way to see how the world works, and what diver­si­ty real­ly means.

TxS: What would you want the audi­ence to come away with, hav­ing learned about indige­nous TEK? What is your hope for the event?

SCH: I’d like for par­tic­i­pants to be more aware about the depth of indige­nous knowl­edge and TEK; how sto­ries are the back­bone of our tra­di­tions and the term “sto­ry” often entails mul­ti­ple lev­els. Enter­tain­ment has a pur­pose and is often a very effec­tive tool used for teach­ing.

I also look for­ward to [shar­ing] what it takes to live in two worlds, and the chal­lenges Natives face as they live and work in main­stream soci­ety. Native Amer­i­cans have often been termed the invis­i­ble minor­i­ty because of the lack of acknowl­edge­ment, and I rou­tine­ly hear indi­vid­u­als say they have nev­er met a Native per­son, when in real­i­ty chances are that they know some­one who is Native but don’t rec­og­nize it due to stereo­types and assump­tions.

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Make the most of your TEDxSalem experience

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We’re less than two weeks away from TEDxSalem V “Through the Look­ing Glass.” Don’t have tick­ets yet? Don’t wor­ry, you can still get them here.

Do we all have our tick­ets now? Good! Now read these ten tips on how to get the most out of your TED expe­ri­ence Jan. 6 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

10. Take notes! Bring a small note­book or down­load a notes app for your smart­phone. You def­i­nitely want to remem­ber those moments that made you smile, made you think or just jumped out at you. Take a moment dur­ing the event and at the end of the day to jot down the insights you gained.

9. Be present in the moment. We love that you want to Tweet and Insta­gram about your amaz­ing TEDxSalem expe­ri­ence. But don’t get so wrapped up in your phone that you miss a poignant moment dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion or a TED talk!

8. Be open-mind­ed. Some of the ideas worth shar­ing may be shock­ing. Some might be a lit­tle con­tro­ver­sial or entire­ly new to you. Don’t write off a TED talk even if you find your­self bristling at it. Be open to new ideas!

7. First in the door, last out the build­ing. Get there ear­ly. You can find your seat, chat up the per­son next to you, get com­fort­able and see what oth­er good­ies await through­out the day. Last year, par­tic­i­pants had the oppor­tu­nity to pur­chase books writ­ten by our speak­ers or get some awe­some TEDxSalem swag. Stay the whole day and leave late. Lis­ten to every sin­gle talk. Do the break­out ses­sions. Ask a mil­lion ques­tions. By the end of the day, you won’t want to leave!

6. Bring some­thing to share. It can be some­thing tan­gi­ble like your busi­ness card or some­thing that’s not like a thought-pro­vok­ing ques­tion or a great book you’ve read recent­ly.

5. Do your research! We love a good sur­prise, and we hope some of the top­ics and thoughts will be delight­fully sur­pris­ing. But there’s some­thing to be said for get­ting excit­ed about your favorite speak­er ahead of time! Take a moment to read the TEDXSalem blog for more infor­ma­tion about each speak­er. Revis­it last year’s speak­ers to get in the spir­it of TED! Or vis­it the offi­cial TED blog for more engag­ing TED talks and choose a few favorites.

4. Net­work, net­work, net­work! TEDxSalem is not a pas­sive or iso­lated expe­ri­ence. You are at the beau­ti­ful Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter with hun­dreds of peo­ple just as excit­ed about new ideas as you are! Talk to every­one. Intro­duce your­self. Don’t ask what they do for a liv­ing — ask what they’re pas­sion­ate about. Make friends, get con­tacts, dis­cuss the TED talks with them. Force your­self a lit­tle out of your com­fort zone and chat up a stranger. (Did the intro­vert in you just cringe? It’s ok. TEDxSalem is for intro­verts, too.)

3. Our vol­un­teers are a resource! They are the heart, soul and back­bone of TEDxSalem, and they are there to make your expe­ri­ence extra­or­di­nary. If you need any­thing at all, don’t hes­i­tate to ask them!

2. Be sure to par­tic­i­pate in the break­out ses­sions. One high­light of TEDxSalem is our speak­ers, but there’s so much more that goes on through­out the day. If you real­ly want to make the most of your time, don’t shy away from sit­ting in on the break­out ses­sions and shar­ing your own ideas. It’s all about mak­ing you think.

1. Immerse your­self in the spir­it of TED! TED is a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion devot­ed to spread­ing ideas, usu­ally in the form of short, pow­er­ful talks. It began in 1984 as a con­fer­ence where tech­nol­ogy, enter­tain­ment and design con­verged (hence the name) and now cov­ers almost all top­ics, includ­ing sci­ence, busi­ness and glob­al issues. Keep all of this in mind as you approach Jan. 6. The day is devot­ed to shar­ing ideas!

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

A TEDxSalem Homecoming: Alumni look back

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Ever won­der what life is like for TEDxSalem speak­ers after their talks?

We know the joy and enrich­ment that we get from watch­ing them, but what about our speak­ers? What do they get out of it? What last­ing impres­sions do they have from their big day?

As we pre­pare for our upcom­ing event, “Through the Look­ing Glass” on Jan­u­ary 6, we check in with a few alum­ni to find out what’s hap­pened since they left the TED stage…

Noah Schultz

“There’ve been some strug­gles in there, but you high­light the beau­ty.”

After his talk in 2016, Noah Schultz was released from incar­cer­a­tion. For a time, he worked on a col­lab­o­ra­tion called Ver­bal Escape, teach­ing spo­ken word per­for­mance in prison com­mu­ni­ties. He also col­lab­o­rat­ed on a fash­ion line and food/beverage sales effort called Cas­ca­dia Kom­bucha.

When we reached him in San Fran­cis­co in Sep­tem­ber, he was on a nation­al speak­ing tour of cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ties, high schools and youth orga­ni­za­tions to pro­mote his doc­u­men­tary film “Noah Schultz: From Prison to Pur­pose.”

“It’s been a marathon,” Schultz said, “a lot of sprints in there as well.”

“My TEDx expe­ri­ence was one of the most incred­i­ble expe­ri­ences of my life,” he said.

“That expe­ri­ence, that feel­ing of com­mu­ni­ty and sup­port, love and accom­plish­ment in the same room, that whole expe­ri­ence lift­ed me up,” he said.

“To be able to tell my sto­ry and to be accept­ed for who I was, where I’d been and where I’m going was a huge build­ing block,” he said. “One of my biggest accom­plish­ments.”

Jonathan Chase

“Noth­ing com­pares to the feel­ing as you step out of the spot­light with the echo of applause still ring­ing behind you.”

Since his appear­ance at TEDxSalem, Jonathan Chase has giv­en pre­sen­ta­tions across the coun­try includ­ing to nation­al con­fer­ences and col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties such as Duke Uni­ver­si­ty. He also pub­lished a book, “From Sur­viv­ing to Thriv­ing: Class­room Accom­mo­da­tions for Stu­dents on the Autism Spec­trum”. He cred­its his TEDxSalem appear­ance for giv­ing his self-fund­ed book the boost it need­ed, hav­ing gar­nered over 300,000 views on YouTube.

While he does­n’t play music full time any­more, he still brings the bass out to con­fer­ences every now and then, he said.

“I think TEDx is great because any­one can get involved and sub­mit their idea as a pre­sen­ter,” he said.

“It requires com­mit­ment and a lot of rehearsal, but the pay­off is immense, and noth­ing com­pares to the feel­ing as you step out of the spot­light with the echo of applause still ring­ing behind you.”

Mark Davis

“I hope to do anoth­er TEDx talk some day.”

Dr. Davis’ talk has gar­nered almost 26,000 views on YouTube — “Cer­tain­ly the largest audi­ence I’ve ever had,” he said.

“When peo­ple book appoint­ments with me, many of them will men­tion that they’ve ‘watched my TED talk,’ ” he said.

Davis remem­bers the prepa­ra­tion for his appear­ance fond­ly.

“The group that reviewed my talk gave me excel­lent feed­back, which real­ly improved the qual­i­ty of my talk,” he said.

“The rehearsals, pre-par­ty and event itself were a great mix of pro­fes­sion­al and fun.”

Kelsey Juliana

“It hum­bled me, but it also empow­ered me.”

It was less than a year ago that this “cli­mate kid” inspired her audi­ence to believe in the pow­er of youth to fight cli­mate change. Her infec­tious opti­mism encour­aged oth­ers to believe that any­one could make a dif­fer­ence in the world, even in the face of seem­ing­ly insur­mount­able odds.

These days Juliana is hold­ing down two jobs, work­ing at a local bak­ery and vol­un­teer teach­ing with the City of Eugene, while tak­ing class­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon as a junior. And of course she’s still part of a poten­tial­ly ground­break­ing legal prece­dent.

On Decem­ber 11 the case that bears her name, Juliana v. U.S.A., 15-cv-01517, came back into the news as oral argu­ments were held in front of a three-judge pan­el of the 9th U.S. Cir­cuit Court of Appeals, where Trump Admin­is­tra­tion lawyers had filed a motion to dis­miss.

A rul­ing could be hand­ed down any day.

“It’s very excit­ing,” she said. “It feels like it’s part of a move­ment.”

And she is grate­ful for the brief time she spent with TEDxSalem.

“What the TED expe­ri­ence allowed me to do,” she said, “is to actu­al­ly crys­tal­lize what I as a per­son, not as a youth in the move­ment, but what I as Kelsey have expe­ri­enced, have learned, have tak­en away.”

“I real­ized through that expe­ri­ence, through map­ping out my sto­ry and shar­ing my sto­ry, that, wow, I am quite an empow­ered per­son.”

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Tippy Toe: Taking over the TEDx stage

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As if there wasn’t enough to see and do, atten­dees of this year’s TEDxSalem event “Through the Look­ing Glass” will be treat­ed to a per­for­mance by Salem’s own Tip­py Toe Dance Stu­dio.

The stu­dio focus­es on bal­let, but also teach­es hip-hop, con­tem­po­rary, and pas de deux, along with fit­ness class­es and com­pet­i­tive danc­ing.

Those who came out to 2015’s “Fear­less” event will remem­ber their lights-out com­bi­na­tion per­for­mance with the Tru­Root break­danc­ing squad.

We sat down recent­ly with stu­dio founder Rebec­ca Swish­er, 32, and stu­dio man­ag­er Nicole Tea-Pel­ley, 20, about their upcom­ing per­for­mance.

TEDx Salem: Tell us about the start of the stu­dio.

Rebec­ca Swish­er: “We cre­at­ed it in 2009, and I had been work­ing local­ly as a chore­o­g­ra­ph­er for quite some time. And I kept being asked by friends and peo­ple that I would meet in the com­mu­ni­ty: ‘Oh, could you just teach my child dance, or my friend dance,’ and so I start­ed with just a hand­ful of stu­dents, actu­al­ly in my back­yard, we built a small stu­dio for it.

And I just kept think­ing, if I’m going to have a stu­dio, I want­ed to do it dif­fer­ent­ly than stu­dios had been in the past. So, we’ve real­ly grown into this family…We real­ly focus on dancers find­ing their indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, their own cre­ativ­i­ty, and just feel­ing free to express them­selves in any way. And we’ve real­ly become a fam­i­ly out of that.”

Nicole Tea-Pel­ley: “From the ground up from the lit­tle kids to the old­est dancers – We have peo­ple who are in their lat­er twen­ties here – every­body knows every oth­er per­son who dances at the stu­dio, and we all can build off of that, and we become bet­ter dancers off of that.

We all have dif­fer­ent traits and you’ll see that in every stu­dio, but com­pared to oth­er places that I’ve seen, we real­ly embrace that, and we use that to make our­selves bet­ter and more well-round­ed.”

TxS: How do you feel your per­for­mance will align with this year’s theme, “Through the Look­ing Glass?”

RS: “…when I think of TEDx, I think of a safe place where peo­ple come togeth­er to share ideas, and how it has this rip­ple effect with­in our com­mu­ni­ty when we share ideas with each oth­er. When think­ing ‘through the look­ing glass,’ I thought of that and put it on a larg­er scale.

Our piece express­es not always going with just the norm, not always just fit­ting in a par­tic­u­lar social group or way of think­ing… We’re try­ing to express to peo­ple being open to new ways of think­ing and real­ly expe­ri­enc­ing free­dom from that.

Once you’re will­ing to chal­lenge the way you’re think­ing a whole new world can open up to you.”

TxS: What can the TEDx audi­ence look for­ward to? What are you going to hit us with?

NTP: “They won’t just see dancers on a stage — they’re going to see real peo­ple, and the real emo­tions that peo­ple go through, as they, as Bec­ca was say­ing, break out of the norm of soci­ety and real­ly con­nect with some­thing in them­selves.

Because no mat­ter what somebody’s jour­ney is, every­body has gone through some­thing sim­i­lar to that, in one way or anoth­er. With this piece we are real­ly try­ing to con­nect with peo­ple on that lev­el. We get real­ly real, we get to points where we’re not doing spe­cif­ic moves, but we’re just being our­selves, and I think that peo­ple will real­ly be kind of shocked by that. And it’ll make them think real­ly hard.”

RS: “There’s also a lit­tle bit of sur­prise ele­ments in the dances, of pair­ing togeth­er dif­fer­ent styles of dance that you wouldn’t nor­mal­ly think of putting togeth­er.”

TxS: Tell me there’s going to be break­danc­ing!

RS: “There’s a lit­tle bit of break in there, yeah.” (laughs)

TxS: How do you keep it fresh?

RS: “Well, I don’t pay atten­tion to what oth­er peo­ple are doing. We def­i­nite­ly do things our own way, and we all play a part in chore­og­ra­phy, and we move the way we’re feel­ing.”

TxS: What do you want to accom­plish at TEDxSalem this year?

RS: “I want to feel like our mes­sage has been heard, and I think TEDx is a real­ly good plat­form for that. For me as an artist, when I have some­thing that I need to express, I need to be able to know that I was heard or I was seen, and it’s like some­thing in me that has to get that out.”

NTP: “I’m excit­ed about the con­nec­tion between the audi­ence and us. TEDx has audi­ence mem­bers from all walks of life, but def­i­nite­ly there’s a strong sense of peo­ple who do have the artis­tic and cre­ative minds there. And I think that if we can con­nect with some of those peo­ple and impact some of those peo­ple, that’s where we get real­ly cool new and big ideas, and that’s where that flow starts to go that we real­ly are inspired by.”

TxS: Now this is real­ly impor­tant — How are you going to avoid hit­ting the TEDxSalem sign when you dance?

RS: “That’s a real­ly good ques­tion. We’ve actu­al­ly been tap­ing out our stu­dio [floor], to say if you cross this line of tape you are going to be hit­ting the TEDx sign. So right now that’s our plan of attack.”

Learn more about the stu­dio at www.tippytoedancestudio.com, and join us Jan. 6 to catch ’em live on our stage.

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Stereo RV: Bringing the beatbox to TEDxSalem

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For six years, Stereo RV has been a fix­ture on the Port­land music scene, but lead singer Myra Glea­son and vocal per­cus­sion­ist and hus­band Gabe Glea­son have been per­form­ing for even longer togeth­er, ever since their paths crossed on the stage at “Port­land Teen Idol.”

The duo, which hails from Keiz­er and Port­land, respec­tive­ly, recent­ly released their debut EP, “Human,” and will be per­form­ing live at our TEDx Salem event. We recent­ly caught up with Myra who spoke to us about the group, their inspi­ra­tions and their hopes for their TEDxSalem appear­ance.

TEDxSalem: Talk a lit­tle bit about the name — You both chose to live in an RV for some years. What was that expe­ri­ence like?

Myra Glea­son: Well, up until last Decem­ber, we were liv­ing in an RV. The expe­ri­ence… [laughs]

We bought the RV three years ago, so that we could down­size our life, that we would have more mon­ey avail­able for oppor­tu­ni­ty should it come with music, because we were liv­ing in Port­land at the time and Port­land it was just so expen­sive. So the RV was real­ly the best way that we could go to save funds and pur­sue music.

So that’s evi­dent­ly where our name came from… Stereo is dual, you have your left and your right, and we’re mar­ried, so we thought that fit in as a duo, and then the RV, because that’s where we lived for three years, and that’s where all the songs on our “Human” EP were cre­at­ed. But right now we are not liv­ing in the RV. I get to live in a fine town­house with my moth­er. So…

TxS: Where’s the best place to camp out? 

Myra: Uh, gosh, somebody’s dri­ve­way? [laughs] We nev­er got to take her camp­ing, to be hon­est with you, because we lived in her, and so she was just always stuck on a pad in one of the Port­land parks, so… We met a lot of inter­est­ing peo­ple, though.

TxS: Now you say “her…” Does this RV have a name?

Myra: Yeah, her name’s Beat­rice. She’s a beast, that’s why her name is Beat­rice.

TxS: Talk a lit­tle about how your part­ner­ship with Gabe formed. On your web site it says you met at a singing com­pe­ti­tion.

Myra: I was a spe­cial guest per­former that sang dur­ing the judges’ delib­er­a­tion, and Gabe was also a spe­cial per­former that did some beat­box­ing with anoth­er artist. I saw the beat­box­ing and the oth­er per­son play­ing, so it was quite cool cause I’d nev­er seen any­thing like that, and I want­ed to bring Gabe in for beat­box­ing on one of my songs, which we were solo artists at the time, so I had Gabe come in, and we put some beat­box­ing down on some of the songs I was doing at the time, and that led to him giv­ing me gui­tar lessons, and us start­ing to write togeth­er, and then we did Salem’s Got Tal­ent back in 2011, and we got fourth place on that, and so that was the first take that we did as a duo, to see if we had the chem­istry that it need­ed to be on stage.

Could we make this as a duo, could we do this as a work­ing rela­tion­ship? And from there we just liked each oth­er and here we are, mar­ried. [Laughs]

TxS: So it sounds like he won you over with his beat­box­ing.

Myra: Yeah, that was the start of it, and he was real­ly, real­ly fun­ny with it, so humor and beat­box­ing got me.

TxS: …must be some beat­box­ing.

Myra: [Laughs] Yeah.

TxS: For your song, “Human,” you say that a lot of your inspi­ra­tion comes from your time spent work­ing with fos­ter chil­dren. Tell us about that expe­ri­ence and how it informs the song.

Myra: For me, we build this rela­tion­ship, and at first, there’s noth­ing there. It’s like, “Okay, here’s anoth­er adult that’s forced to come and work with me, because my case work­er says so, or because I’m in this pro­gram,” and the foun­da­tion for any type of change is trust, and rela­tion­ship build­ing. Once I start work­ing with these indi­vid­u­als, you start to find com­mon­al­i­ties with them with­in our rela­tion­ship, and start to learn about trust. And in that trust they told me their sto­ry.

They’ve cried in my car, they’ve explained to me what real­ly affects them and a lot of it, is… One girl just broke down cry­ing, because she want­ed to be loved, and she doesn’t care who it’s by, as long as some­body loves her. I had anoth­er gal who self-harmed, and so she has all of these scars on her arms, and to get her to not wear a long-sleeved shirt in 90-degree weath­er was a big vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty for her to be exposed, to have those real­is­tic scars exposed, and the emo­tion­al ones. So, the first line of “Human” is “I’ve got scars / That show me just where my past has been.” It’s from a con­stant three years of telling her those scars don’t define you, and you don’t have to be afraid of them any­more. Because she had changed so much from who she was. So a lot of it what makes us human?

TxS: Have any of them heard your music? What have they said?

Myra: They have, actu­al­ly, and the first com­ment that I got was, “Myra, did you write this for me?” Every sin­gle youth that I have come in con­tact with, they’ve either asked to hear it, want to hear it, they actu­al­ly talk about the songs that I wrote, and it inspired a lot of them to actu­al­ly start writ­ing, and devel­op that cre­ative, musi­cal side of them. And a lot of them start with rap songs, but it’s been a real great plea­sure to watch how music is work­ing with­in fos­ter care. It’s real­ly cool, it’s real­ly cool to be able to expe­ri­ence that with them, and say, “Yes I did write that for you guys, so you guys could have a voice.” And that encour­ages them to say, “What else is in my voice?”

TxS: Head­ing into our new TEDxSalem event, how do you think Stereo RV fits with the theme, “Through the Look­ing Glass?”

Myra: Our music is based off sto­ries, of course, look­ing through the micro­scope of each per­son as an indi­vid­ual human, and what makes them their own indi­vid­ual per­son, and we tend to judge peo­ple by stereo­types or by assump­tions, or by their cir­cum­stances, and being able to find the com­mon­al­i­ties with­in us all. It’s some­thing our music is able to achieve in the sense of through the look­ing glass, through the eyes of some­body else.

TxS: What about your songs do you think will make them res­onate with our audi­ence?

Myra: I think in some way, we’ve all been at that point, where we’ve said, “well, gosh, I’m human. Stop beat­ing me up for mis­takes that I’ve made…” I think our songs will res­onate with the TED audi­ence because they’re hon­est, and trans­par­ent, and they’re melod­i­cal­ly made in a way that can bring inspi­ra­tion or just any­thing pos­i­tive to them as peo­ple who are in our com­mu­ni­ty com­ing to these events to be inspired, to learn some­thing.

TxS: Any­thing else the TEDx Salem audi­ence should know?

Myra: Well, I think we’re going to… [REDACTED: Hmmm, curi­ous? Join us at TEDxSalem “Through the Look­ing Glass” on Jan. 6 and find out.]

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Noah Strycker: Seeing the world, one bird at a time

By

Noah StryckerIt all start­ed with the bird feed­er.

Specif­i­cal­ly, the bird feed­er that Judy Kap­pler attached to her fifth grade classroom’s win­dow at Oak Hill Ele­men­tary School in Eugene. Every time a new bird came to vis­it that feed­er, she paused the class to observe it.

One of her stu­dents, Noah Stryck­er, was riv­et­ed. So much so that he built his career on birds, writ­ing books about them and pur­su­ing them all over the world.

Stryck­er has just pub­lished his third book, Bird­ing With­out Bor­ders, about what’s known in the bird­ing com­mu­ni­ty as “The Big Year” – a com­pe­ti­tion to trav­el far and wide to iden­ti­fy as many bird species as pos­si­ble, whether by sight or by sound.

His first expo­sure to the Big Year was at the age of 12, when he picked up King­bird High­way, Kenn Kaufman’s mem­oir of drop­ping out of high school to do his own Big Year in the 1970s. Stryck­er says he “read that book over and over,” but the goal to embark on a Big Year of his own coa­lesced when he was a stu­dent at Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty, writ­ing for Bird­ing mag­a­zine along­side his course­work.

After grad­u­at­ing in 2008 with a Fish­eries and Wildlife degree, he made birds his full-time career, work­ing on field projects with var­i­ous uni­ver­si­ties. One of his first such projects out of col­lege saw him camp­ing out in Antarc­ti­ca with a colony of 300,000 Adélie pen­guins – which became the basis of his first book, Among Pen­guins.

When Stryck­er final­ly start­ed his Big Year in Jan­u­ary 2015, he’d hoped to iden­ti­fy at least 5,000 birds around the world. His grand total by Decem­ber 31 was 6,042 – at the time, a world record – and he esti­mates he was able to iden­ti­fy 95% of them by sight. His trav­els took him to all sev­en con­ti­nents (only one of which, Africa, he’d nev­er pre­vi­ous­ly vis­it­ed), to both remote and sur­pris­ing­ly mun­dane loca­tions such as cities, farms and land­fills.

He jokes that he speaks three lan­guages: “Eng­lish, about 80% Span­ish, and Bird.” That came in handy when trav­el­ing across 41 coun­tries, some­times with bird­ers who spoke no Eng­lish; the only lan­guage he had in com­mon with them was that of bird names and bird calls. The sheer size and scale of the glob­al bird­ing com­mu­ni­ty was a wel­come sur­prise to him.

“Birds are uni­ver­sal crea­tures,” Stryck­er says. “Birds are so uni­ver­sal that they break down our human bor­ders … it doesn’t mat­ter who you are or where you’re from, birds are around you. They con­nect peo­ple more than oth­er things [in nature] … any­one can watch them.”

Strycker’s not one to sit still for long – hav­ing just wrapped up a mul­ti-state book tour for Bird­ing With­out Bor­ders, he’s now off to work in Antarc­ti­ca as the res­i­dent bird expert for Quark Expe­di­tions, which leads sight­see­ing tours of both polar regions. When he’s not on a Quark voy­age, he works as the asso­ciate edi­tor of Bird­ing.

Out­side of that, Stryck­er says he prefers to focus on one project at a time. In this case, that’s his next book: an upcom­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with Nation­al Geo­graph­ic called Birds of the Pho­to Ark, slat­ed for April 2018.

And, of course, his upcom­ing TED talk. The sub­ject: how birds con­nect the world.

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.