Commentary

Blowing in the wind

August 28, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Anthony Carnovale

If there was a sound that defined the summer of 2025 for me, and for most of my neighbours, it would be the sound of trucks, jackhammers, saws, beeping, doorbells, yelling, screaming, the sound of windows being slammed shut. The curbs on our street are being ripped up, and the road is being paved. From 7:30 in the morning until late afternoon, the soundtrack of our summer was one of chaos and mayhem.

One day, though, a soft sound worked its way through clatter. It reminded me of the way Pharaoh Saunders contrasted harsh tones with soft ones in his music. It was a whistle, followed by another. It was all I could hear. It was followed by the sound of an engine slowly revving. It was a call and an answer. The whistle was a signal. A message. Something was being communicated.

The word ‘whistle’ comes from the Middle English word whistlen, which means to “produce a high, shrill or musical kind of sound by forcing the breath through contracted lips.” In Old Norse, hvisla means “to whisper,” in Danish, hvisle “to hiss;” The word was also used in Middle English for the hissing of serpents; in the 17th century, it could also mean “whisper.”

My father was a good whistler. His father was, too. When I visited my grandfather, before opening the gate to his backyard, I’d usually announce my arrival with a whistle. To this day, my father still whistles. Sadly, it’s usually from his bedroom to let my mother know he’s ready for his breakfast. My mother could whistle by putting a blade of grass between her two thumbs, cupping her hands, and blowing. As a kid, it charmed me.

Our weekends are filled with whistling sounds. Before one of our children’s soccer games, the ref will blow the whistle once to let players know it’s time to kick off. The ref will blow the whistle twice to signal half-time, three times to signal the end of the match. In between, there are whistles for fouls, penalties. In sport, the whistle is the sound of an order, something to be obeyed. Sometimes I whistle to get my students’ attention.

Inhabitants of La Gomera, in the Canary Islands, communicate in a whistle language known as Silbo Gomero. It was historically used to communicate across deep ravines and narrow valleys that radiated throughout the island and allowed messages to be exchanged over a distance of up to five kilometres. In a video posted to YouTube, a shepherd quipped that it was cheaper than a cellphone, and it was good not to have to rely on wireless service.

In various myths and folktales, whistling has a more ominous connotation. In Colombian folklore, El Silbón (The Whistler) is the ghost of a young man who murdered his father. He’s cursed to wander forever, carrying a sack of bones, whistling. If the whistle sounds far away, he’s near; if it sounds close, he is far away. In Japanese folklore, whistling at night is thought to summon snakes, demons. My Italian grandmother used to warn us to never sing at the table or whistle in bed, unless we wanted to be cursed with bad luck.  

If you listen closely, you’ll hear whistles whirling and hissing throughout pop culture. Some of my favourite songs have whistling in them: Frankie Knuckles’ ‘The Whistle Song;’ ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’ by The Bangles; Jack Johnson’s ‘I Got You’. Think of spaghetti westerns and two cowboys nervously preparing for a duel. One of my all-time favourite television characters is stick-up man Omar Little, from HBO’s The Wire. Omar carried a big gun, had a scar that ran down the middle of his face, rocked a trench coat like a cape, was gay,and whistled ‘The Farmer in the Dell’ before robbing a stash house. The whistle was usually enough for his rivals to cough up their stash.

In her poem, The Whistler, Mary Oliver hears, for the first time, her partner whistling. She’s mesmerized, confounded. She describes the whistle sound as if it were birds whirling and soaring off into the sky. She writes: “I know her so well, I think. I thought. Elbow and ankle. Mood and desire. Anguish and frolic. Anger too. And the devotions. And for all that, do we even begin to know each other? Who is this I’ve been living with for thirty years? This clear, dark, lovely whistler?”

Next week, a new school year begins. When my daughter was younger, I picked her up from school. I would wait for her out in the field behind the school until the teacher gave her permission to leave. I so loved watching her walking towards me- her small figure, backpack bouncing up and down, her schoolwork in her hand. I couldn’t wait to hold her hand, to ask her how her day was, and hear her voice. To get to her quicker, I would whistle. A long high note. A short low note. When she whistled back, it melted my heart. I was touched (because hearing is also a form of touching). My intention behind the whistle was to let her know that I was there for her (always, never out of reach), that I couldn’t wait to see her. Her whistle, in response, told me that she was there, that she was happy to see me, and that she really, really wanted a snack.

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