I spent most of the winter in Motovun without music. The music machine in my livingroom has been unplugged since the beginning of this year, if not earlier. When I realized that I had not heard a single compact disk from Africa or India for close to three months, I was puzzled. How could this happen to me? In my mind, music from these two continents is very important to me. Even more, it is lifegiving. But the answer came to me quickly enough, and it is rather simple. For quite a few years now, Motovun is dead during the winter months. Nobody lives close to my house any longer. Every sound from the neighborhood is thus important to me. With the music machine on, I would not be able to hear almost anything from the street, and that would make me pretty uncomfortable. Indeed, I have been all ears for the winter months. Every sound matters to me in the dead silence that surrounds me day and night. And music can wait till the tourist season, which is disrupted this year by the novel coronavirus pandemic. But it is anyone’s guess when will it start, if it is not already foregone this year among years. The pandemic may well stretch through most of the summer months. The longest winter ever…