Ten Words You Don’t Want to Hear From A Flight Attendant About Her Last Landing At Your Upcoming Destination

“I’d never had a flight where so many people vomited.”

I finally got on a plane Friday morning and was talking with the flight attendant, who was on the Montreal-La Guardia flight that actually landed Thursday before the cancelled the rest. The above quote sums up her description of the turbulence.

My flight was fine and the conference was just great. I confess to not being always thrilled with the music or sound art provided at academic events on sound, but the noise performance by Otomo Yoshihide was one of those amazing, transformative musical experiences that only happen so often in a lifetime. It was waves of feedback coming from two guitars on tables that were treated somehow and run through volume pedals. The best way I can describe in in indy-rock terms is like the end of a Mogwai concert only with much, much more control and saturation. There were so many reflections bouncing around the room that by turning your head you could change the sound. It was a total bodily experience, like a metal show or dub, and had that wonderful dimension of surprise that is so key to all truly transcendent musical experience. The New York Times critic liked it too.

Oh yeah, and the papers were great too. And I got to meet some people I’d only read, including Steven Feld, whose work was very formative for me as a grad student.