Concert

I've made a big point about being in a "work cocoon" this week and next -- making no plans and not being particularly responsive to communication -- as I've got this long research paper due on Oct. 6 for the International Newspaper Marketing Association. It's supposed to be about 70 pages long, and I've currently got about three, but the materials are all there and the interviews are transcribed. It's just a matter of making my fingers fight their tendonitis and do what they need to.

Nonetheless, I couldn't quite bring myself to cancel on the My Bloody Valentine concert I'd been waiting for since May, and so last night I hit Roseland with Calvin for my final night of freedom until this damn paper is written.

Today my ears were still ringing a bit, as it was by far the loudest concert I've ever been to. Earplugs, which we brought, were pretty much compulsory. For about twenty minutes at the end there was this wall of rumbling white noise that made it feel as though I were standing next to a rocketship taking off, with the vibrations from the sound rattling my internal organs and buzzing the hair on my arms. Afterwards, Calvin called it "a total assault on all senses," while some guy behind us said he felt like he'd been "anally raped by a large machine for the past two hours."

For all that, I really enjoyed it -- having such sensory overload had a sort of calmness to it as well. After a while, my thoughts drifted pleasantly away, not unlike what it's like to be at a baseball game or staring out the window on a long drive. And now, to work again.