As finals begin, you’re probably (if you’re like me, at any rate) wishing you’d been a bit more productive during reading week. When you are taking those necessary breaks, though, why not procrastinate with something intellectual?
At the very least, you’ll sound smart at holiday parties, and you might even learn something academically useful. (I’ve cited TED Talks in papers before.) Also, all of these procrastination destinations happen to be audio- or video-based, meaning that you can listen to them while you do other things, like eat, clean or tear your hair out in frustration.
During my visit, Abumrad listened to a minute-long edit of this passage with Howard and Wheeler. “Do you know Alvin Lucier’s ‘Music on a Long Thin Wire’?” he asked Howard when it ended. “I’ll play it for you.” He had an idea for the sound — not a sound effect, and not music, but a “musical gesture” — to play against the dialogue. “The sound’s going to be going bruup bruup bruup,” he told Howard, advising him to take the pigeon’s point of view. “It’s moving — fhewm, fhewm — through bands, some are thick, some are thin. You know? That’s the part where it’s gonna feel very visual.” [ . . . ]