Author Archives: Cynthia Wang
propriety in sound in critical care
I’m here in the critical care waiting room waiting on, well, I’m not sure what. Just to be proximal to my brother, who had surgery yesterday on his jaw. My poor brother is all swollen, and my poor mom wasn’t expecting the surgery to be as major as it was (it seemed like I was the first one to realize how major this surgery is….and then it dawned on my brother, and I think my mom was the only one under the illusion that this surgery would just be a “minor jaw adjustment.”
Anyway, the soundscape in the CCU waiting room is interesting. There was a moment earlier where everyone was silent, and there was this girl who was speaking rather loudly on and on about some medical procedure in great (uninformed, it seemed) detail – something about breaking ribs and seeing the so-and-so’s heart beating underneath a sponge, and gorily too. And she was shushed by the waiting room attendant. And got all huffy about it.
Space is an interesting thing in the waiting room too. It seems like people really just camp out here, at least, with this girl and her friends, they seem to have taken up an entire half of the waiting room. I’m still trying to listen to see exactly why they’re in here. Oh, and she listens in on other people’s conversations and interrupts. Interesting. Boundaries seem to dissolve in hospital waiting rooms. Probably because everyone is looking for an excuse for distraction. Oh, interesting, there’s a gender debate going on…involving Barbies and Disney princesses. And this woman seems like she has 5 kids. But she looks no older than I. Yeeeeesh. It seems like she just needs to be the center of attention. She’s completely hijacked the conversation between these two other people. Ok, here’s the story. Since she was willing to share so very loudly. Her husband was in an accident after he fell asleep at the wheel, and 4 of the kids are stepchildren. Yikes. Hope everything will be ok. But yikes. Oh, the collapse of public and private space…
Space is an interesting thing in the waiting room too. It seems like people really just camp out here, at least, with this girl and her friends, they seem to have taken up an entire half of the waiting room. I’m still trying to listen to see exactly why they’re in here. Oh, and she listens in on other people’s conversations and interrupts. Interesting. Boundaries seem to dissolve in hospital waiting rooms. Probably because everyone is looking for an excuse for distraction. Oh, interesting, there’s a gender debate going on…involving Barbies and Disney princesses. And this woman seems like she has 5 kids. But she looks no older than I. Yeeeeesh. It seems like she just needs to be the center of attention. She’s completely hijacked the conversation between these two other people. Ok, here’s the story. Since she was willing to share so very loudly. Her husband was in an accident after he fell asleep at the wheel, and 4 of the kids are stepchildren. Yikes. Hope everything will be ok. But yikes. Oh, the collapse of public and private space…
changes in voice
The title sort of gives it away, but here’s a disconnect between visual and audio signal, and our ideas of gender norms.
Interstitial Time
Interstitial time. Time that’s not work time or leisure time. Time that traditionally has not been “productive.” Work time increases economic capital, while leisure time increases cultural and social capital, to put it reductively.
What I find though, is that I’m incredibly productive during interstitial times. Especially when I have hours and hours and hours of it. Like at the airport, or on the airplane. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel like I’m obligated to do work, that I do a ton of it.
On my way to Ottawa, I created my presentation (essentially wrote a 10-page paper based on my paper from last semester on temporal capital). Then, on the way back, I wrote three abstracts and read an entire *academic* book (Granted, it was on Disney World, but it ain’t no Twilight, and was in the critical theory/cultural studies realm), made new friends, and had a whole conversation about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, as one of my new friends is in the Army Reserve (she was wearing her fatigues).
Then today, I opened my email to the daunting task of translating a canvassing script for Vote for Equality into Chinese. Daunting because they want it by Thursday, and because Chinese isn’t my native language. And the previous translation that I was working with was written in simplified Chinese. Which, for me, was like reading Shakespeare with letters missing.
(oooh. my free wifi session just canceled, but all I had to do was log in again…and this time, I took a REALLY quick survey – took literally 20 seconds – talk about temporal capital in exchange for something)
However, because I had nothing else pressing to do, and for some reason can’t consume entertainment media during interstitial time because the joy of consuming entertainment media only happens when you’re procrastinating on something you’re SUPPOSED to be doing (ie: during work time…), I translated half of this document waiting for my flight at LAX (which was delayed), and translated the rest on the plane before watching 2 episodes of Dexter, then conking out for 3 hours.
And now waiting at Logan, I’ve already written two blog posts and discovered discrepancies in this NCA submission process…
Maybe Spring Break is the interstitial time for me to be really productive. Of course, it could also go horribly in the other direction.
Kind of brilliant
Never seen anything like this before. And it’s pretty brilliant in terms of Internet and advertising. And so incredibly simple.
I just got into Logan, and waiting here for two hours for the first bus to get here (oh, the joys of red-eye flights). Logan has Internet. I can access Internet automatically from my iPhone and iPad (I think – I haven’t tried the iPad yet, but I have had experience where if it’s an apple product, it will log you right in, and my iPhone seemed to pick it right up). Then, because I had some deliverables I needed to send out, I pull out my laptop to see if Logan is giving my laptop free wifi.
It does, conditionally. But it’s a condition I don’t think anyone would complain about if free wifi is the reward.
The site that pops up gives three options – either you can log in with boingo, pay for a day pass, or watch a 30-second ad by Asus (at least mine was Asus). I, of course, chose the last option. After a painless and rather entertaining ad, voila! Internet!
What can you say? Boston’s full of smart people.
guitar shopping
I feel like I’ve been so bad at blogging recently – mostly because I went to this conference in Ottawa and talked about temporal capital and how an episode of Lost takes up 43 minutes of my time, and how we are completely limited in how much time we have in a day. So that’s my excuse. I haven’t had time to sit down and blog.
I went to Guitar Center with a friend today to get her a guitar. And amid the multitudes of brands, models, styles, shapes, sizes of guitars, trying to pick the perfect one took, well, nearly 3 hours. And the end of the day, you question whether or not the sound of one is really better than the other (the one she eventually picked out is, in my opinion, a fantastic guitar – a Martin D-15 – all-solid all-mahagony dreadnought guitar – total beaut). And the challenging thing is that in Guitar Center itself is a cacophony of sound as other people also try out various guitars. I frequent Guitar Center, and rarely is it that crowded where you can’t hear your own playing. And then there are people who are really amazing players jamming away on random guitars, and all you want to do is listen to them for a while, but then you don’t want to seem too intrusive.
Anyway. Yay for guitar shopping. I was very VERY tempted to get a ukulele, but I resisted.
20111_comm_620_20911: You Are Listening to Los Angeles
Perry – posting this to my blog. Blog readers (all, you know, 3 of you), this was sent to me by a classmate of mine. Fascinating.
It’s interesting – I listened to NY, LA, and Chicago (the three cities I’ve called home!) and all the dispatchers seem to be female! Actually, there are a lot of female voices here in Chicago (which I’m listening to right now).
In Chicago, there’s a disturbance at a club by an “extremely intoxicated male refusing to leave,” and a suspicious-looking auto.
OH they just said that there’s an incident, and was cautioned to “be professional.” errrr?!
The ambient music is kinda creepy. I turned it off. It makes it feel as though it’s pre-recorded.
Cynthia
************
Cynthia Wang
Annenberg School for Communication
University of Southern California
cynthia.w@usc.edu
Cynthia Wang
Annenberg School for Communication
University of Southern California
cynthia.w@usc.edu
On Mar 9, 2011, at 1:15 AM, Perry Johnson wrote:
Hi friends!
Thought this might interest those of you thinking about sound mapping and the soundscape(s) of LA for the final project–if not, still a fascinating project. You Are Listening to Los Angeles: LAPD Police Radio and Ambient Music http://youarelistening.to/losangeles Enjoy your spring break! Perry
wind
When it’s really windy, it sounds like cars are driving by my apartment in the rain (with the sound their wheels make on wet pavement). So all afternoon, I totally thought it was raining. Until I checked weather.com.
Cynthia Wang 