It’s that time again… AAG 2017! Italian food in the North End, strolling through the Common, record shopping in Cambridge, comedy in Allston, and more crammed around the whirlwind of academia, mapping, and GIS happening over five fun-filled days at the Hynes Convention Center.

For anyone who wants to come see me give my paper, I’ll be presenting in Session 3566: QUALITATIVE METHODS IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, SESSION A on Friday 4/7 at 3:20pm in Columbus 1, Marriott, First Floor. I’ll be presenting along with Beyhan Farhadi (University of Toronto), Rae Rosenberg, Heather Maguire (Brock University), and Jeff Rose (University of Utah), none of whom I’ve met before.

I was also invited by my colleagues Joseph Palis, Severin Guillard, and Ola Johanssen to be discussant for a paper session about Spatializing Music Performance. Regretfully, the AAG algorithms-at-large scheduled these two sessions concurrently, so I won’t be able to attend or make my debut as a discussant, both of which I had been seriously looking forward to.

This will actually be my second conference in Boston; I went up in early 2015 to attend the Harvard ‘Hearing Landscape Critically’ conference and do some research about Frank Hatch, which I’ve chronicled on here before. I learned a lot about what sound semioticians (for lack of a better term, though I’m sure there are dozens) from all over the world have been doing then. This time, I’ll be grateful to be back in the city of my birth alongside at least nine thousand fellow geographers and well-wishers.

Downtown crossing at sunset. Photo by Tyler.

Per usual, I’m looking forward to a bunch of great panels, speakers, and delivering my dissertation chapter about oral histories in underground music. It’s going to be a great time. Outside the conference, I’m going to attempt to follow up on some of the Hatch research, do some postcard re-photography, and I may even find another excuse to tweet at Damon Krukowski. (While I’m on the subject, I guess he’s got a new book coming out that looks really cool. If being in Galaxie 500 and rooming with Conan O’Brien at Harvard doesn’t give you all the cred in the world, I don’t know what would).

Can’t wait to see you again, Boston. You’re ridiculously expensive, cold, unfriendly, and absolutely the greatest. Don’t ever change, especially before I get there tomorrow night. By the way, if you can’t make it by the conference and want to say hello, get in touch with me. I’m around until Saturday and don’t plan on sleeping that much.

A note on “You Can Easily Find Your Way in Boston”: My great-grandfather sent this postcard to my great-grandmother and family in Brooklyn late on September 26, 1935: “Dearest – Will be here all week and maybe next week also. Will send you money Sat. Love you dearly & how. Hope you’re O.K. & my daughter the dear. Regards to all. Irv.” For anyone interested in his story, I’ll post my Pecha Kucha talk soon.