Good grief, don't know how exactly I forgot to mention it, but Justin Davidson, guest hosting The Rest Is Noise for a spell, wittily describes the mighty, throbbing incursion of noise during John Eliot Gardiner's performance of the Mozart C-minor Mass on Sunday afternoon. It was a major nuisance, to be sure. But there was even a certain magic to it, in that when Mozart's music suddenly shifted into a stilled hush, the noise mysteriously vanished -- happily, never to return.
Welcome, Justin. Hope you'll decide to pitch a tent once Alex reclaims his sandbox.
(Update: One of Justin's correspondents, Tom Ziegler, details an up-close encounter with the mysterious howling object. The description of the way the gadget's tone resonated with the overtone of the music is absolutely spot on.)