AMBIENT REALMS: Long night last night, as I had to go get the Insta-mother-in-law from the hospital around midnight; she had gotten a bad case of the stomach bug that’s going around and had to go get rehydrated. (She emerged a new woman, walking under her own power and looking 20 years younger than just a few hours earlier — let’s hear it for Ringer’s Solution!)

While I was waiting in the hallway, something you always do a lot of at hospitals, there were three different monitor devices of some sort, beeping at irregular intervals. Their different pitches formed a perfect minor triad, and I was more or less right in the middle. I wish I’d had a digital stereo recorder: Instead of Todd Steed and John Baker’s Music for Bus Stations, I could do Music for Emergency Rooms. Or maybe not.