Shortly after typing my reply, upon trying to browse another folder,
everything locked up during the "loading" message (again). This time,
however, it eventually fell back to the terminal screen, where I was able to
copy down some of what appeared before the desktop reappeared (though still
locked).
It was a quick scramble for paper and pencil, so this might not be 100%
accurate...
[DRM] GPU lockup - switching to software fbcon
[Xorg1990] failed to idle channel
...
[PFIFO]
...
[compton[1991]]
...