HAIL, SPIRITUAL OPIUM!

We’re back! In Taiwan! In quarantine! This week we talk about how we’re surviving by regressing to childhood comforts. Plus, links about 9/11, rural schools, Black composers in Europe, and Tony Leung.

Dear all,

Hello from Taipei! We’re on day five of a mandatory fifteen-day quarantine. We’ll get fined $3,500 USD if we leave our hotel room; if we venture too close to the door, as Albert did yesterday, we get a text message telling us we’re “beyond the acceptable range.” The Taiwan CDC calls us every morning to ask for our temperatures. On day two they had to call nine times because I never picked up. (“Sorry, sorry!” I said in Mandarin once we finally connected. “I’m not used to keeping my phone on. I lived in France and nobody called me.”) By that second day the baby—she turns two soon and at some point I probably should stop calling her “the baby,” but for now I refuse—was already pointing at the door, wanting out. Poor thing! In a few more days she’ll be pounding on it and I fear our fellow hotel quarantiners will brand us as child abusers.

As you’ve probably gathered, we’ve been on hiatus this summer. We spent most of it with my parents, who are in love with the baby: they deligh…