What Is Time, Anyway?

Albert researches quarantines past and present and poses an important thought experiment: would Benjamin Disraeli have been good at Super Mario 3D?

Dear friends,

Greetings from Day 10 of quarantine in Taiwan!

As we mentioned last week, we’ll formally relaunch A Broad and Ample Road in October, and have paused payments until then. When we do, the core newsletter will remain the same, but you’ll receive some options involving other new parts of the newsletter: Mandarin translations of select pieces, bilingual Taipei-based news on arts and music, and a broad collection of observations from Asia. We’re grateful to Substack Local for supporting this work, and to you for joining us on this journey.

Albert: The history of quarantine, live from quarantine

One week down, one week to go. As Michelle mentioned last week, quarantine here in Taiwan is incredibly strict. I’ve now received text messages twice from the central health authorities because my phone got too close to the front door of our hotel room. (Since March 2020, the government has been using “electronic fences” to monitor people’s activities.) Michelle continues to get daily call…