The Obsidian Turtle Governs the North

I used to be so shy. There were years when I counted how many words I said each day. At night I would log the number into a notebook. Sixteen. Twenty-three. Anything in the thirties was a good day.

Now I don’t stop talking. I’m always prattling away at C., announcing some bold new plan or crackpot theory or question that feels profound at the moment. If you were starving to death, would you rather eat your own finger or someone else’s? Would you still love me if you discovered I was a robot? And so on.

But it’s easy to stay quiet when I don’t speak the language. And here in Taipei, the babble around me sounds so intelligent and engaged. I like to think everyone is arguing about art or plotting revolution.

I’d forgotten about the friction of a crowded city, its insistence upon itself, how it becomes a steady presence in your thoughts, a character you live with.

Meanwhile, I’m getting decent mileage out of saying “sorry” (duì bu qǐ) and “excuse me” (bù hǎo yì si), and it feels like a distillation of my life so far, the persistent urge to walk up to strangers and apologize for myself.

A cab driver wants to practice his English. He was a professional baseball player who visited the United States in 1970 for a tournament, and he insists George Washington signed the Declaration of Independence in Minnesota. I don’t have the heart to correct him because, more than anything, I wish for an alternate timeline for my country.

I also wish I had half the confidence of the artist at the Asian Art Biennial who claimed their use of color “creates effects that transcend space and time.”

Then again, my eyes are still humming from the electric red, gold, and green at the temples, so maybe such a thing is possible.

C. often talks about the Japanese concept of ma, the interval between space and sometimes time. This feels like where I live now, half my brain stunned by Taipei while the other half is still struggling to calculate the time back home where things seem to be unraveling quickly.

In the morning, I wake from complicated dreams about losing and forgetting things. Last night I raced barefoot through the galleries of a prestigious museum, desperate to find my shoes. Before that, I was hunting for the perfect record to play at a crucial moment, but the names of the songs kept changing and the crowd was waiting and I knew the record should be right there. This morning, I woke up trying to remember the name of an artist who creates beautifully frightening sculptures crafted from the innards of artificial intelligence. It wasn’t until I was brushing my teeth that I realized this artist might not exist yet.

More and more, I believe the function of art is to create a situation where language falls apart.

Somewhere between the bells of a temple and the heat of a night market, I learned that the obsidian turtle governs the north, an ancient belief that lodged itself in my brain for several days until it became a mantra, a whispered phrase like the password to a clandestine intelligence network.

Tonight's installment is bookended by two tracks from an all-time favorite album that’s been keeping me company on this trip: Atom Heart & Tetsu Inoue's Flowerhead, a drowsy low-end opus that comforted me thirty years ago and still delights me today. Along the way, there are some newer songs drenched in fuzz and streaked with Taiwanese ballads from the mid-twentieth century before winding down with a chant I recorded at Songshan Ciyou Temple. This mixtape is tailored for headphones, ideally while walking down a rainy street filled with people carrying clear plastic umbrellas.

Datacide - Flowerhead
Flowerhead | Rather Interesting, 1995 | Bandcamp
Civilistjävel! - XVI
Följd | Felt, 2025 | Bandcamp
Matchess - Of the Living
Sacracorpa | Trouble in Mind, 2018 | Bandcamp
Leyland Kirby - They Are All Dead, There Are No Skip At All
Eager to Tear Apart the Stars | History Always Favours the Winners, 2011 | Bandcamp
Datacide - Deep Chair
Flowerhead | Rather Interesting, 1995 | Bandcamp

Interspersed with sections from:

美黛 (Mei Tai) - Unforgettable Memories
Taiwan | Union Records, 1965 | More
Zhen Hui-Ling - Ice Point
Taiwan, 1960s
姚蘇蓉 (Yao Su-jung) - 負心的人
Taiwan, 1967 | More
Unknown - Lighthouse in the Night Fog
Taiwan, 1960s
紀露霞 (Chi Lu-hsia) - 黃昏嶺 (Sunset Ridge)
Taiwan, 1957 | More
胡美紅 (Hu Mei-Hong) - Autumn Wind, Night Rain / Three Sighs
Taiwan | ATS, 1967 | More
Recording from Songshan Ciyou Temple
March 13, 2025 | More

The next episode will bring some of these songs into sharper focus, especially Yao Su-jung, who covered Nancy Sinatra and was known as "the Queen of Tears." Listen below, or scrape this transpacific mp3 off the pavement of the information superhighway.

Thank you for reading. And listening. The request lines are open.