“I wondered if I was the one who had taken a funny turn. One can take a turn for the worse or the better. But taking a “funny turn” is ambiguous and enigmatic. I wondered what the original Italian phrasing was for this.”

“His compositions reinvented classical music, perhaps because he no longer could hear what others were creating.”

“Eno, who is credited with coining the term “ambient music,” suggested that it should, paradoxically, be inconspicuous and stimulating at the same time.”

On how writing can help to heal, or at least cope.

“We are, after all, witnessing everyone and everything at its most heightened. Each story is imbued with a distinct pathos, be it betrayal, hatred, jubilation, confusion, acceptance, or mercy.”

It is as if by submerging yourself in a horror story, you will be unmade, but you can also re-emerge, different than before, if you choose. The overused adage is true: we imagine horrors in order to cope with real ones.

Bonnie Chau reflects on being Asian-American, the ideas and motivations of representation and visibility, the Amanda Gorman translation debate, and translating out of whiteness.

“The universe has been listening to my conversations, threading everything together. It began last April, when I picked up ​Swann’s Way ​for the third time in ten years.”