The Quarantine Tapes

“Poetry was, and remains, the closest thing to prayer that I know.”

“People have always come together with music.”

Change is a constant that we can’t escape, and part of this change is the changing of our bodies and our lives. When we sit in contemplation of that, I really think, in my experience with my patients, it gives you a new inspiration and outlook on the moments you do have, whether you’re sick or not.

“We’re seeing a lot of this ugly nationalism, populism, and I think without genuine connection with people, a lot of these messages are taking root and the audience is growing. I want to be optimistic, but I think there is bigger political, social, economic unrest coming.”

“There is another kind of refusal, and that is the refusal of silence. I think one of the most disappointing things to me is how many of our professions and disciplines have been silenced--dangerously silenced in the context of all that is happening in the U.S.--worried that speaking out will politicize the discipline and profession. Well, silence is its own politics as well.”

“There are people from different backgrounds inside of publishing, critical apparatus, and bookstores. There are conversations where we are included, but how strongly our voices are considered, and whether or not we have the power to leverage change from the seats at the table we have earned and been given--I think that there’s a lot of work there.”

“We have to tell the truth about the stories that we tell ourselves to protect us, to protect our innocence, our so-called innocence. We have to, in some ways, grab the country by the collar and pull it into maturity. That’s going to require an honest reckoning with what we’ve done.”

“[A] pandemic tends to reveal the truth. I think the truth is so enormous that we can’t handle [it]. We’ve ran out of words, we ran out of ways to see. What is in between reality and us are our old notions, our worn-out words, and our worn-out images.”

“I would say that, in terms of the work of an architect, there are those projects which affect our daily life in a profound way. The workspace, how we live, the public realm. But also, as architects, we are called to rise to a much more profound, and demanding, symbolic level. That occurs when we design a place of worship, a memorial, a significant museum devoted to a significant subject. That is when architects go from “routine” music to “profound” music, if I’m to make a composer’s analogy.”

“What is going to become of public space? These places are so important. [I’ve been] thinking about the ways in which we acknowledge each other, the way we interact with each other, the way we see ourselves in a shared vision, shared responsibility, the ways in which we are connected and see ourselves in civic unison with each other.”