27. Touring the Cloud Bazaar (Part 2)
A voice rings: Step right up!
You swivel around to see a kid wearing a propeller beanie spinning furiously, scattering leftover droplets around him in a glimmering halo.
[ Glance up at the sheep-cloud, still afloat, poking the machine’s chimneys ] —
The kid tosses you an umbrella with a wink. “Here, take this,” he says. “But you won’t need it for long.”
Sure enough, the sheep bobs and slurps back into nothingness. Onlookers murmur, drift away in search of the next spectacle.
You notice a stall crammed on all sides by mismatched awnings. At first it seems unremarkable, but then this block-lettering:
CLOUD EXCHANGE / STORAGE
What’s this? Wooden cards on velvet pillows. Etchings of overlapping swirls.
Only . . . the clouds on the cards are moving. In one, an animated thunderhead flickers with far-off lightning. Another reveals a shroud of fog creeping over landscapes of barren trees. The stall owner, a young woman wearing goggles as if permanently planted on forehead, slides a deck toward you.
“Pick a cloud, any cloud,” she sings monotone. “Or trade your own if you got ’em.”
The susurrant pattern on one of the surfaces beckons. You flip it over to find instructions scrawled in a neat script —
~ Personal Cloud Brew 6 ~
Steep this card in a mug of hot water and peppermint until rainfall forms.
Inhale.
Dip your head into the cloud to enter your own private screening room.
You picture leaning head-first into a luminous cotton-candy ball — seeing glimpses of starfields, or yesterday’s sky above Casablanca: the hush of climates impossible.
Suddenly, a vapor twirls out from the wood.
Its pulsing sphere forms just above your fingertips. Could it be coaxed larger — made into a jukebox for one, or teleportation device, as the rumor goes? The stall boss watches, probably reading your mind, her goggles reflecting the silver sky.
Before you can test it, the propeller-beanie kid shouts again from behind.
“Hey newbie!” His grin all sparkles. “You gotta see the ladder someone built to touch the highest ones. Come on!”
He darts off into the throng, leaving you caught between songs. Somewhere not far away, the brass cloudmaker chugs back to life.
// Side B //
Thank you for tuning in <3 . . . you heard some solo piano straddling New Year’s crossing ~
Two variants of sneaky blues:
0:00 — basement-and-attic, 2-feel groove from 2024 Dec 23, to score the propeller-beanie kid.
0:36 — four-on-the-floor “nasty” swing / minimal stride from 2025 Jan 9, for the cloud-exchange stall.
Floating melodic cross-rhythms, 2025 Jan 10, scoring Personal Cloud Brew 6.
The photo: fireworks we launched into the sky above Berlin — mayhem on the streets, between moments of taking shelter — right after counting down to the future.
My Grandma Turns 100
I can’t understand the passage of time.
One scenario repeats: I encounter some poetry exploring its twisting paradoxes, lull myself into thinking the scenario sorted, then realize the essence of time is as impenetrable as ever.
But it seems to all make sense for Grandma.
These first weeks of 2025 I’ve spent in the company of her intrepid badassery, her four cheeky sons (my uncles), and their families — in my home country of Taiwan. After her birthday the lunar calendar slunk into the Year of the Snake, sparking round two of celebrations anew: banquets, firecrackers, red envelopes, whiskey and wine, portable karaoke machines1.
I tell friends I’m visiting this wonderful person who hails from the 1920s — she, who took turns (with my wet nurse) raising me when I was a baby — when she was already in her late-sixties.
They all ask the same thing: what’s her secret?
Mirthful and voluble as ever, she’s eager to tell you herself:
Fill your heart with love,
gratitude,
courage,
and patience.
I took notes as we chatted. Usually sitting, sometimes strolling. Mostly she talked and I nodded, eyes wide.
A lifelong educator and choreographer, she spoke spiritedly about her approaches to life, decision-making, art, commerce, teaching, and so on . . . and I realized how much I owe to her. All I try to do is paths she already trailblazed:
• Teach by encouragement, not punishment.
• Find your own road.
• Help others on theirs.
• Make things with meaning.
• Open up endlessly and forevermore.
As years accumulate, my conviction in these ideas grows: living any other way is not only absurd but wasteful.
I assumed I’d landed on them independently. But now I see they’re her legacy, appended with however I can extend it — and all our collective stories, in turn, embedded within the universal compendium.
In 2022, my grandma published two books.
One’s a memoir starting with family history. Daughter of two Hakka parents (a tribe indigenous to Taiwan), alongside fifteen siblings — !
The other’s her life work in dance creation and education: how she interwove folk music with threads of Taiwanese history embedded into her pieces. She continued to champion art embodying tradition + folktales even into the decades when it fell out of fashion, competing with pop troupes, winning handily anyway.
In 2025 I’m translating these volumes to English. I’d love your help, so if any readers have interest and can read traditional Chinese — kindly send a message!
🧧
Home is a story unfolding
I’ve been re-connecting to Taiwan — actually, connecting for the first time.
Growing up here intermittently (when I was 0-4, 9-11, then 15 years-old), childhood was always mediated through relationships with grown-ups, so I never discovered this island for myself.
But two years ago a seedling planted.
Kicked off by forming a Taiwan Band2.
How it started: Chien Chien Lu the Magnifique was not only down to play an album release show together, she also hipped me to local musicians keen on organizing a tour to put out Travel Poems . Chapter 2 . The night sea.
Shows on opposite ends of the island. Dovetailed with bamboo forests, tea plantations, forests and beaches, windy peaks, gorges otherworldly. Food varieties unlimited.
But this time, coming around expressly to see Grandma, it’s just Taiwan & me.
No gig dates, rehearsal planning, or sightseeing FOMOs. The focus is being home: my 1st time with intention. Revisiting intriguing places. Hiking fave trails. Sneaking into university practice rooms (highly recommended any city in the world).
In two weeks it’s transformed right before my eyes: from a bit sad3 to dear and lovely.
Before we get to the exclusive section, I want to thank you all for being here. Your presence means more than you know.
🍫
Secrets of Rhythm Piano (That You Can Hear)
I keep banging on about the piano being a drum — more precisely, a set of 88 drums — for reasons that keep expanding.
This issue’s music clip takes us through the entire process of discovering yet another new angle on the drumlike essence of the piano, of which there are infinite:
source material (transcription) →
transposition (not always needed) →
finding the seed →
exploring other rhythmic voices to play in parallel →
familiarization with mechanics →
following the ear to layer melody and harmony → (loop back to #4)
Steps 4 – 6 are often cycled, as they are in this 8-minute workshop: