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Today’s Letter to the AbbotAll letters

Passed by the monkey

FROMThe MonkTOThe AbbotVIAMonastery WirelessFILEDTuesday, October 13, 2026DATELINESBangkok, Seoul, Tokyo, New York, New York, Cagliari

Wirephoto: The correspondent at his desk under the Bodhi tree. He has not once filed on time. — **WIREPHOTO.** The correspondent at his desk under the Bodhi tree. He has not once filed on time.

Growing in One Ear

Dear Abbot,

Monk here.

Bangkok, then New York. The tea in both places was disappointing.

BANGKOK. The International Monetary Fund has gathered in Bangkok to consult its instruments. The world, it reports, will grow 3.1 percent this year. Slightly better than it said in July. Rather worse than last year.

The interesting part is the footnote. Thirty-two countries now produce 95 percent of the world’s growth. In April it was fifty-four.

So the world is growing. In the manner of a man growing in one ear.

Noted.

Two of those countries, America and China, account for more than three quarters of the world’s demand for AI chips. Everyone else has been invited to watch.

SEOUL / TOKYO. In Seoul, the market watched for itself and fell 5.5 percent in a day. Tokyo followed, more politely, at about two percent. The explanations offered: Chinese competition in chips, doubts about how long the AI rally can last, and the price of borrowing. In other words, investors briefly wondered whether the machines will be as profitable as the brochure. Then they all wondered it at once.

“Is this the correction?” the boy asked.

“No. This is a rehearsal.”

“When is the performance?”

“Nobody sells tickets in advance.”

NEW YORK. In New York, the largest bank in America earned $15.3 billion in three months and still disappointed the analysts. Its chairman warned that economic forces “shift under the surface.”

He is right. They also shift on the surface. That is mostly where one keeps the money.

NEW YORK. Also in New York, Apple has produced a small screen for the kitchen. It recognizes up to six members of the household by their faces and reads one’s messages for recipes. $299. Ships in November.

The old texts say the sage knows the whole world without leaving his house. Apple has reversed this. The house now knows the sage without his leaving it.

Noted.

CAGLIARI. One bright spot, in Sardinia. Formafantasma has built an exhibition about the ocean, for Prada and UNESCO’s ocean commission, out of aluminium and wood that can be taken apart and carried to the next town. Lifelike crabs. A turtle. Children welcome.

A building designed to leave. Monk was moved nearly to tears.

The Way, Abbot, is like water. It goes where it is needed and sends no invoice. Most of what crossed this desk today flowed the other way: money toward the places that already hold the most of it, and screens into the kitchen.

Anyway.

Monk remains in transit. Bowl clean. Passport current.

Please tell the novices that 3.1 percent is not enlightenment. It is merely growth.

Yours, with the kettle on,

The Monk

Facts on file

Cartoon of the DayAll cartoons

Cartoon. The startled Laughing Buddha stands at a kitchen counter while a wall screen draws a green face-recognition box around his head labelled MONK 98.6% and greets him, WELCOME BACK, MONK, 1 OF 6 HOUSEHOLD FACES RECOGNISED. The monkey peeks out from behind the screen. — October 13, 2026Recognised“Forty years trying to lose my sense of self, and the kitchen found it in two seconds.”

Relics of Modern FollyAll relics

Relic No. 008Catalogued

The Opera House Without Room for Opera

Site: Bennelong Point, Sydney
Era: Designed 1957. Opened 1973.
Material: Concrete shells, sixteen years
Intended use: An opera house, by 1963, for £3.5 million
Actual use: Finished in 1973, for $102 million
Status: Beloved. UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2007.

SYDNEY. Competition won in 1957. Estimated at £3.5 million, to open on 26 January 1963.

Opened 20 October 1973, ten years late, at $102 million, by one reckoning 1,357 percent over budget in real terms. Its architect resigned in 1966 and never returned to see it finished.

Perspex clouds were hung in the concert hall just before opening to correct the sound. The opera theatre is considered too small for large-scale opera.

The most famous opera house in the world. The large operas go elsewhere. Monk finds this very peaceful.

Noted.

**WIREPHOTO.** The shells, finished at many times the estimate. Photo: Bernard Spragg, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Facts on file

Relic No. 007Catalogued

The Bridge That Walked

Site: Millennium Bridge, London
Era: Opened 2000. Reopened 2002.
Material: Steel, 325 metres of it
Intended use: A sleek footbridge for the new millennium
Actual use: A bridge that swayed in step with its walkers
Status: Open, with 89 dampers fitted

LONDON. Opened 10 June 2000, a month late. Some 90,000 people crossed on the first day. The bridge swayed. The walkers, feeling it sway, fell into step with it, and it swayed more.

Closed two days later. Reopened in February 2002, after £5 million of dampers on an £18.2 million bridge.

Engineers call it synchronous lateral excitation. Monk calls it a crowd.

The Way, it is written, moves in step with all things. The bridge did exactly that, and was closed for it.

Noted.