The Secret Muse of the Downtown Music Scene: Turtles.

“I love her pace,” the composer Meredith Monk said recently at her TriBeCa loft. She was describing her roommate, with whom she has resided for the past 38 years.

“New York is so fast,” she added, “and everything is slow with her, so it just reminds you to slow down a little bit. I like the reminder of a more ancient time — or a timelessness.”

That cohabitant, who has served as a longtime companion to, and creative inspiration for, Ms. Monk, is a three-toed box turtle named Neutron. “She’s such a character, really,” she said. “I love being around this animal.”

Read more at the New York Times.