I’m All Lost In, #89: Yiddish Techno in Wallingford; Mary Tyler Moore in 1980; “Eastern” dyads in the Key of C.

I’m All Lost In …

the 3 things I’m obsessing about THIS week.

#89

1) Yiddish Techno

Manhattan-based Yiddish revivalist Chaia, an ambient musician (and low-key EDM aspirant) who infuses her hypnotic beats, loops, and chanteuse-like prayers with the plaintive sounds of the shtetl, brought her “Kleztronic Yiddish Techno” to the Good Shepherd Center’s experimental Wayward Music Series on Thursday night. Thanks to XDX for the find. And as if this wasn’t already the perfect night of Josh Feit catnip, there was a pro-transit pop tune included in the evening’s mix as well.

Curated as a night that “re-imagines the Yiddish song tradition,” Chaia’s program also featured an improvisational closing set from legendary local avant-garde cellist, Lori Goldston, and an earnest opening set by Seattle-based Levoneh, a gentle folk pop group—bright electric guitar, stand-up bass, trumpet, clarinet, piano, and sad harmonies. They kind of reminded me of my own yearning, Galaxie 500-as-chamber-group rock band from my lost mid 20s, the Diary of Anne Frank String Quartet (true.)

Chaia started things off by giving a captivating talk on Eastern Europe’s pre-Holocaust Jewish ghetto culture with its Yiddish vernacular of dance, dress, humor, argot, and resistance. This brief history lesson concluded with her near-poetic manifesto about how she wanted to honor her ancestors’ diaspora folklore by remixing it, “scattering it and then walking forward into it.” As she said this, I imagined Chaia tossing rice and confetti into the air at a Polish Jewish wedding and then ambling into the gentle diaspora of debris as it rained down upon her.

Her showstopping set itself flowed from the melancholy Klezmer accordion melodies she played live over pre-programmed electronic signals before ascending into her layered sound design of haftara crooning, psilocybin sine waves, samples of mourning bubbes, and four-on-the-floor dance club rhythms, all as she conducted from the mixing board.

I could have done without Levoneh’s requisite “stolen land” number (political lecture), but their “Free Bus Fare” Robert Zimmerman as Woody Guthrie-style rambler was a delight. As was their closing love song to the moon. And Goldston’s buzzing, free-form performance, particularly when she started rough housing the cello as if she were Parliament-Funkadelic bassist Bootsy Collins circa 1975, was yet another one of her at-ease, improvised masterpieces.

Chaia, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, 6/26/25

Lori Goldston, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, 6/26/25

Levoneh, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, 2/26/25

Chaia, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, 6/26/25

Since we were at Wallingford’s Good Shepherd Center—the hippie nonprofit haven is tucked away on a leafy neighborhood side street off the main drag—XDX and I had dinner before the show at Pam’s Kitchen, Seattle’s longtime Trinidadian comfort food spot. Apparently, Thursday night is karaoke night at Pam’s. So in addition to the sweet and thick pumpkin purée, stewed potatoes, coconut fry bread, and basketful of soft beach blanket-sized roti, we were treated to a goofy hit parade of live performances (John Sebastian’s Welcome Back Kotter theme song and Grace Slick’s “White Rabbit” included) as the dedicated regulars cued up at the mic.

2) Ordinary People

When Valium Tom walked into the apartment, he found me with my headphones on, tearing up on the couch. I was watching the 1981 Best Picture Academy Award winner, Ordinary People (1980). I did not see this movie in junior high school when it first came out, but I was well aware of it back then: Mary Tyler Moore in a serious role.

Tom was on hand because he was guest starring in the 5th episode of a podcast I do with ECB, a monthly show dedicated exclusively to our favorite movie, Shattered Glass. Tom was with ECB and me back in 2003 when we first saw Shattered Glass in the theater. And this was enough of a hook to have him on the show so we could tap his brain power as a means of getting another episode recorded.

Tom warned us in advance that he had an “Ordinary People theory” about Shattered Glass, so, I was prepping with some research. Excellent. Not only can Tom and I go on about Hollywood’s arty, gritty, 1970s heyday—of which Ordinary People fits dramatically into the fleeting last moments alongside Kramer vs. Kramer and 9 to 5. But Billy Ray, the Shattered Glass writer-director that ECB and I interviewed for last month’s installment, cited Ordinary People as one of his favorite movies.

Valium Tom’s theory had to do with the wealthy Chicago suburb Highland Park where Shattered Glass’ tortured main character Stephen Glass hails from and where Ordinary People (or perhaps, Ordinary White People) takes place. All good. But damn if the only thing I could think about for the next several days was Ordinary People.

Oh so many feelings about this late 1970s gloom, which is based on the reportedly grim 1976 Judith Guest novel.

Sure, MTM’s lead character leans hard into sexist tropes about icy, brittle women as the root of all psychological trauma in the world. But the super villain Moore created with her poisonous cadence and scary monologues is so powerful—sorry, Mom—we’ve got a universal tragic character study here of Shakespearean proportions. Also. Timothy Hutton. At 20. Wow. Best Supporting Actor Oscar. 100% deserved.

I think mostly it’s the dizzying layers of personal nostalgia that had me riveted (and teary on the couch). First, there was remembering the stir that this candid movie created 45 years ago in my suburban school hallways. On top of that, there was watching 45-years-ago high school hallways depicted in a 45-year-old film itself. Experiencing an after-the-fact meta narrative like this left me stumbling through my own hall of mirrors.

Oh, and a bizarre footnote: The IRL actor who played Buck, the Timothy Hutton character’s dead brother, was actually my roommate for a few minutes in 1990 during what seems to be a theme in this post—my lost mid-20s. Scot and I weren’t friends; just random co-losers in a crummy apartment we shared with another stranger in freezing cold Minneapolis. I’ll never forget the time Scot barged into my room one night at 3 am to yell at me in a drunken rage.

That coincidental drama is secondary, even tertiary, to the matter at hand: I’m a total sap and sucker for dreary melodramas when they were filmed in this fraught era of brittle America on the cusp of Reagan.

The specter of Reaganism, i.e., a total disengagement from reality, is something worth noting here. Ordinary People stands apart from the sweaty epoch of minimalist, character-driven 1970s filmmaking in that it’s a wholly apolitical movie. MIA in this hermetically sealed white suburb are both: A) any coincidental, adjacent, or background references to the politics of the day, like say sullen Jimmy Carter appearing on a TV screen or on the cover of Time as he does in 1980’s the Shining) or B) any explicit political narratives or extended allegory to the social issues of the day. Even a horror movie like 1973’s The Exorcist was grappling with the tumultuous times. (See “That Thing Upstairs Isn’t My Daughter,” Ch. 10 of Rick Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan.)

Ordinary People director Robert Redford was clearly aware of 1980’s sudden jump cut away from the daily hyper politics of the 1970s. There’s a telling flashback in his movie when we see Mary Tyler Moore presumably just a few years earlier as a slightly younger mom. In this sepia-toned shot, she’s shown with groovy long hair and a hippie frock. In the rest of the movie, MTM is cast with a stiff short coiffe and prim 1980s blouses, a uniform that’s metaphor for how tightly wound she is.

Redford saw it: Even as early as 1980, the mid 1970s already stood as a stark and meaningful contrast to the looming absentee Reagan era.

Mary Tyler Moore in 1980’s Ordinary People. Yikes.

3) Learning Pictures of Matchstick Men on Piano

The Status Quo on 1968’s Top of the Pops. Far Out.

Just like two weeks ago when my renewed running regime prompted an obsession with my sparkling bathtub [I’m All Lost In, #87], this week, my return to running has me voraciously printing out sheet music so I can learn new songs on piano.

The connection is straightforward: I go jogging to a playlist of my favorite classic rock, new wave, and punk songs from junior high, high school, and college. A lot of these songs are perfect for learning on piano. Accordingly, when the Status Quo’s 1968 psych pop-rock sludge groove ”Pictures of Matchstick Men” came on while I was running this week, I quickly bookmarked it as a song to figure out. Now I’m obsessed.

You’d think a garage rock ditty like this—in the all-white Key of C, no less—would be a bore when it comes to breaking it down for piano. Not a chance. As I messaged my music savant friend Eliza (and my boss at the transit agency): Learning a cool ‘60s psych garage rock song on piano, btw. Despite that it's in C, there are some weird dyads in there. The kids were into “Eastern” music at this point.