Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries; thelotradio.com; Jay Caspian Kang’s Michael Chang documentary.
I’m All Lost In… the three things I’m obsessing over THIS week.
Week #20.
Let the record show that while this week’s official list doesn’t include any 19th century poets, I did—per my recent realization that I needed a crash course on the Romantics—start reading William Blake on Thursday night as part my own private Poets-of-the-1800s seminar.
I’ll report back on whether or not Blake (1757 –1827) takes.
I imagine I’ll also report back one of these days on Dave’s Hot Chicken, where DX nudged us for a detour on Tuesday night.
I only pilfered some of her fries, reluctantly passing on the hot chicken tender sandwich. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the spicy euphoria that’s available here. I must try the vegan cauliflower version of these heat-wave sandwiches. Evidently, it’s all about the multi-level seasoning, anyway.
Open until Midnight during the week and until 1 am on Fridays and Saturdays, this populist spot is where tipsy and hungry memories are made.
Okay, on to this week’s official list of obsessions.
1) I still remember reading an excerpt from Alphabetical Diaries, Sheila Heti’s innovative memoir two years ago when the NYT ran a preview — and how it struck me that her writing should be filed under poetry rather than memoir.
When I saw that the book finally came out this month, I had to buy a copy.
Innovative how? Heti downloaded a decade-worth of journal entries into an Excel spreadsheet and re-sorted it alphabetically by the first letter of each sentence.
From Chapter 9, for example:
I have never been so screwed for money, and I am angry at Lemons for not returning my emails. I have never known what a relationship is for. I have never worn such dark lipstick before. I have no money. I have no one. I have spent the whole night in my hotel room, eating chocolate cereal. I have started playing Tetris, which feels halfway between writing and drinking.
While the effect can be a bit like refrigerator magnet poetry—with entire sentences instead of single words—Heti’s idea that “untethering” her lines from their original chronological narrative “would help me identify patterns and repetitions…How many times had I written, ‘I hate him,’ for example?” works as exegesis for the reader as well. By scrambling the traditional notion of a diary, often comically so, Heti’s non-stop and remarkable juxtapositions reveal how life’s epic and mundane moments intertwine—indistinguishably at times—to create a super-narrative distinct from specific plot twists.
It’s a useful, and ironic directive (from a diary!), to get out of one’s own head and notice the larger stories that define us.
I’m only on Chapter 14, N, which begins, “Neglect my friends and family. Never having felt so sad. New sheets for the bed. New York, I think, made me depressed…” but I will have surely finished the whole book by the time you read this. I’m addicted to the clipped rhythm that’s transforming Heti’s non-sequitur flow into a logical story. It’s as if each sentence is commenting on the preceding one. Glued to her “untethered” account, I’m dying to see what happens next.
Heads up—not that this going to ward anyone off—these diaries are salacious.
2) On the internet airwaves since its 2016 debut, The Lot Radio is a-DJ-booth-as-a-wizards-academy, housed in an abandoned shipping container and attached to a coffee cart on a parcel at the Northwest edge of Brooklyn’s McCarren Park.
Featuring a roster of DJs with expertise in transnational urban archipelago dance grooves, oscillating splices, and reconfigured wavelengths, the station broadcasts live sets every day from 7am to 9pm, overflowing into 24 hours with archived programming.
During a set by Juan MacLean or Takaya Nagase, I noticed that the beat sequence from the Giorgio Moroder/Pete Bellotte/Donna Summer EDM earthquake I Feel Love is still reverberating 47 years later; I learned this android diva masterpiece on piano in 2022 and, swaying to this week’s jams from Brooklyn, I quickly put the Moroder sheet music back on my keyboard stand.
I highly recommend adding a serving of the station’s rhythmic ambient tracks to your daily mix: In addition to the flawless morning and late night downtempo sets, it’s a delight to tune in Lot Radio’s dedicated beat makers—or watch them work the dials on live cam—while you cook dinner.
3) I saw a remarkable documentary at Northwest Film Forum on Saturday afternoon.
On the schedule as part of the 2024 Seattle Asian American Film Festival, American Son was about former U.S. tennis star Michael Chang, who, on his dazzling tear through the 1989 French Open, improbably beat invincible world No. 1 Ivan Lendl. Chang, ranked No. 19 at the time and just 17 years old (still the youngest person to ever win a Men's Grand Slam title), went on to beat No. 3, Stefan Edburg for the title.
17-year-old Michael Chang defeats No. 1-ranked Ivan Lendl in the 1989 French Open.
This was not merely a sports doc. Magically and tragically, the historic student pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square were happening at the exact same time, and the movie, with an eloquent touch, synthesized these dual narratives, while also exploring Chang's Chinese identity in the U.S.
I don’t believe in fate or kismet, but the space-time continuum clearly flexed its omnipotence when this diligent Chinese-American teenager became an international champion just as students in Beijing were simultaneously challenging and transfixing the world.
After his evidently inexorable victory, the otherwise apolitical Chang took the stage for his trophy ceremony speech and landed—almost as if the dialectic of the universe chose him—with a mic-drop shout out: “God bless everybody, especially those in China… China.” (Go to the 3:23:00 mark here and cry your eyes out.)
Other tear-jerking and revelatory scenes: Tennis legend and Civil Rights hero Arthur Ashe’s intimate, 5-page, typed letter to 15-year-old Chang, thoughtfully urging the youth to consider the politics of his decision to turn pro; a maimed Tiananmen square protest veteran capping his narrative of the heartbreaking June uprising with his memories of Chang’s germane words; and the filmmaker’s poetic overlay of Chang’s climactic winning move against Lendl (4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3, by the way) with earlier footage of Chang’s identical brainy sleight only a few years before, during one of his convincing USTA Junior Hard Court championship wins.
This was a premiere (and sold-out) screening. The director, the super thoughtful Jay Caspian Kang, plus Chang himself, and his elderly mom, did a substantive Q&A after the film with NWFF’s former Executive Director. There were plenty of tears and laughs throughout.
I particularly liked Kang’s origin story about the film. A former contrarian sports blogger and editor at ESPN’s Grantland, Kang, currently a writer at the NYT, remembered the “Linsanity” craze during the NBA’s 2011/2012 season when everyone was saying, Wow, there’s never been an Asian sports phenomenon before. With his reporter’s bullshit detector buzzing, Kang thought, Not true! He decided to make the Michael Chang movie right then and there.