I’m All Lost in, #150: A new sweater; a fried mantou bun; and Court 17 at the Qualies. Plus the Week in X>Y.
I’m All Lost In …
the 3 things I’m obsessing about THIS week
#150
The Week in X > (is Greater Than) Y
Believing Art > Believing AI Valium Tom got me an amazing birthday present: A piece of art made by independent filmmaker and screenwriter Guy Maddin. Valium Tom follows Maddin’s Instagram page where the 70-something director sells his art.
This piece was an 8’’ by 11’ collage featuring Laurie Partridge under the title “Our Solar System.”
There’s a poem at the bottom of the piece:
THE ZONES OF ARCH ANGELS SURROUND THE WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEM, LIKE THE SPIRIT SPHERES SURROUND EACH AND EVERY PLANET
I thought Maddin may have grabbed these lines from some pop-culture source. Or even even found an occult outtake by W.B. Yeats. But when I searched online for the phrases, AI jumped in and said the poem was wrong. The search said gases, meteorites, and space made up the solar system, not deities.
8/23/26
The Bar at Your Hotel > The Bar in the Neighborhood Unless someone has a plan, head to the rooftop. Hotels are local businesses too. And they’re sexy.
8/26/26
Jamaica Bound AirTrain > Howard Beach AirTrain Don’t take the A Train.
If you’re staying in the Lower East Side, be sure to wait for the AirTrain to Jamaica from JFK. The other option, the AirTrain to Howard Beach, requires a transfer. Specifically, you have to switch from the A Train to the J Train at Broadway Junction. But the Jamaica AirTrain takes you straight to the J Train at the Sutphin-Archer Boulevard Station, the penultimate stop. While both routes take the same number of stops, 21, to get you from JFK to NoLita, and while the transfer down an escalator and then outside and then down another escalator and then down two levels in the subway station from the AirTrain to Jamaica Station isn’t particularly seamless, it is faster than taking two subway trains. And the panoramic intersection at Sutphin-Archer is action-packed with evening anticipation.
One other subway tip: The transfer from the 7 Train to the F coming from the U.S. Open in Queens back to Manhattan is confusing because it’s labeled 74th St, whereas on the way to Queens from Manhattan, it’s labeled Roosevelt. I missed it on the way back on Wednesday, and I had to catch the F a few stops later at Court St, a wandering and elaborate station.
This Week’s Obsessions:
1) The Sweater I Bought at Tokio7 It could have been the 1950s hard bop jazz they were playing (Oliver Nelson, the Horace Silver Quartet). But whatever the reason: The mood was right at Tokio7 at 1st Ave. & East 7th St. in the East Village Friday afternoon when I spent $180 for a vintage sweater. It was the perfect mid-century, Jet-Age fit for Saturday night’s get-together at the retro TWA Hotel’s Sunken Lounge.
This ice-cream-sprinkles, button-down, collared V-neck sweater was made by a company called FYC.
The guy at Tokio7, a high-end East Village thrift shop, told me the sweater had come in that very day. I’m sure he says that to all the fellows.
8/29/26, Boarding the AirTrain to Terminal 5 at JFK on the way to the TWA Hotel.
TWA Hotel, 8/29/26
2) Fried Mantou Bun with Condensed Milk at MáLà Project
For the starter dishes on Friday night’s birthday dinner at MáLà Project in the East Village there was eggplant with roasted garlic, scallion pancakes with sweet bean sauce, and a mung bean salad with pistachios, cucumbers, and chili oil.
For the entree there was ma po tofu with oily-hot chili sauce. And lastly there was a smorgasbord of veggie dry pots heavy on lotus root, cabbage, baby corn, broccoli, oyster mushrooms, choy sum, and bean curd. For the non-veggies there were shrimp and beef dry pots.
But I’m here to talk about the dessert they brought out: A plate of mantou buns. Typically, mantou buns aren’t fried. But they fried them on this night. It’s a common adaptation for a dessert served with condensed milk.
Here’s a fried mantou bun recipe.
3) Court 17 at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center
During my first pilgrimage to the U.S. Open in 2024 [I’m All Lost In, #47, 9/7/24], I took a break from tennis to have coffee in Bryant Park with my dear old friend Jennifer M______. It was a fateful meeting. Jennifer told me: Of course, you’re now coming back every year.
Granted this permission, I was in NYC this week to watch my third U.S. Open in a row. My favorite moment this year: Slipping out of the 23,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium, where I’d been watching World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka practice with World No. 7 Karolina Muchova on Friday morning, and then maneuvering high speed through the mobbed grounds over to Court 17, the magical mini-stadium tucked away in the southeast corner of the Billie Jean King Tennis Center. Court 17 is a 2,000-seat stadium where you can watch matches like seeing indie bands at a small club.
This week, the Tennis Podcast’s Catherine Whitaker described Court 17 [around the 28:40 mark here] as “a great, mini amphitheater.…a cauldron that often seems to create good matches…”
Qinwen Zheng on Court 17, Wednesday, 8/26/26
It was my third trip to Court 17 in as many days to watch Qinwen Zheng; First, I saw her beat Clara Bell there on Wednesday morning. And then I watched her on Thursday playing against Elena Pridankina in between rain delays.
Court 17 rain delay, Thursday, 8/27/26
Thursday, 8/27/26
Zheng was elbowing her way through the qualifying tournament, the Qualies; the 24-year-old former World No. 4 and 2024-gold-medal tennis Olympian has struggled in 2026, first with an injury, then with her game, and most of all with her mental health. By mid-summer she had plummeted to World No. 121. This unforgiving fate forced her into the qualifying rounds, where she had to win three matches to get a spot in this year’s U.S. Open. On Friday, she did just that, finishing Thursday’s rain-delayed match against World No. 183 Pridankina with an emphatic 6-0 win in the their deciding set. Final score: 6-4, 3-6, 6-0.
Zheng comes through the Qualies, Friday, 8/28/26
Victory on Court 17, Zheng and her coach, Friday, 8/28/26
On Monday, when the U.S. Open proper was underway and into its second day of action, Qinwen won her first-round match against Kristina Liutova, a 16-year-old teenage phenom who’d also made it through the qualifying rounds.
World No. 125, 16-year-old Kristina Liutova on her way to coming through the Qualies, Friday, 8/28/26
I’d actually seen Liutova win her pivotal, third Qualies match on Court 9, which is reminiscent of a high school court, where I’d rushed right after Qinwen’s Friday afternoon win on regal-by-comparison Court 17 . I knew Liutova was one to watch; after starting 2026 at World No. 712, she’d skyrocketed to World No. 125, gaining 100 points alone in early August after winning a lower-level WTA tournament in Memphis. She and Qinwen seemed to passing each other as they headed in opposite career directions. But Qinwen came from set down to win 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.
On the Tennis Podcast, Whitaker and Matt Roberts went on about the “awesome” Qinwen Zheng-vs-Katarina Liutova match for a good 7 minutes in their Day 2 recap [go to the 39:49 mark here], including this from Matt:
Dare I say, she is one of those dormant volcanoes, Zheng Qinwen. I’m not saying she’s going to erupt here and win the tournament or anything like that, but I’m saying …. her [Olympic] level, I’ve missed seeing it on the tour.
Matt had watched the match live from Court 17.
I loved this match. And I don’t know whether my take is influenced and biased by the fact that I had… some of the best media seats in tennis, those ones on Court 17 that we’re so lucky to sit in down in the front row. You’re kind of lower than the players. Those seats are a little bit sunken below the court. But I’ve never sat there and thought this match is bad. When you’re that close to the players, you just have an appreciation for how good they are in terms of their ball striking and movement and their intensity.