“Just because his parents were born in Minnesaota didn’t mean Hawai’i wasn’t his.” – Kristiana Kahakauwila, “The Road To Hāna”
It’s WNBA Opening Day! I love the WNBA—the basketball aesthetics are off the charts, tickets are incredibly affordable for incredible seats, the league once swung the Senate math—but I kinda follow it the same way I do baseball. That is, I go to at least 1-2 games a year, but don’t pay attention until the playoffs. Summer is hard for paying attention to stuff. This year, though, I’m going to watch more regular season WNBA.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
Man, what a banger of a short story collection this week. I’ve wanted to get to this for a long time—it was another I found in the sorting boxes of the used bookstore I used to work at—and how worth the wait was it! I am talking, and this column is be-cover imaged by, This Is Paradise, the 2013 collection from Kristiana Kahakauwila.
There’s a hard noir edge to these stories—murder and cockfighting and raucously over-the-top lovers driving dangerously are just the first three stories—with an added in-your-face colonialism and contrasting lushness of landscape. Those lovers, by the way, are discussing the intricacies of their relationship as Hawaii-born white man who is more Minnesotan than local and a Las Vegas-born Hawaiian woman who speaks of history in the present tense. Look, I love island literature of any kind, I love these stories rife with the tensions of how horribly people can behave in what is inarguably one of the true beautiful places of the world—I love all that stuff, and this was my first time reading a full collection from a Hawaiian writer.
(shoutout Melissa Llanes Brownlee—your book is supposed to have already arrived at my house and I’m going to shout at a post office when I finish this column)
Go read This Is Paradise by Kristiana Kahakauwila. Maybe don’t go to Hawaii—apparently is really bad for the local ecosystem, the amount of tourism we do? But enjoy a Dole Whip. Read This Is Paradise. It’s really good.
LINKS!
first a couple off-topic things—a new The Line Break Podcast featuring the wonderful Maya Williams—fundraising for a new film by Michael Swaim and Abe Epperson (formerly of Cracked) about the time Michael’s dad came out as a gay furry—this incredible Amy Barnes flash fiction in Five South—please go to local Chicago outlets for all of your Chonk turtle needs—please also go to my Twitter for Alligator snapping turtle needs—please also go to the Guy Who First Filmed The Chonk turtle’s Twitter to remind you to plant native plants in your community—oh and his YouTube is pretty good too—okay it’s Chicago Sky In Memorial time—
We begin our send-off the only way we can: with the Point Goddess, the stalwart, the steady hand of the Chicago Sky for the last decade-plus. My first WNBA game was when the Sky still had Elena Delle Donne, but what I remember most? Sloot’s complete command of the game. Here’s some kickass passing:
In any GOAT backcourt debate, you’re looking for players to complement each other—Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen if you treat Scottie as a point guard, players who match. What about players who complement each other so well they’re married? There’s a sappy sportswriter deep in my soul, and that sappy sportswriter blossomed into a full Rick Reilly after learning about Sloot and Allie “Go Ahead and Rename the Three-Point Contest Trophy After Me” Quigley. Of course, the three-point contest wins are amazing, but what about that 26-point Game 4 to win the championship? Let’s watch that:
Emma Meeseman combined with Lauri Markkannen’s All-Star turn in Utah to finally show Chicago that “players from European countries who you don’t think of as basketball powerhouses” can actually ball, contrary to what Jim Boylen might think:
Azurá Stevens can absolutely catch fire any time she wants and I will miss her lanky-armed pull-up elbow jumpers:
Gonna be honest, I kinda don’t remember seeing Julie Allemand play for the Sky. Don’t take it personally, Julie, I have done this with the entire Plumlee family’s careers as well. Here’s a sick highlight reel from the Belgian national team:
Finally—at forward, from CHICAGO—Candace Parker remains the coolest Chicago offseason acquisition of my lifetime, even beating out favorites like Dennis Rodman, Albert Belle, Jay Cutler, and DeMar DeRozan, because she is a hometown hero (Naperville counts as ‘in the city’ if you bring a championship to the city), a champion, one of the faces of a very cool era of women’s basketball, and as sad as I am to see her go (sadness demonstrated by run-on sentence), if anyone deserves to chase titles with A’ja Wilson, it’s Candace Parker. Thanks for bringing the trophy home, Candace:
Let’s gooooo WNBA! It might be a weird superteam season, but get yourself to a game if you can! Basketball never stops!
Sorry you got an email,
Chris