30 Under 30 Forever

Most of you probably don’t read “Air Mail,” Graydon Carter’s foray into newsletter publishing, so you wouldn’t know its editors put together a list of ambitious young people called “The Downtown 50,” showcasing some of New York’s new breed of artists, writers, film people, designers, and gallerists they claim are destined to keep the city’s vaunted and despised legacy of cultural elitism alive. Like many of these lists found in other publications I pretend to read and enjoy, I scan it briefly and cynically wonder who this list is for, exactly. Then I smile wanly and attempt to dislodge that familiar feeling of having missed out on what appears to be a blinding creative renaissance in New York seven years after I’ve moved away.

It’s also approaching two decades since I would have been young enough to be considered for inclusion. I’m over that now—I have no need nor desire to participate in what appears to be a vacuous and confusing time for youth. And true story: the day I read this issue of Air Mail, I also received an email from my doctor’s office that my Cologuard results had arrived and that my sample had provided them with “great news!” about the health of my colon. Although this is, without a doubt, GREAT news, I’m sure I’d be more elated had Graydon Carter emailed to tell me that I’d been chosen as a Cool Person Ambassador for New York City, and I am once again reminded of my longstanding and annoying need for external validation. 

My growing-up years were not all that troubled or harrowing, but I got bullied a bit in junior high and felt excluded in high school–or, more accurately, I felt Not Very Popular. I had many friends, though. Girlfriends. A car to drive and places to go, so there wasn’t much to complain about. And college—well, college wasn’t an edifying period of self-actualization for me. After I graduated, I was bitter and confused, no closer to figuring out where I belonged or what I wanted to belong to. 

But in my early 20s, I spent an October weekend visiting a friend in the East Village, and I became obsessed with the idea of not only working there but wildly succeeding there. I moved onto my friend’s couch very quickly after that initial visit and began listlessly toiling away at financial trade publications while I awaited my big break—maybe an alt-weekly would publish an essay or a literary magazine in Ohio would buy a short story. Nothing popped. And three years into my New York writing life, I attended a birthday party for the friend of a friend who was once a columnist for an edgy-sounding online startup magazine but was now a straight-laced reporter for some other, less exciting publication, and I had this dispiriting social interaction.

WOMAN I JUST MET: “So, who do you work for?”

ME: “It’s called The Bond Buyer.”

WOMAN I JUST MET: “Oh, so you’re one of the only people here who isn’t a writer. Lucky for you.”

I wanted to correct her and push back with a snide and cutting response, but what could I say?

“No, I’m an editor—the MANAGING editor for one of the most successful municipal bond quarterlies called Health Care Finance magazine, which keeps a sharp eye on the tumultuous not-for-profit hospital industry.” 

She was a snob, but she was right. Technically I was typing words that would get printed onto a page that people would read, but I was not exactly honing my craft. Throughout my first few years in New York, my successes were so minimal (and not profitable) that it seemed foolish to stay. I could write boring market recaps on municipal bonds in plenty of other bustling cities without going into debt. 

I stuck it out, though. And I eventually achieved enough success at Gawker Media to be chronically annoyed by Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30” list simply because it existed. I was already close to 36 by the time that list had become a thing, and I held pulsating hateful resentments toward the annual batch of precocious nitwits Forbes—I mean, come on, Forbes!—had anointed as world-changers. I thought the whole concept was crass—just another gimmick by a struggling magazine to generate some easy ad dollars. It’s a reward for being 29, for Christ’s sake. No talent is required!

But there was more to it than that—my problem was not with the people selected but with the opportunity it provided them. The kids on that list were about to officially become sought after, which is all I really wanted to be my whole life. What a thrill it would be for me to be sought after by some editor or agency, one that saw the light or a promise in me that they wanted to be a part of. I wanted someone else to see it because I could not. To be sought after by someone was a chance to live forever or for me to want to live forever. At the very least, it would give me a temporary sense of what it’s like to be valued. 

*****

I’m happy to report again that I’m over all that. Reading about the “Downtown 50” didn’t shake loose a sense of regret that I had unfinished business in New York City. I can’t tell you how relieved I am that I don’t want to paratroop into Dimes Square tomorrow morning and become the 51st member of the Downtown Squadron. That would disrupt so many lives; that would be unstable. 

But I should also let you know that I purchased the “Best American Essays” compilation for 2022 a couple of weeks ago, mostly because I like to scan the table of contents in the hopes that an essay from The Small Bow would be included, but I never submitted any of our work. Also, I’d probably hear from an editor or from someone that we’d been selected, but maybe not. In 2020, Katie MacBride’s “But the Drugs Keep Me Sober” was listed as a notable essay of 2019 in the back of the book. Neither one of us submitted it, so it was a complete surprise. Seeing her name next to “The Small Bow” in that index provided some sense of that personal value I’m always searching for. Healthy or not, that’s the truth.  

I should also let you know that I’m not a very good reader. I buy many books, open up most of them, and dive into one or two of those books weekly, but I rarely finish something in a reasonable amount of time. I’ve managed to rip through a book in under a month, but it’s usually one I’ve already read. I’m in the middle of an easy one right now—the novel version of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” I’m enjoying it, but it may also be because it requires only a junior-high reading level. Plus, I’ve already seen the movie. 

But I want to become a better reader, so instead of skimming the contents of “BAE ’22”, I vowed actually to read it. The first couple of essays didn’t do it for me, but I came across one called “Baby Yeah” by Anthony Veasna So. It began like this: 

“The semester prior to his suicide, my friend and I spent afternoons lounging around on a defective, footless sofa I had borrowed with any intention of returning.” 

After the first sentence, I knew immediately that I was into it. And line after line, I was moved someplace deeper and weirder and surprised by the dexterity and depth of his sentences. Honestly, I was almost moved to tears at several parts, not just because of what he was saying but how he was writing it. Here’s one: 

“Months later, during what would become his last weeks of living, my friend was crashing on my floor every few nights, a twenty-dollar yoga mat the sole cushion beneath his body. Maybe if we had admitted to the precarious balance of his mental and physical state, I would’ve told him to crawl onto my bed. We could’ve lain head to toe, under my sheets, like kids at a sleepover. 

But he never wanted to burden anyone with the slightest of inconveniences, so we pretended that his racing thoughts were all right, however false that sentiment rang. Neither of us owned up to the truth, that my friend chose to sit on my floor, and the floors and sofas of other classmates, too often for him to feel well rested or even OK. He hanged himself the day he retreated to his own apartment. 

In one of our last conversations, I told him that I thought music was the least cool of the arts. We were making chana masala and fried chicken crusted with almond flour. I need him to be healthy, high off sustenance. What’s beautiful about music, I was saying, is that everyone can appreciate a good melody. Consider how, in the grand scheme of the universe, there’s not much difference between the technical prowess of a high school loser in honors band and Stephen Malkmus singing wonky tunes on Pavement records. How music appears where you happen to be. How ubiquitous it is: Patti Smith crooning in a used bookstore in the East Village; Chance the Rapper bouncing against the aisles of the Syracuse Trader Joe’s; Whitney Houston serenading the dark corners of a dive bar. It made no sense to rely on your music taste–or, dear god, your skills—to elevate yourself to some higher cultural echelon. That could upend the communal experience of listening.

That is why, finally said, I don’t give a fuck about anyone’s goddamn band. And why I don’t give a fuck about yours.” 

Goddamn, I love this guy! I was eager and excited to learn more about him and his work. Get this, he’s under 30–28, to be exact–and The New Yorker and pretty much every fancypants literary journal had already discovered him. He got a $300,000 book advance for his short story collection. He was a real-deal literary phenomenon like no one had seen in quite some time. I wasn’t jealous—I was delighted for him. And I was even more delighted I found a new writer whose work was deeply meaningful and memorable to me. 

I also found out that he was already dead. He overdosed in December 2020. Here’s a portion of the New York Times story about how it happened.

“It isn’t clear which substances were involved. According to his live-in boyfriend, Alex Torres, So had been up late working on the final edits to his book, and that morning, when his alarm sounded, Torres noticed that So didn’t move. “That was when I called 911. And I just kind of knew,” he said.

Torres said So had been an occasional recreational drug user since they met while undergraduates at Stanford, but he didn’t always know when or what his partner was taking.”

I went back to read “Baby Yeah” and realized that his death was mentioned in a small intro from his editors at n + 1, right at the top of the page:

“Though the grief over Anthony’s death hasn’t receded, and won’t, there is some solace in his invocation, toward the end of this essay, of “so many novel meanings that are essential, rabbit holes leading to unknown possibilities.” In his life and in his work, Anthony always took care to pursue those novel meanings, and this essay, like all his fiction and nonfiction, is a tribute to that pursuit. We miss him.” 

*****

I am well over 30, a shade under 50, and that feels perfectly okay. I am surprised I’ve eliminated the intense longing for an untapped, superstar version of me, one that is still discontentedly lost somewhere in the universe. It’s been a great discovery in the last few years that youth and talent are not protections from death by misadventure, nor does it guarantee a meaningful life. The external validation I sought wouldn’t instill a sense of triumphant ease nor make me a kinder or more loving human. And it would not make me more valued. I believe this is what acceptance is supposed to feel like.

*****

WORKS CITED

The Downtown 50 [Air Mail]

A Rising Star’s Career Was Cut Short. His Impact Is Just Beginning. [NYT]

But The Drugs Keep Me Sober [TSB]

30 Under 30: 2011 [Forbes] (Featuring Edith Zimmerman!)

The Best American Essays Series [Bookshop]

SPECIAL THANKS

Sari Botton for consultation, also for this article in Catapult, and also for Oldster Mag.