Full name: Stephen Michael Y.
Age: 24
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Occupation: On-line Editor, Philadelphia Magazine
Hobbies: Music, although I haven’t practiced in a long time… does reading count?
Pets: Someday I’ll have fish again.

1: the heavy part

So how did you end up in Philadelphia, anyway?
I went to college at this school Haverford College, which is one of the best anonymous schools out there. It's kind of why I went there, so that the people I meet will judge the school based on me rather than vice versa. And since the idea was to get out of Texas to expand my horizons, Philadelphia sounded just as good as any place else. Then when I was a senior I got an internship at the magazine, and a job opened up right when I graduated. I would have moved up here anyway, though; Philly rocks.

How does Philly compare to Houston?
Hmm… okay, here’s a car metaphor. Philadelphia is like a ’68 Mustang someone found not too long ago sitting on blocks off the side of the highway, bought for a song and fixed up himself. And while he doesn’t have enough money to really do it right, the fact that it doesn’t run very well and still kinda smells inside are offset by the fact that it has so much character. Houston, on the other hand, is like a ’98 Mustang that still runs pretty well, but has a ways to go before it acquires anything like personality. I mean, I could spend hours talking about what’s unique about Philadelphia, but Houston basically comes down to heat, freeways, and bad-ass Mexican food. Like, if you take a bus tour of the city, they show you this giant neon sign shaped like a cockroach that advertises Holder’s Pest Control. And it’s not even that big. And the past year or two has been so bad for the city; first you have massive, devastating floods, then you have Enron, then Hewlett-Packard buys out Compaq, and now the space program’s in trouble. Not to mention that two of the most famous former Houstonians du jour are George W. Bush and Anna Nicole Smith. It makes me worry for the future. But if it seems like I’m bashing the city, it might be worth pointing out that I really like it there, and anyway my perspective isn’t entirely fair. I technically grew up in Sugarland, Texas, a suburb of Houston that’s slightly more bland than anything you might be imagining, whereas in Philadelphia I’m more or less in the middle of everything. It’s a diff’rent world than where I’m coming from, I’ll say that much.

And which is really right, then: 'Houston' or the New York 'House-ton'??
Actually, it’s technically ‘Yew-ston.’ But since the street is named after a different guy, I prefer to let it slide.

Ideally, what will your life look like on New Year’s Day 2004?
I'll have started out the night before at my book release party, then gone to my record release party. Because, you know, the record release party will probably have been more wild.

Have your early-to-mid ‘20s been like you imagined?
When I was young, all I imagined about my early to mid-20s is that I would be impossibly old, which isn’t actually true. I probably thought I’d be married, because that’s about how old my parents were when they were married. They’ve been cool so far, but I’m starting to feel the pressure. Like “ha ha, you sure aren’t married yet.” I don’t know, though, I’ve never been much of one to plan. And considering that you can’t really know where life will lead you or when, it doesn’t make sense to say, okay, I’m 30, time to buy a house. Suetonius tells a story about how Julius Caesar stood at the base of a statue of Alexander the Great and wept, because he was the same age Alexander the Great had been when he died but had yet to conquer anything. Yeats didn’t write anything worth reading until he was 40. And considering that that’s what life is usually like, I’ve never really imagined much what the future holds, beyond “wouldn’t it be cool if I was an astronaut” or whatever. And you’re just asking for it if you do; castles made of sand melt into the sea eventually. So to pretend that was an answer to your question, no. I am not even close to being an astronaut.

Which was the best year, for you, of the aforementioned early-to-mid ‘20s?
Hmm… I’m going to have to go with 22-23. Starts out I’m finishing up school, then over the summer I drove across America. Already, I talk about that trip like I’m an old man. Ahhh, and then we were in the mountains, beautiful I tell ye!

Which was the best year, you-wise, of your life?
Depends on the criteria. I probably did my most development as a human being junior year of high school – my best friends then are still my best friends now, the issues I was grappling with are still things I think about. Intellectually, it was probably the time when I was most excited about thinking. You know, where I was like, “I’m gonna be the guy who figures out what As I Lay Dying is Really all about!” I really want to say it wasn’t arrogance, just an exuberance about ideas that tended to exaggerate both their power and my facility with them, but yeah, it was probably arrogance too.

Compare those two years. How were they different? How were they the same?
I felt a lot more confident about the order of the world in my place in it as a junior in high school, while I was much more correct about the order of the world and my place in it at 22. I dunno; it’s hard to talk about either of these times as if from a position of enlightenment, because where I am now has the same liminal quality as either of those times did. There’s no earthly way of knowing which way that I am going. Maybe when I turn 70, I’m going to be like, “Man, when I was 17, I had it figured out. I shouldn’t have second-guessed myself.” I’m probably still going to say ‘man’ when I’m 70; or at least, I hope so.

2: the not-heavy part
Describe a good night out on the town...
You ever see that beer commercial? Yeah. Second place is a night with a good concert, a fun bar afterwards, with pool, then late night getting food and talking at a diner or maybe Geno’s steaks, to keep it local. The crowd would be my friends and my friends’ friends, most of whom don’t know each other really well, but all of whom get along. At least one of them is hitting on at least one other of them. Everyone’s drunk, but convivially, not sloppily. I don’t have to drive and I’m sitting shot gun. It’s old school hip-hop night on Power 99. I don’t have work the next day.

And a good night in the apartment, describe that, too.
Nothing fancy; just beer, darts, video games, music. Later on we watch some stupid movie. Interestingly enough, the ideal group composition is either me and one woman or me and a group of guys from high school. Don’t know what that’s all about.

What have you been listening to?
David Bowie, Station to Station. It just occurred to me recently that it’s one of the best albums, like, ever.

Was hast you been been reading?
I just finished this novel by Haruki Murakami called The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which was straight-up awesome. The people I want to compare it to are Thomas Pynchon and William Gibson, but if their writing style was simple to the point of austerity, like haiku meets Dashiell Hammet, and they were as good at character development as they were at concocting elaborate plots. It was also thematically and symbolically similar to the various recent Japanese horror movies I’ve been watching whenever I can get my hands on them, particularly The Ring, which came out in the same year and shares several important images. There are some interesting things going on in that culture right now – this is their 1970s.

What have you been watching on TV?
I somehow ended up watching Smallville regularly, mostly because it’s the best premise for a television show since Wild, Wild West. I think we should do more stuff like this, appropriating characters from the past for our own stories, taking figures that everyone knows and working in tension with what they know about them. That’s what made Greek culture so great, that people would keep trying to retell the old stories and changing them, establishing a link between the contemporary audience and their cultural icons. There’s no reason you should have to start over with your own characters. If you ask me, the rise in copyright law and decline in the quality of popular art are not unrelated, nor is the fact comic books have allowed new artists to rework classic franchises coincidental to their recent critical respectability. To go completely off-topic.

Seen any movies lately? What did you think?
I saw this British horror movie called Schizo a few days ago. It was about this figure skater who apparently practices eight hours a day (although you only see her practice once) being chased by this working class stiff who killed her mom. Or did he? I didn’t notice, because I was too entranced by the British 1970s wallpaper, which kind of reminded me of dropping acid when you have a migraine and staring at the sun. Or, you know, what I imagine that’d be like.

3: the cocktail party
So you’re having a cocktail party: list five A-list guests, other than Jesus, me and your friends...
Vaclav Havel, Neil Armstrong, Hank Williams, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Faulkner.

What drinks will you serve?
Beer and wine; I’d want to keep anything harder away from Hank and Faulkner. I’d also want to know what Chaucer thought about beer and wine in the 21st century.

What will be in the stereo?
I’d rent a karaoke machine.

Conversation topics will include...
We’d talk to Havel about what it was like being a revolutionary and then leader of Czechoslovakia, and to Armstrong about what it was like to be on the moon; I’d almost be more interested to hear what Chaucer and Faulkner had to ask about that than what they’d have to say about their own experiences. Chaucer and Havel would get in a big conversation about aesthetics, and Faulkner and Hank would occasionally interject witticisms and crack each other up, while I would have to talk to Armstrong about his kids or something so he didn’t feel left out. Later on when everyone was feeling good, we’d get out the guitar, and Hank would play while Chaucer sang old English songs and we’d be surprised that we recognized the melodies. Then we’d all take turns singing karaoke; in particular, I’d want to hear Hank cover Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen.

How will the evening end?
Armstrong would have to drive Faulkner home, and Hank would crash on the couch with a trash can by his head. I’d worry that Chaucer didn’t have a good time, because he probably didn’t do well in the argument on aesthetics, considering Havel had eight hundred years of theory on him. But then my memory of his rendition of “Dead or Alive” would quell any of my doubts.