Writing

TOLBINY

JLJ//

I can’t recall when I adopted the tagline "the only living boy in New York." I can’t recall when I truncated it to seven letters, when I etched it on the back of my iPad, or when I scribbled it in the margins of eleven notebooks.

Of course TOLBINY belongs to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. In another sense it belongs to my father, who first played the song on our iMac when I was 12, and by rules of intellectual property it belongs also to Michelle Zauner, and to Zach Braff, and in a twice-removed way to my ex-girlfriend Sara who showed me Garden State in her apartment at 105th and Broadway in 2016. I write this now in the year 2026 on a MacBook Pro at 161st street—ten years later, 56 blocks away, and in some sense, however north and withdrawn: the only living boy in New York.

Or something like that.

TOLBINY isn’t mine, is the point. It’s mine I suppose in the same way Catcher in the Rye is more than the book I take on airplanes, the way Bright Lights, Big City is more than a paradigmatic "paperback book in the back pocket", and I like to imagine both protagonists tossing their hats in a ring to fight for the title and the youthful irreverence it stands for, to wit: You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning…

But here you are.

Or something like that.

That’s all I have to say for now. Is this piece unfinished? So am I. Has TOLBINY been defined? Certainly not to my satisfaction. I’ll come back to it, I’m sure. How can I know what this sobriquet will mean in the year 2036? On what ultramodern Apple product will I be taking notes then? As the marketing team for iPhone Duo were titillated to tell us: Much will be unfolded in time.

Until then, I’ll amuse myself by starting a non-exhaustive list of people, places, media, and things that, in some sense, however inarticulately and removed, embody the TOLBINY moniker.

  • The Little Red Lighthouse
  • Jonathan Larson
  • Ellipses
  • The Odeon
  • The Stone Pony
  • Beer and shot combos
  • The Breakfast Club
  • Balto
  • Lin-Manuel Miranda
  • Skateboarding in Tompkins Square Park
  • Drinking at 2pm
  • The Mets

Or something like that. I don't know. See you in 10. x