You can now hire a longevity concierge if you want to live forever but aren't rïche
a win for the broke silicone valley tech bros who love AI but don't have millions to burn
Greetings from the Chateau patio. I wrote this newsletter while drinking a dirty martini + eating a Caesar salad with lots of lemon juice and a side of fries. My LA happy meal. Today’s letter includes a song about the American Dream to a New York backdrop, a book for the internet class, and longevity for the upper-middle class! Behind the paywall, I share the three best martinis I had during my 10-day tini streak. I took last week off because I didn’t want to write an election post-mortem. The only thing I’ll say is that I don’t endorse the inter-party recrimination/the vile things both parties are lobbing at each other. That’s the kind of divisiveness that got us here in the first place. Onward.
WHAT I’M INTO
Press Play: “NEW DORP. NEW YORK” by SBTRKT (ft. Ezra Koenig)
How did I forget to tell y’all I attended the MSG Vampire Weekend concert? This is one of my favorite Vampire Weekend songs, which might be rude to say because it’s not even a Vampire Weekend song. It’s a SBTRKT song with Ezra’s romantic New York lyrics + vocals. His girl has a city to run and a limousine she works full time to keep clean. The song is a nod to the American Dream. You can go from New Dorp (a middle-class neighborhood in Staten Island)….gargoyles gargling oil…to the Top of The Rock. In many ways, it’s what we all want: upward mobility! It’s becoming harder to achieve and (based on this week’s election results) will become further from reach. The song packs a heavy bassline with tribal beats. It’s catchy. I think you’ll like it as much as I do. Enjoy!
(FYI my other favorite VW songs have signs of Rostam all over them: California English Pt II, Step, Diane Young, Holiday.)
Borrow from ur local public library: Fuccboi: A Novel by Sean Thor Conroe
Reading is a habit and a skill; it offers us autonomy. Where our parents and grandparents picked up books, we pick up our phones. The Atlantic says y’all aren’t reading books anymore! And your reading comprehension sucks [??], so here’s a book that won’t feel like a book because it’s written in a staccato internet brain rot cadence. It’s easy to digest and might make you feel like you’re scrolling your Twitter feed in Trump Era 2017/2018. Which feels a lot like scrolling Elon Musk’s X today, just less aggressive, to be quite honest! Despite the protagonist’s great life experiences, his best efforts to convert them into art have proven futile. He’s harvested weed, which some of my good friends have also done. He’s riding his bike around Philadelphia for Postmates and hasn’t gotten over anyone in his life. His ex, an editor, asks him to cut the rape-y parts of a novel he shares with her. He’s also dealing with a rough auto-immune skin condition that could have benefited greatly from Regeneron + Sanofi’s collab in Dupixent, a monoclonal antibody that doesn’t suppress your immune system and isn’t a steroid (THIS IS NOT SPONSORED I JUST LOVE SCIENCE OK). Instead, his mother and sister fly him cross-country to Los Angeles to get him treatment. I borrowed this book from EAC, with whom I co-wrote the microplastics piece this summer. She mentioned he went to Columbia for his MFA, which I think makes this book even more random. He does not claim the fuccboi title. He’s just an Ivy-league MFA hapa fuccboi advocating for writing the way you talk. Hot.
Anti-algorithm news: “The new live-forever flex: Hiring a ‘longevity concierge’” by Zara Stone (The San Francisco Standard)
This summer, I scrolled past a tweet advertising an immortality event in Manhattan featuring Brian Johnson as a virtual guest. I didn’t think much of it until Magdalene J. Taylor shared her experience on GQ. Johnson has become a prominent figure in the longevity space, especially after Bloomberg profiled his $2 million-a-year quest to reverse aging. We now know more about this man than I care to know about anyone. Like, did I have to know he uses his teenage son as a plasma blood bank? No. Anyway, luxe longevity clinics opened to meet the demand for what may just be a healthcare market gap, not a genuine drive to live forever. Elon Musk (ugh) and Gwyneth Paltrow reportedly pay $160k a year for a “longevity coach.” We’re now getting more democratic versions of this care through longevity concierge start-ups. Think Uber at launch vs Uber X today. Stone highlights popular longevity health startups, including Superpower, Longevity Health, Mito Health, and Function Health. It’s no surprise Andreessen Horowitz backed Function Health with Dr. Mark Hyman as co-founder/Chief Medical Officer; he’s one of the bigger med-fluencers in the space. $499/year gets you access to 100+ tests and access to the platform and expert clinicians. Superpower is also $499/month, but supplements their clinicians’ expertise with AI (spoiler: that’s the superpower). Are you willing to pay more? Consider the “billionaire bundle” at Longevity Health. $899/month gets you “blood panels, a DEXA scan, V02 max testing, gut testing, a sleep study, a continuous glucose monitor, a private Slack channel for communicating with a nutritionist and physician team, and weekly case reviews.”
We don’t have a set testing panel for annual physicals in the US, and they’re not as comprehensive. But it’s likely more cost-effective to run the baseline tests with your primary care physician and pay for the other tests out of pocket if you want them. I can get into my thoughts on the longevity of it all in a different letter, but this fringe wellness obsession is officially mainstream. I’m all for living as healthy a life as you can, but I prefer building friendships + finding joy over living a life as rigid as Brian Johnson's. If the biggest flex is your biological age, I’m good. I still get carded at bars and sometimes the grocery store when I’m buying kombucha. And can I be real? I don’t want to live forever, I’m already tired.
WHAT I’M GRATEFUL FOR
NY hospitality: I met a friend/pharma colleague (who reads Of Note btw! hiiiii EJY!) at [REDACTED], where the bartender kept our vespers fresh + topped up.
Performing arts: Nothing makes me happier than bearing witness to people who have perfected their craft. Over the last few weeks, I saw three live music performances (Mitski, Vampire Weekend, Coco + Clair Clair), two Broadway shows (Sunset Blvd + McNeal), and one ballet performance (ABT).
The Right to Vote: People fought hard for this right! And it’s one I don’t take lightly. You’ll never see me relinquish my civic duty and let someone else choose for me. I care too much! I recognize why someone may opt out of voting for a presidential candidate, for example. But why not have input on the many other issues and races on any given ballot?
WHAT I’M UP TO
Weekly Step Count: