Why the New Yorker is like Harvard: This week's story

How hard can it be to discover the best new talent in American (or for that matter, world) fiction writing - if you're the New Yorker? And if every aspiring writer, editor, agent sends you their best work because, like it or not, you still set the standard and pay the most and have the highest prestige? Kind of like being Harvard: do Harvard grads succeed in life because a. Harvard can select the best applicants b. Harvard gives them the best eduction or c. a Harvard degree ensures an extra measure of respect and attention throughout a lifetime? Answer: not b. New Yorker stories are (or should be) great because they can pick the best, and New Yorker picks stars because publication therein guarantees that attention will be paid. It's kinda like a Yankee scout once said about Koufax: It's not amazing that he won 27 games, it's that he lost 3. It's not amazing that the New Yorker publishes great stories, it's amazing that sometimes they don't (like that absurd one about the ants by EO Wilson a few weeks ago). Last week's story, by, oops, I can't possibly spell this right, Said Sayrayfeizedah?, looks like one of these New Yorker discoveries. Who is this guy? The story gives no obvious autobiographical clues, but he's certainly a sharp and funny writer, with echoes of Alexander Hemon and George Saunders, but a style of his own. His story, "Appetite," is about a 25-year-old slacker wasting his life as a cook in a mediocre restaurant. Many very funny riffs: His rehearsals preparing to ask for a raise, his memories of watching his high-school valedictorian. He's lonely, alienated, seemingly displaced - but without the driving ambition or the cyncisicm or the pathos of other alienated-youth narrators. He's a bit older, for one. Not clear whether this is a story or a novel excerpt - good guess that it's an excerpt, as the story doesn't really complete a narrative arc and it seems more is in store for the narrator and the "anorexic waitress," as they drive off together - though so many stories do end with ambiguity and uncertaintly, a New Yorker trait. We'll look for more by this guy.