Archive for October, 2008

Elderism #19

Friday, October 31st, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Over on the website Margaret and Helen, which claims to be written by a politics-obsessed 82 year-old named Helen Philpot and her best friend since college, the fiery Helen has been training her eye on the election and on The ...

Elderism #18

Thursday, October 30th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I wish I knew how to say "nutjob" in Italian; I imagine it's something like noccelavoro. My current favorite noccelavoro is Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The 72 year-old center-right pol's most sustained act of noccelavoro-ism is to have implanted in ...

You Go, Frau Blucher!

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

In all of American cinema, is there a more emotionally-devestating shot than the one in The Last Picture Show of Cloris Leachman--it's taken from high above, so as to make a banquet of her humility--sitting on her bed, having been ...

Elderism #17

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

A fairly dark-hued and egotistical portrait of Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schultz has emerged over the years. I remember reading Jonathan Franzen's essay in The Discomfort Zone, wherein I learned that Schultz's resentment at the name Peanuts, which editors had given ...

Elderism #16

Sunday, October 26th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Foul-mouthed cult figure Kenny Shopsin--he's the eccentric, sixtysomething New York City chef and restaurant owner who Calvin Trillin wrote about in the New Yorker, and whose menu has 900 items on it, some of them bizarro--has been getting a lot ...

Elderism #15

Saturday, October 25th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Three years ago, Florence Henderson--that's "Mrs. Brady" to you and me--caused a bit of a kerfuffle when she remarked that Christopher Knight, who'd played one of her TV sons back in the day, should not marry model Arianne Curry (which ...

Elderism #14

Friday, October 24th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

If the number 8, being, as it is, an upright infinity sign, augurs good luck, then shouldn't 88 be very fortunate indeed? Don't tell that to 88 year-old novelist Doris Lessing--her recent "A Life in the Day" column for the ...

Elderisms #12 and 13

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

In today's Times, Penelope Green writes about how the 80 year-old Scottish decorator Keith Fowler, who worked for Jacqueline Onassis and Pat Buckley, is auctioning off some of his furniture. Fowler--who says of one piece he's reluctant to part with, ...

Elderism #11

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

"After a long battle with diabetes and obscurity," the comedian and blaxploitation icon Rudy Ray Moore, according to his booking agent's website, Shocking Images, "passed peacefully on Sunday at the age of 81." Thought to be the third most sampled ...

Elderism #10

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

A blinged-up Elizabeth Taylor has been sighted recently in her wheelchair at the West Hollywood gay bar, the Abbey. The screen legend has presented the Abbey with a gold-framed portrait of herself, which, according to one regular, has become "quite ...