Archive for December, 2008

Silence Ruptured

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Typically, the period just prior to a book's publication is one marked by a deafening silence--what authors and publishers call "the calm before the calm." So it's been especially lovely for this aficionado of calm to hear some rumbling about my ...

Elderism #36

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

On Tuesday morning, an 88 year-old woman outside of Portland, Oregon was attacked by a naked intruder in her home. Recalling a news story in which a victim survived an attack by grabbing her assailant's testicles, the Portland woman did ...

Eartha-ism

Sunday, December 28th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

(Eartha Kitt, 1927-2008) "The best thing to do is wear a wig and be more or less sure it's going to stay."

Elderism #35

Saturday, December 27th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

That broth-like pall in the air up near Madison Avenue and 77th? Those downturned moustaches on the waiters in Times Square? All is in hommage to the late, great Eartha Kitt--she who Orson Welles famously proclaimed "the most exciting woman alive," ...

Pinteresque Pause

Friday, December 26th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

         

Elderism #34

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Michael Riedel's column in the New York Post today is about 86 year-old Broadway titan James M. Nederlander Sr.--whose bright red vest either says, "Merry Christmas" or "I am a riverboat gambler." Although the producer of "Annie," "Nine," Noises Off," et al. ...

Elderism #33

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Jim Brown, the running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965 who never missed a game, is 72 now. He tells Esquire: "I'm not a Martin Luther King and a Gandhi motherfucker. I don't know what they were talking ...

Elderism #32

Sunday, December 21st, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

From Charles Taylor's review of Bruce Jay Friedman's new book, "Three Balconies" in today's New York Times Book Review: "A friend of mine had an uncle who, years after surviving a concentration camp, would respond to every petty inconvenience and ...

Elderism #31

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

In the current issue of Esquire, composer Philip Glass--who doesn't like the word "minimalist" applied to his music, but who cops to writing "music with repetitive structures"--talks about how experience trumps expectation: "People always ask, 'Is it what you thought it ...

Elderism #30

Monday, December 8th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

A lot of my gay friends hate Clint Eastwood because of his treatment of same-sexers in Mystic River. Indeed, some of Eastwood's post-Unforgiven career moves have seemed a little...reckless, as Gail Sheehy points out in her interview with Eastwood in ...