Archive for November, 2008

Elderism #28

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Management guru Tom Peters--he's the guy who co-wrote In Search of Excellence back in the 80's--was interviewed by the Financial Times this weekend. He had this to say on the topic of accomplishment: "Are you throwing enough spaghetti at the wall ...

Rhino alert

Friday, November 21st, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Economist has run an obituary of George W. Bush's nostrils. I do not speak rhetorically.

Elderism #27

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Watching Larry King--who turned 75 today--try to wrap his mind around the pregnancy of Thomas Beatie last night was like watching a country store clerk who's lost his spectacles in the barley. "Do you feel gay?," King asked the transsexual and his ...

Elderism #26

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Apparently the most unusual exhibit in the new B.B. King Museum in Indianola, Miss. is a "blood-building tonic" called Peptikon. According to Page Six, King tells next month's Relix magazine that in 1948 he was hired to sing the tonic's jingle ...

Elderism #25

Monday, November 17th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

As we get older, do we develop a better understanding of how others perceive us? The case of playwright and character actor Wallace Shawn would suggest not. In an article by Dave Itzkoff in today's Times, Shawn talks about having played ...

Elderism #24

Sunday, November 16th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

In 1975, Paul Theroux made a name for himself with The Great Railway Bazaar, an account of his train trip from London to Tokyo and back. 30 years later, Theroux--"no less inquisitive, but considerably goutier," as Toby Lichtig puts it ...

Rosetta Reitz (1924-2008)

Saturday, November 15th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

"Louis Armstrong was a sideman on records in the '20's with singers like Sippie Wallace, Eva Taylor, Hociel Thomas, Virginia Liston and Margaret Johnson. These women's records were made as their records. But when they come out now, they're reissued ...

Elderism #23

Thursday, November 13th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Totally bizarro coincidence: having, two days earlier, published an Op Ed in the New York Times about the guerilla tactics I employ when confronted by strangers' bad manners, I was dumbstruck to witness the following. (You'll definitely think I'm making ...

Elderbloggers: Hear Them Roar

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I was asked by Blogs.com to list my ten favorite blogs by, or about, senior citizens. The full list is here, but I wanted to give some context on some of these wonderful elderbloggers and their sites: Dad's Tomato Garden Journal, ...

Elderism #22

Thursday, November 6th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

On Tuesday, Gertrude Baines, a daughter of former slaves who is 114 years old--i.e., in her lifetime she has seen women and blacks gain the right to vote--was spied by the Los Angeles Times voting for Obama. Baines shyly murmured, "What's ...