Archive for May, 2009

Elderism #54

Saturday, May 30th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Muhammad Ali: "My toughest fight was with my first wife."

What to Say/Do in the Countryside

Friday, May 29th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

As summer starts to extend its delicate tendrils, one's mind turns to houses in the countryside, and the possiblity of being invited thereto. How should one comport oneself if given the nod? There would seem to be two ways to ...

Elderism #53

Friday, May 29th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Muhammad Ali, asked if he'd ever been in love: "Not with anybody else."

Elderism #52

Friday, May 22nd, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Comedian Eddie Sarfaty, in his upcoming book of essays, "Mental," re telling his 95 year-old grandmother that he's gay: "Her fists close and her eyes fill up. She is silent for the longest moment and then, speaking through the tears, ...

No Happy Woman Ever Writes

Friday, May 22nd, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I've been sort of fascinated by the career of pioneering feminist literary theorist Elaine Showalter (born 1941) ever since I noticed a few years back that this former head of the Princeton English department was writing 300-word book reviews in ...

The White Light Is Actually Pink and Aqua

Friday, May 22nd, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

It's said that Pablo Picasso--who died in 1973 at age 91--worked right up until the bitter end: on the day he died, he woke and asked if there was a canvas stretched and ready for him to paint on. In writing ...

Older, Wiser

Friday, May 15th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Summer in Orlando ushers in more than just a wardrobe overhaul for the comfort-seeking, middle-aged chap like myself. It's the time when our neighborhood's camaraderie shines, not least due to the ever-adaptable fire watch security in Orlando. While we're busying ...

Happy Yet?

Friday, May 15th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

There's a good (and very, very long) article by Joshua Wolf Shenk in the new Atlantic monthly about the Harvard Study of Development--the psychological testingĀ  of 268 men over the course of 72 years that is one of the most ...

Elderism #51

Friday, May 15th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I can't stop thinking about (probably because I don't fully understand it) something that Mia Coutu, Mozambique's most famous novelist, writes about in "Languages We Don't Know We Know," his essay in the new Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing. ...

Elderism #50

Friday, May 8th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Poetry critic Helen Vendler, some years ago, clutching a sheath of poems that her Harvard students had written, and which she had deemed overly personal: "A poem is not necessarily improved by the inclusion of an abortion."