It Took Me All Week To Produce This Farkakte Link Roundup...

Gosh, is it hard to concentrate in these increasingly fraught times.

Cartoon by Carolita Johnson

I tend to read, watch, and listen to an awful lot of Oldsterish content. Now and then I’ll pass some of it along to you in a link roundup like this one.

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• In April, Kane Tanaka, the world’s oldest person, died at 119 in Fukuoka city, western Japan. via The Irish Mirror.

• “Punk legend” and “Holocaust survivor” might not seem like they belong together in the same sentence, but 82-year-old Genya Ravan is both those things. In the Forward, Jim Sullivan profiles her.

• I’m eager to get my hands on music journalist Danyel Smith’s Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop. Emily Lordi interviews her in the New Yorker.

• “In 1999, Bowie hailed Fanny as one of the finest rock bands of its time in Rolling Stone. He also lamented that ‘nobody’s ever mentioned them.’” - in the New York Times, Mark Yarm writes about Fanny: The Right to Rock, a documentary about 1970s under-appreciated all-female rock band Fanny.

• Also in the New York Times Alex Traub has a glowing obituary/profile of Barbara Maier Gustern, esteemed vocal teacher to Debbie Harry, Kathleen Hanna, Justin Vivian Bond, and many others, who was callously killed in March.

• “The language we use when we talk about aging in our culture is warped, polluted, self-destructive, competitive, and deeply wrong.” - Heather Havrilesky, aka “Ask Polly,” one of my favorite newsletter writers. (She also writes as darker alter ego “Ask Molly.”)

• “I am 52 years old and one thing that happens when you’re 52 is people tell you how beautiful you are all the time.” - another of my favorite newsletter writers, Sarah Miller, with a funny take on how overly solicitous people can be toward older women.

• Shocker: “Menopausal women lack basic support, landmark survey finds.” - via the Guardian.

• Scientists say they have nailed down the ideal amount of sleep in middle and old age. - via CNN.

• Remember pay phones? Last week several outlets reported that these two being removed were the sole remaining ones in New York City. It made for a nice bit of nostalgia, but according to SNOPES, it’s not true.

Say goodbye to the two last pay phones in NYC. Photo by Timothy A. Clary/Getty Images

• “What brought aging even closer home to me was having to find independent living places for both my 93-year-old mom and my 86-year-old mother-in-law.” - in Psychology Today, author Caroline Leavitt on the unexpected models for aging she found in an independent- and assisted-living home.

• If you’re looking for an organization to support with your dollars in the wake of the latest senseless mass shooting, consider Everytown For Gun Safety.

• The cartoon at the top is by one and only writer, performer, and New Yorker cartoonist Carolita Johnson. Watch Carolita draw a cartoon with her friend Fred Armisen. (🔈Sound on!)

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