Letter from the Editor #30
How the arts can lengthen your life...A study on chronic pain in those over 55 is seeking subjects...
Readers,
Thanks again to those who have asked after my mom. She’s getting a little stronger every day, and I hope that soon she’ll be fully back to herself.
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In more upbeat news, I’m in the process of putting together the next Oldster Variety Hour at Joe’s Pub, to be held Friday, August 7th at 7pm.
That edition of the show will celebrate Oldster’s 5th birthday. It’s wild to me that we are coming up on the fifth anniversary of when I launched this publication on a bit of a whim, after waking from a dream in which I started a magazine called Oldster.
Well, not a complete whim. I’d already been delving into the topic of aging at a digital publication called Longreads, where I was the personal essays editor. There, from 2018 to 2020, I edited a series called Fine Lines. When I left that publication, I knew I wasn’t done with the subject. Actually, as far as I was concerned, I’d barely scratched the surface. But I needed a new name, and I was stumped trying to come up with one. That is, until my unconscious coughed up “Oldster.”
Anyway, if you live in the New York area, or have plans to travel here in August, mark your calendars! Stay tuned for details coming soon. I had such a great time hosting and performing in the last edition, March 4th, and the one before that in Kingston, October 1st.
Check out the rest of this series here. P.S. Typos happen. Please forgive me if you find any!
Oldster runs on reader support. If you enjoy it and want to help me keep publishing and paying essayists and interviewers, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. 🙏
How the arts can lengthen your life...
I’m not saying that attending an Oldster Variety Hour will allow you to live longer…or am I?
Well, sort of. This week on the CNN site I was intrigued by an article by Jack Guy entitled “Engaging with arts and culture can slow biological aging as much as exercise, study suggests.” It’s about a new study by Innovation in Aging indicating that engaging with the arts can increase one’s longevity.
The first study of its kind, it included 3,556 subjects. The big take-away is that thanks to a combination of pleasing aesthetics, sensory stimulation, and social interaction, engaging with the arts appears to slow down biological aspects of aging, even at the molecular level. The benefits seem to be on par with those of physical activity. (Great news for a musical theater geek like me, who failed gym.)
The researchers weren’t surprised by the study’s findings, and neither am I. Personally I find nothing revives my spirit or returns me to myself after I’ve been depleted more than going to a gallery or museum, seeing a play, going to the movies, hearing live music, attending a reading in a bookstore. Again and again, I feel as if art gives me a new lease on life, and it turns out there’s empirical data proving that’s more than a feeling.
I love the idea of art as medicine—better than Geritol.
Do you feel as if you derive physical benefits from engaging with the arts? What are your favorite art forms? What effects do they have on your mind, outlook, and even physical sense of wellbeing?
A study on chronic pain in those over 55 is seeking subjects...
Last year I interviewed Brandon Gaudiano, Ph.D., a researcher co-conducting a chronic pain study and program called “Reclaim Your Day” out of Butler Hospital and Brown University.
It was an eye-opening conversation in which we talked about alternative ways some older people are addressing the pain they live with. Among those alternatives: meditation, and peer-to-peer storytelling and listening, which helps those suffering to feel less alone, both of which seem to have at least minor analgesic effects.
This week Gaudiano reached out to let me know that the study is moving to the next phase, and that they are looking for subjects 55 and older who live with chronic pain, to take part. Here’s an informational flyer he shared with me:
If you’re interested in taking part in the study, you can scan the QR code on the flyer above; call or text (410) 871-9702; or email reclaimyourday@butler.org
Oldster’s Gen X Night at Sid Gold’s Request Room is Sold Out! But there’s now a waiting list you can join…
We’ve sold out this event! (Which is, by the way, open to everyone over 21, but focused specifically on the music that has defined Generation X.) But I’ve just added a waiting list that you can add your name to, in case ticket-holders need to bow out down the line.
It’s going to be so great! At the beginning of the evening, some featured singers will perform songs released on or before 1997, and tell brief stories about why they chose those songs, and what they mean to them. After that, piano karaoke will be open to everyone.
Singers include Alexander Chee, Alexandra Auder, Emily Gould, Kera Bolonik, Blaise Allysen Kearsley, Mark Armstrong, and yours truly, all accompanied by Paul Leschen.
That’s all for today. Thanks as always for reading, and for all your support. 🙏💝
-Sari
Seeing dance, especially in person, makes my body dance. Something it no longer can do, at least not the way it used to, oh, forty-two years ago, which is when I stopped taking class. Seeing a first-rate company, usually, but not always, ballet, is at times, a spiritual experience for me, who's left cold by most other forms of spiritual uplift. I also love to read. And I don't know that I love it, but I have to write.
I'm a life-long novel reader. Slipping into the world that the novelist has created is a reenergizing respite from the wear and tear of everyday life for me. And the characters dealing with their challenges can be beautiful role models for me as I face my own. Putting down the book after I've read and appreciated it, I feel refreshed, thoughtful and ready to deal with what's in front of me to handle.