Letter from the Editor #6

Greetings from the fallible human behind this operation. PLUS: Show me your tattoos...

Readers,

First of all, welcome to the many newcomers who landed here after Judith Hannah Weiss’s latest Oldster essay, “Like a Version,” was spotlighted in Saturday’s edition of The Substack Post.

“We were missing persons, missing the persons we used to be”

What a tremendous honor to have an Oldster piece—one of several great essays that Judith has written for us—featured in this way. Congratulations to Judith! And big thanks to whoever at Substack chose her essay. 🙏

Now that you’ve arrived in Oldsterland, take a look around. Check out the more than four years’ worth of interviews, essays, and “open threads” in Oldster’s archive—posts in which contributors describe, in their own words, various aspects of being their particular age, and what it means to them to be getting older.

You’ll also find lots of great suggestions for Oldster-adjacent content to read, watch, and listen to in the link-roundups—even those published a while back.

Thanks for being here. It’s good to have you. I’d love it if you’d consider supporting the tremendous amount of labor that goes into publishing this magazine (mine, and that of my many contributors), with a paid subscription.

Check out the rest of this series here.

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“Created with Human Intelligence”

As long as I’m introducing myself to newcomers, I’ll let you all in on a little secret: I sometimes make errors. Try as I may to avoid them, typos, etc., are inevitable. Mea culpa.

For instance: Before sending it to you on Monday morning, I’d read and re-read—and re-read— Irwin Epstein’s moving essay, “Beaches,” about selling the Ocean Grove cottage he shared with his late wife, Fran.

Even before that, Irwin and I had gone back and forth through a few rounds of edits, and I’d put the piece through spell-check in Microsoft Word. My eyes had traveled back and forth across that document so many times—enough times, I’d assumed, that no more errors remained.

Oops.

Moments after it was published, a number of readers commented and/or emailed me to point out a typo in the piece—one that was repeated a couple of times, and then re-repeated in two pull-quotes. Four times, “Ocean Gove” instead of “Ocean Grove.” Oy vey. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I felt so embarrassed and ashamed. How had I not caught that mistake?! In quadruplicate, no less!

One answer is that I am doing a lot. In addition to Oldster I publish another magazine called Memoir Land. When you’re reviewing as much text as I am every week, it becomes virtually impossible to really see everything.

That said, I find typos all the time in just about everything else I read—from others’ newsletters, to the paper of record, to legacy magazines, to books—much of it put out by corporations that have copyeditors and proofreaders on hand. Typos. Missing words. Repeated words. Wrong names. The wrong punctuation. Weird syntax. Quirky spacing. (I have a great knack for catching errors in other people’s work.) Every day, major newspapers like The New York Times print multiple corrections. I take comfort in all of this—in knowing it’s hardly just me.

Another answer is I’m not a robot. Whenever I’ve apologized to readers for errors I’ve made, many have assured me that they don’t mind, and even appreciate the evidence that, like them, I’m a fallible human—that there’s an actual person behind this operation, not artificial intelligence putting out slop.

As I was was busy kicking myself for not catching that repeated typo, consoling myself with readers’ kind words, I was reminded of a badge I’d seen on several newsletters I subscribe to that says “Created with Human Intelligence.” I did a little detective work and learned it was designed by Beth Spencer, an artist who publishes Introvert Drawing Club.

Badge by Introvert Drawing Club’s Beth Spencer

Beth made the badge—which is free for anyone to download and use—to take a stand against the artificial intelligence bots being trained on artists’, writers’, and musicians’ work, who threaten our livelihoods. (Both Fast Company and Forbes have featured Beth for this.) I wrote to Beth to learn more about her motivation, and to tell her about my typos, and here’s what she wrote back:

We’re all a little tired of being force-fed A.I.

I keep hearing it’s more efficient than what a human can produce, but it’s clunky and unoriginal. Have you ever read A.I. meeting notes? They’re a MESS.

If a human made notes that messy, at least they’d learn something. Screwing up and failures are how we get better, and if we’re relying on AI for all our work, then how will we grow as people?

I agree with Beth, and hope that my screwing up will ultimately teach me some things.

And while I’d rather never screw up again, I know I surely will—possibly even more often as I get older, and my eyes and brain become less agile. When I inevitably do make typos and other errors, I hope you’ll cut me some slack, and maybe take comfort in my being a messy, living, breathing human—as opposed to one of those bots eating up all the jobs, and threatening to take over the world. 🤖

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Show Me Your Tattoos…

A couple of weeks ago I published, “My Last Tattoo,” an essay/“open thread” combo platter centered around 66-year-old Catherine Gigante-Brown moving story about getting inked for what is likely her final time, as she has terminal breast cancer.

My Last Tattoo

As I do with “open thread” posts, I invited all of you to chime in about your later-in-life tattoos, and the stories behind them. Over 150 of you did. My only regret was that the comments section doesn’t allow for the sharing of photos. I wanted to see the great tattoos you were describing, and I had a feeling readers wanted to as well. Well, I’ve figured out a way.

I’ve started a chat thread for paid subscribers in which it’s possible to upload photos. I hereby invite to you head over there, and share your tattoo photos and stories. Once you’re in the tattoo thread, click on this icon to upload your photo:

Down the line, I might make a post in which I feature some of your tattoos and stories. (Of course, I’ll ask first, and make sure I have your permission.)

I look forward to seeing your ink. Thanks in advance for sharing there!

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That’s all for today. Tomorrow I’ll have another essay/“open thread” mashup featuring Rebecca Soffer from Modern Loss.

Thanks for reading, and subscribing. (Or as the robots say, “Bleep bloorp.”) This messy human is grateful. 🙏💝

- Sari Botton