Relevant to My Interests...
...and possibly yours. Got some links for you.
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.
Last week, the above recording of Joni Mitchell, Mama Cass Elliot, and Mary Travers harmonizing on Bob Dylan’s/The Band’s “I Shall Be Released” turned 53.
“Andre Leon Talley’s sense of self was culture. And, I argue, it was culture at its best.” Saeed Jones pays tribute to the iconic fashion editor, who passed way last week.
“[Thick Nhat] Hanh’s greatest contribution to Western thinking was to inject the idea of mindfulness: to be fully conscious in the current moment. He believed mindfulness was the secret not just to happiness but to being authentically alive.” In The Washington Post, Arthur C. Brooks remembers the influential Buddhist monk.
Speaking of Arthur C. Brooks, his forthcoming book, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life, out February 15th, seems relevant to the older oldsters among us.
“The literary world is obsessed with youth and genius, but what about the authors who are publishing in their golden years?” At Electric Literature, JR Ramakrishnan has a list of seven new or forthcoming books by authors over 60.
“When I bought the place from plans when I was 21, my intention was that it be my permanent home…And knowing the Manhattan real-estate market, I knew that once I had my own place, it would be forever.” For Curbed, Wendy Goodman writes about architecture author Andrew Alpern and the Manhattan apartment he still lives in after buying it for $3,000 sixty years ago.
“I could not have written this novel when I was a young woman because I was only interested in creating young characters. I’m always amused when my young students create frail, old characters hunched over walking sticks, only for them to tell me that they’re in their forties. I would have been the same.” - in LitHub’s “The Craft of Writing” newsletter, Bernardine Evaristo reveals why she couldn’t have written her latest novel, Girl, Woman, Other, before 60.
“David and Anne are in their 80s now, and they recently told me that at this stage of life, sex is the best it has ever been.” In the New York Times magazine, Maggie Jones writes about folks enjoying sex after 70.
Do you read the inspiring “It’s Never Too Late” series in The New York Times?
“Anderson, now 42, is rocking just as hard these days; only instead of belting out fiery tunes to a crowd of shrieking fans, she's fully immersed in her gerontology studies.” At Nextavenue, Amy Young profiles Brett Anderson, lead singer of nineties band The Donnas, who has switched gears in her forties and become a gerontologist.
Excellent!