Past Episodes
What one man learned from his year among the “oldest old”
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A New York Times reporter spends a year among the “oldest old,” people over 85, and says it turned out to be the best year of his life. He writes about what he learned in a new book.
After #metoo, calling out Hollywood’s last acceptable “ism”
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A new short film calls out Hollywood for perpetuating the last “acceptable” form of discrimination: Ageism.
Why this woman thinks women of a certain age are the future of pot
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Aliza feels that women over the age of 35 will provide the critical mass to steer cannabis to national legality and mainstream use. After all, it’s women who make the majority of the health-care decisions in the home.
Digital daughter to the rescue
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Liz Dubelman has never been afraid of technology. Now, she finds herself explaining it to people who aren’t “digital natives.” We talk about her work as a Digital Daughter, and what she’s learning from interacting with elders.
Your mother is not your teenager: Don’t treat her like your kid
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…in my dreams, my mother–after years of taking care of other people, including and especially my dad, who’d been ill for a decade–would reward herself at this stage and trounce off to Tahiti. But I know better than that. And an expert on a crusade against ageism says good for me for not trying to tell her what to do.
My mother’s philosophy of meatballs
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This week, in honor of my beloved mother and the fact that she’s been cooking for a crowd since she was a little girl in Prospect Park helping her mother tend to a large brood, I’m proud to share Jane Napoli’s philosophy of meatballs. Try it at home-unless you’re a vegetarian.
Rideshare without the smartphone?
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Anyone who has deigned to advise an older adult to “just get a smartphone” as they face the loss of their ability to drive knows how problematic this request can be. Many seniors are either reluctant or downright disinterested in adopting the new technology, and annoyed at the suggestion that purchasing a pricey new phone is the answer to this new diminished mobility.
From Brooklyn to Boynton Beach: A pioneering performer looks back
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What had happened for Lynn since we’d last been in touch was remarkable. She became a major figure on the LGBT performance circuit. One thing lead to another, and she’d become “America’s most politically incorrect performer.” Though really what she became was the public voice of the crusade for gay equal rights.
Two artists, each age 90
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Meeting two women who are passionate about creating is inspirational at any age. These 90-year old artists, who I visited in one day, embody Gracefully.
After losing it all, one woman’s re-invention at age 60
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The writer Meredith Maran found at age 60 that the future she envisioned for her life turned out to be a dream, not a plan. Bit by bit, she reconstructed her broken existence, a story of resilience she chronicles in her new book, The New Old Me: My Late-Life Reinvention.
Pictureless “movies for the mind” stimulate memory for elders and students alike
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When he first mixed together a series of sound effects into an “audio movie,” David Tobin wasn’t intending to create a tool to help seniors and their caregivers.
Dispatch from assisted living
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I share this letter in the spirit of helping us all understand the immeasurable emotions we face as we confront loss and aging… from the perspective of one articulate woman whom I’m honored to have as a friend.
“You’re in a play, every day of your life:” An 85-year old legend reflects on life and art
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The legendary dancer Carmen de Lavallade embodies the word gracefully. She’s 85, which seems unfathomable as she practically glides into the room with the spectacular posture and gleaming skin of someone far younger. Is her endurance attributable to good genes, a lifetime of movement, of adulation and success, of an enduring love with a magnificent husband of sixty years, Geoffrey Holder?
Meet the students who happily live, eat and Zumba with retirees in this unique community
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Students of gerontology live and play among the retirees at a community in Hollywood as part of a unique intergenerational program that’s been around for 30 years.
Why study aging in college? Why not?
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You might think the last subject on the mind of a twenty-year old college student would be the challenges facing older women in society. Not so those enrolled in Caroline Cicero’s class at USC, Gero 435: Women and Aging. The reasons young people study gerontology are as varied as people themselves
She tabled fears of growing old and became an advocate against ageism
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Ashton Applewhite is to the fight against ageism what Betty Friedan was to feminism: A passionate advocate for ending what she calls our last socially acceptable form of discrimination.
The hallmark of aging? Heterogeneity, says this geriatrician
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Even as a child, Dr. Mosqueda said, she was drawn to older people. She found them engaging, and she was fascinated by the neurology of aging.
A yoga teacher-and grandmother-on how not to grow old
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You don’t have to be a yogi, or even interested in the practice at all, to be inspired by the story of Marlene Weiss.
For the last 25 years, she’s taught yoga at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. She didn’t start practicing yoga, much less teaching it, until the second half of her life, after raising two children.
The gardens of Angelus Plaza
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Just across the street from the hippest, hipster-ist market in all of Los Angeles sit four hulking concrete buildings that serve as home to over a thousand elderly people–the largest low-income senior housing project in the nation. Demand for garden plots is almost as high as interest in the apartments.
Body image after 50: Why these two women agreed to disrobe publicly
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Would you take your clothing off on stage in a crowded theater? At 57, LizAnne Keigley can’t quite believe she’s voluntarily agreed to disrobe publicly: “What the hell was I thinking, really?” Her decision has to do with a major transformation she’s undergone that callenges conventional perceptions of aging.
The Sun’s Sy Safransky on aging gratefully
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“I guess to live life more gracefully maybe has less to do with notions about age than it has to do with a basic orientation toward what it means to be alive.”
What we mean by “gracefully”
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No matter our numerical age, we share something in common: We are all getting older. No one aims to grow old ungracefully; there are factors that are certainly out of our control; but we’ve learned by watching people who navigate the process of aging better than others how to live our best lives.
Elderly, gay, single…and no longer alone
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Jim Crowley remembers the old days, a time long ago, when he married a woman and had a family to conceal the fact that he was gay. A time when, as a schoolteacher, he feared that people would learn his sexuality because of the inevitable discrimination that might follow. There was no such acronym as “LGBTQ.” The word “gay” was a catch-all for anyone who wasn’t heterosexual, and most of all, it was a word whispered quietly.
Are you “too old” to find work?
Are you on the “wrong side of 40,” as writer Lydia DePillis describes it in her piece in this week’s Washington Post story on ageism in the workplace? Are you a “closeted old person,” as one person profiled describes herself? In your quest for work, have…
“Bestie row,” a modern, communal twist on the old age home
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Jodi Zipp and her friends had a collective fantasy: To continue the meals and laughter they loved sharing together well into their old age.
Decluttering a lifetime of stuff
Lenses in search of wrinkles
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Attractive images of older people can be hard to find in our youth-obsessed culture. The Council on Aging in Orange County decided to change that.