Month: September 2022

Last Week’s Links

Peyton Place’s Real Victim

Vanity Fair brings back an article from their archives, a piece from March 2006 about the infamous novel Peyton Place:

Fifty years ago, the novel Peyton Place shocked America with its tale of secrets, sex, and hypocrisy in a small New Hampshire town, becoming one of the best-selling dirty books ever, a hit movie, and TV’s first prime-time soap. It brought fame and misfortune to Grace Metalious, the bawdy, rebellious housewife who wrote it, and outraged the citizens of Gilmanton—”the real Peyton Place.” . . . MICHAEL CALLAHAN charts the tumultuous celebrity, emotional flameout, and sordid death, at 39, of an unlikely cultural trailblazer.

Callahan writes, “Fifty years ago, Peyton Place helped create the contemporary notion of ‘buzz,’ indicted 1950s morality, and recast the concept of the soap opera, all in one big, purple-prosed book.”

Do you remember Peyton Place? I’m pretty sure I never read the book, but I think I remember catching glimpses of the show on TV.

One thing Americans agree on? Our politicians are too old.

Despite all the public discord in the U.S., there appears to be broad agreement on one subject. CNN reports:

A new CBS News poll shows that almost three in four Americans (73%) think there should be some sort of maximum age limit placed on elected officials. Support for such an age limit is consistent across party lines. Seven in ten Democrats (71%) are on board, as are three quarters of Republicans and independents. Support is also remarkably consistent among age groups.

M*A*S*H, 50 years on: the anti-war sitcom was a product of its time, yet its themes are timeless

MASH seems to have aged better than Peyton Place. Daryl Sparkes, senior lecturer in media studies and production at the University of Southern Queensland, describes the TV series, based on the 1970 film as “a thinly veiled critique of the war in Vietnam raging at the time.” 

How to figure out what you want out of life

Most of us have absorbed, mainly unconsciously, an extensive list of achievements that we “should” pursue and attain. But how do we find out what we, ourselves, want out of life?

“What society expects of you and what you actually want in life can be different things.” This article offers some advice on finding our own way.

6 Ways to Level Up Your Daily Walk

All the research tells us that even a simple exercise like walking can help us age well. But walking the same route every day can just get so boring. Here are some suggestions for changing things up a bit.

circling the same humdrum sidewalk for thousands of steps can quickly turn from a daily treat into a repetitive chore. There are dozens of ways to change it up and put the sizzle back into your saunter, if you’re willing to think outside the box.

How the Trapper Keeper Shaped a Generation of Writers

A few weeks ago I included in these weekly round-ups news of the death of E. Bryand Crutchfield, inventor of the Trapper Keeper.

Here, novelist Jess deCourcy writes, “This September, I’m using my 5th-grade Trapper Keeper to organize my novel revisions.” She talked with several other writers and creative types from the “Trapper Keeper generation” and realized “When I was interviewing people about their school supplies, I was really asking how they felt about themselves during their vulnerable adolescence.”

2022 by Mary Daniels Brown

Last Week’s Links

This blooper from ‘The Carol Burnett Show’ is still one of the funniest outtakes in TV history

Did you, like me, eagerly anticipate The Carol Burnett Show, which ran from 1967 to 1978, every week?

‘We choose to go to the moon…’ again: NASA marks 60th anniversary of JFK speech

As NASA once again prepares to set sail “on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure” on which humanity has ever embarked, the space agency’s leaders returned to the site where 60 years ago, to the day, President John F. Kennedy reconfirmed that “we choose to go to the moon.”

For links to more related articles, see this page curated by the Flipboard Science Desk.

Letting Go of the Past: Why It’s So Hard to Get Over Painful Memories

We’ve all experienced painful moments during our lives. But if the memories of such experiences become intrusive, here’s “some expert-backed ways to help you process and integrate painful experiences.”

Want to live longer? Influence your genes.

“By making healthy lifestyle choices, you can self-engineer genetic alterations to prevent disease and boost longevity.”

Michael F. Foizen, M.D., discusses the science behind his recently published book The Great Age Reboot: Cracking the Longevity Code for a Younger Tomorrow. 

The basis of his argument is a process he calls genetic self-engineering: “Each healthy act switches on youth-promoting genes and switches off genes that cause you to age.” By making healthy lifestyle choices now, Foizen writes, “You have the ability to change how your body works and reacts—and ultimately how healthy you are and how long you may live.”

© 2022 by Mary Daniels Brown

Last Week’s Links

4 Essential Books About Queen Elizabeth II

Talk about life stories. Queen Elizabeth II certainly had one. Kirkus Reviews suggests some books for those of us wanting to read about it.

The Elizabethan Aura

Vanity Fair dips into its archives to celebrate Queen Elizabeth.

To mark her 90th birthday, Queen Elizabeth II sat for an unprecedented photo shoot with ANNIE LEIBOVITZ, their second collaboration. On the cover and the next 20 pages, the resulting portraits (some exclusive to V.F., others shared on the royal Web site) provide an intimate, wide-ranging tribute to a steadfast ruler— the longest-serving monarch in Britain’s history. WILLIAM SHAWCROSS analyzes the subtle power of her reign.

The Two Choices That Keep a Midlife Crisis at Bay

For years, scholars mostly didn’t challenge the conventional wisdom that a traumatic midlife crisis was normal, if not inevitable. More recently, however, many have found that a “crisis” is not our unavoidable fate. With knowledge and effort, you (and I) can make two crucial choices that can lead to harnessing the changes and difficulties of aging to instead design a midlife transcendence.

Arthur C. Brooks proposes two strategies people can employ, adding that “if you make the right choices, midlife may just be the best opportunity and biggest adventure you have had in decades.”

Zombie cells central to the quest for active, vital old age

I admit that what mainly drew my attention to this article is the word zombie. Zombie cells are “cells [that] eventually stop dividing and enter a ‘senescent’ state in response to various forms of damage.” The body removes most such cells, but others hang around “like zombies. They aren’t dead,” but “they can harm nearby cells like moldy fruit corrupting a fruit bowl.”

These zombie cells are thought to be linked to “age-related conditions such as dementia, cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis.” This report from the Associated Press summarizes research into the question of whether the build-up of zombie cells in the body can be stopped to prevent the onset of such typically age-related conditions.

Grandmother and grandson visit 62 national parks on adventure of a lifetime

“Joy Ryan, 92, had never seen a mountain. So her grandson decided to take her to every site that has ‘national park’ in its name.”

Here’s a heart-warming story of how a young veterinarian and his 92-year-old grandmother have helped each other since they started visiting national parks in the U.S. in 2015.

Your Doppelgänger Is Out There and You Probably Share DNA With Them

Research has demonstrated that the similarities between unrelated people who look alike has “more to do with their DNA than with the environments they grew up in.”

Stop drinking, keep reading, look after your hearing: a neurologist’s tips for fighting memory loss and Alzheimer’s

Gaby Hinsliff discusses the book The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening Your Mind by neuroscientist Dr. Richard Restak for answers to the following questions: “When does forgetfulness become something more serious? And how can we delay or even prevent that change?” 

© 2022 by Mary Daniels Brown

Last Week’s Links

Jane Fonda, 84, diagnosed with cancer, undergoing chemo treatments

Jane Fonda has announced that she is undergoing chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma: “This is a very treatable cancer. 80% of people survive, so I feel very lucky.”

16 Great Books About Mental Health for Empathy, Insight and So Much More

“Many of us have a tendency to neglect our own mental health or downplay the struggles we may be experiencing, but it’s important to care for your mental well-being in the same way you would attend to your physical health.” Here are some reading suggestions.

I’m 72, and This Is How I Want to Spend My Remaining Years

for me, longevity is not a goal to which I aspire. I don’t want to live long as much as I want to live well. So, here’s my bucket list of sorts, the things I think will help me live well in my remaining years . . .

See if you agree with Ann Brenoff’s approach for living the rest of her life.

These identical twins married identical twins. Now they have sons.

Just in case you need your mind boggled . . .

Sunset Valley, Montana 1926

“An excerpt of Eileen Joyce Donovan’s forthcoming second novel, published at 73, ‘A Lady Newspaperman’s Dilemma.’ With an introduction from the author.”

“People ask me about my path to publishing later in life,” writes Eileen Joyce Donovan. 

 What We Gain From a Good-Enough Life

“A new book challenges us to abandon greatness in favor of more attainable goals.”

Lily Meyer discusses the recently published book The Good-Enough Life by Avram Alpers:

Alpert does not ask his readers to abandon their goals completely, but he does ask us to acknowledge the unlikelihood of becoming the next Kim Kardashian or creating a workers’ paradise. He also argues that clinging too tightly to such dreams, at the expense of smaller or partial ones, sets us up for both practical and moral failure . . .

© 2022 by Mary Daniels Brown