Category: aging
- Looks Pretty Good to MeMy Old Ass a movie by Megan Park. With Maisy Stella, Aubrey Plaza, Percy Hynes White, Maria Dizzia. Streaming on Amazon Prime. ***** I tend not to like movies about time travel. I don’t like gimmicky movies in general (a contemporary teenager goes back to the fifties and is at a total loss because they don’t ...Read more
- Facing DeathHis Three Daughters a film by Azazel Jacobs. With Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, Jovan Adepo, Jay O. Sanders. Streaming on Netflix. ***** His Three Daughters is a sleeper, a Netflix original that we watched because we were fishing around for something to watch on a Saturday night, and it had just been reviewed in ...Read more
- Roll Out the OldstersThelma a film by Josh Margolis. With June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Richard Roundtree. Streaming (for a fee) on Apple+. **** Thelma is an oldster movie, a genre I haven’t written about for some time but which has not gone away. It is a crime movie in which the person going after the ...Read more
- My Life Is Disappearing Before My Eyes IIJerry West (1938-2024) The woman on the phone spoke with a throaty, cultivated, Southern accent. She had called to speak to my father. But when I answered, she said, “David. This is your Aunt Georgia Wade.” She wasn’t really my aunt. She was one of those Southern aunts, women who used that title to mean she was ...Read more
- My Life Is Disappearing Before My EyesRick Davison 1948-2023 The first thing you noticed about him was his appearance. He had a large, oblong-shaped head, which he kept closely cropped, small ears, severe heavy eyebrows. I believe I heard that he still had some of his baby teeth, that his adult teeth never came in. He was a big guy, but hunched ...Read more
- She’s OursRunaway stories by Alice Munro. Vintage. 335 pp. $15.95 ***** I first heard of Alice Munro in the early eighties, when I had hooked up with my agent and first editor and they were both enthusiastic fans; my agent, Virginia Barber, was also Munro’s, and my editor, Sherry Huber, was an avid reader who constantly recommended ...Read more
- Wounded HealerJames Dykes (1950-2024) Hanging in the waiting room of Jim Dykes’ office—a large homey building that had been a famous hippie house in the Sixties, when I was in college—was a mammoth painting of Jesus. That seemed characteristic of the man. He seemed to be saying that Jesus was the ultimate healer—I think he felt that ...Read more
- William Kennedy’s Big BookChango Beads and Two-Tone Shoes a novel by William Kennedy. Viking. 326 pp. ***** In an interview in mid-career, William Kennedy talked about his career as a journalist and his decision to begin writing fiction, and to concentrate on the city he had moved away from, but then returned to take care of his father. Someone ...Read more
- Extending the LineHolding the Note: Profiles in Popular Music by David Remnick. Knopf. 304 pp. $20.87 ***** I have no idea how David Remnick does it. He’s the editor of the New Yorker, which, the last time I looked, was a full-time job. But he also churns out books on a variety of subjects, everything from Barack Obama ...Read more
- Art Imitating LifeChampion an opera by Terence Blanchard. Libretto by Michael Cristofer. With Eric Owens, Ryan Speedo Green, Ethan Joseph, Latonia Moore. ***** I have never reviewed an opera and certainly don’t have the qualifications. I’ve only been attending for a few years, and know little about the art form. I sometimes think television reviewers watch so much ...Read more
- True CharismaRobert Grandizio 1943-2023 I was on the first football team Robert Grandizio ever coached. I didn’t know him well, because he was the backfield coach and I was on the line. But he stood in marked contrast to our head coach, Anthony Botti, a small squat man who was emotional and mercurial, furious at any failure or ...Read more
- War Is AbsurdThe Banshees of Inisherin a film by Martin McDonagh. With Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan. Streaming on HBO Max. **** I can’t remember ever saying this before, but I enjoyed thinking about this movie more than actually watching it. The watching was sometimes excruciating, especially because my wife kept jumping up and leaving ...Read more
- Can You Help Me?That Is the Question He came to my door seeking donations for a camp for underprivileged children sponsored by his church. He wore ragged clothing and had a painful limp—you winced when you saw him walk—but had pages of documentation about the camp, and said that if I didn’t believe him I could call his preacher. ...Read more
- Daily Life, Sans EthnographyThe Empathy Diaries: A Memoir by Sherry Turkle. Penguin Press. 348 pp. $28.00. **** I’m having an odd experience with The Empathy Diaries. I absolutely loved reading the book night after night, but as I look back find it difficult to put into words what I liked so much. Not normally my problem. Sherry Turkle is ...Read more
- Old Master(The Faulkner Project) The Reivers, a Reminiscence from William Faulkner Novels 1957-1962. Library of America pp. 723-921. ***** In the summer of 1961, though he had recently written a friend that he was ready to give up writing, William Faulkner sat down to write a story he’d had in mind for some time. He wrote the ...Read more
- Faulkner at his Knottiest(The Faulkner Project) Go Down, Moses from Faulkner Novels 1942-1954 Library of America pp. 1-281 ***** I had an odd thought when I began this novel, the thirteenth in my survey of Faulkner’s work: This is the real Faulkner. It’s a strange thing to say about a man who had already written four or five masterpieces, ...Read more
- Healing Our WoundsRobert Bly (1926-2021) In 1988, the North Carolina Independent asked me to attend and write about a Robert Bly Day for Men, the first such event to take place in the Triangle. I’m not much of one for workshops and other public events, so I probably wouldn’t have gone otherwise, but in many ways that day ...Read more
- Living for Love(The Faulkner Project) If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem from Faulkner Novels 1936-1940. Library of America. **** Somewhat to my surprise, this is my least favorite of all the novels I’ve reread in the Faulkner Project. I had read it only once, and I think I was still in college, because I remember telling a friend about ...Read more
- Man on the MoonRobert McCutcheon 1921-2021 The thing I will most remember about my Uncle Bob is the way he took care of my mother—his sister—when she had dementia. Her second husband, my stepfather, had died just before she turned 90, and it took some time for us to realize that he had been her memory in recent years ...Read more
- I’m Crying UncleCry Macho a film by Clint Eastwood. With Clint Eastwood, Dwight Yoakam, Natalia Traven, Eduardo Minett ** Many years ago, I saw Merce Cunningham appear in a dance he had choreographed. He was in his mid-sixties, and though the spirit was willing the flesh was weak. Dance is all about young beautiful flexible bodies, and he ...Read more
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Unfinished LivesAmerican OriginalLosing ItKeep an Eye on IgorAnd Is He Pissed
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (121)American literature (215)art (113)Buddhism (169)Christianity (125)creative process (246)death and dying (139)meditation (123)movies (160)music (36)race (105)religion (187)sex (170)spirituality (170)the art of narrative (252)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)