Bird’s Eye: The bird’s eye is getting rheumy, and may be developing glaucoma. (Does the bird need to check this great chart of how the world looks to those with eye diseases? Probably it does.) But except for you, doesn’t it seem that everyone is aging? We start with a wonderful Doonesbury, looking at how (even men!) become invisible as they age. Then a powerful and moving piece on life after 60, and a look at how the aging boomers still affect the marketplace.
* The Hard Truth About Getting Old Lillian Rubin Salon
The chirpy tales that dominate the public discussion about aging — you know, the ones that tell us that age is just a state of mind, that “60 is the new 40” and “80 the new 60” — irritate me. What’s next: 100 as the new middle age?
Sure, aging is different than it was a generation or two ago and there are more possibilities now than ever before, if only because we live so much longer. It just seems to me that, whether at 60 or 80, the good news is only half the story. For it’s also true that old age — even now when old age often isn’t what it used to be — is a time of loss, decline and stigma.
* Media’s Ageing Audiences: Peggy Sue Got Old The Economist
In Britain people aged 60 or over spent more on pop-music albums in 2009 than did teenagers or people in their 20s, according to the BPI, a trade group. Sony Music’s biggest-selling album worldwide last year was “The Gift”, by Susan Boyle, a 50-year-old Scot whose appeal derives in part from her lack of youth. And what has happened to music has also happened to other forms of entertainment.
