Akira Kamada

Stevie Smith diagnoses the type in “Souvenir de Monsieur Poop”in her second collection, Tender Only to One (1938). Her poem begins: 

“I am the self-appointed guardian of English literature,

I believe tremendously in the significance of age;

I believe that a writer is wise at 50,

Ten years wiser at 60, at 70 a sage.”

The oxygen you breathe depends on a tiny ocean ingredient Science Daily 

Recycling and Upcycling old furniture

Chairish.com

Meet Award Winning Sculptor Akira Kamada

artsinthevalley

Experts say these 5 exercises are key to staying healthy and aging better

These simple moves can help you stay strong and build muscles as you age.

Move over Gen Z, it’s the age of the Boomer influencer

From fashion to beauty to fitness and lifestyle, the rise of the silver content creator is sending a powerful message: age is no barrier to having cachet.

These trendsetters are a much-needed counterpoint to the youth-obsessed, anti-ageing culture whose overriding narrative has been that our worth diminishes with every passing year.

They are not only a potent spending force, due to the substantial net worth they’ve accumulated (Australia’s roughly $3 trillion pension pool is on track to become the second-largest in the world), but are helping redefine what we associate with ageing. With graduates finding it harder to get a job, perhaps it’s no surprise that after a long time of catering to Gen Z and Millennials, brands are courting mature-age and retired digital creators with money in their pockets and huge online followers.

Want To Head Off Dementia? Try Dancing

One study found that people who danced frequently (more than once a week) had a 76 percent lower risk of dementia than those who did so rarely. - Washington Post

A Disrupted Body Clock Is Linked to Higher Dementia Risk SciTech 

Living With Dementia, but ‘Still There’

Re “When Dementia Has a Seat at the Table,” by Patti Davis (Opinion guest essay, Dec. 24):

As a spiritual care professional at Fraser Health working with people living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias in a long-term care home, I’m grateful for this essay by Ms. Davis. It puts into plain language what many families learn only through painful trial and error: People with dementia may not understand why everyone has gathered or track the “content,” but they do pick up “the emotional currents” around the table.

Adapting A ‘Controversial’ Bestselling Book To The Screen Isn’t Easy

Netflix’s adaptation of Emily Henry’s The People We Meet on Vacation has some issues. “This diminishment of each element almost entirely nukes the book’s grounded sense of Poppy’s motivations behind her noncommittal approach to life. And that’s, like, her whole thing! That’s not a conflict, but the conflict!” Oops. - Slate 

A note from one of the Spartans, Northern Ireland based Ian Bolger.

I came across this recently in the Irish Times; thought you might enjoy reading.

“I don’t think of 90. I am 90!  But really, my body is a man of, I’d say 60.”

Gary Player, who turned 90 on November 1st.  The South African regularly beats his age when playing a round of golf and attributed his well-being to 12 keys to living to 100 given to him by a gerontologist:   Under eat.  Exercise.  Read.  Prayer/meditate.  Love.  Ice bath.  Gratitude.  Sleep.  Laughter.  Keep busy.  Friends.  Do things you don’t want to do.

I am 9/12.  How about you?

You’re Writing a Book. So Stop Writing a Movie.Rebecca Makkai.  “Old but still interesting and a nice break from violence.”

How Big Tech killed literary culture Unherd 

The 4x rule: Why some people’s DNA is more unstable than others Science Daily 

Why It Still Makes Sense to Limit Saturated FatsUndark

Does running wear out the bodies of professionals and amateurs alike? The Conversation

'Mystery's toys'

 It's Epiphany Sunday today. Here is something typically chastening from our best religious poet of recent times, R.S. Thomas – 

Epiphany

Three kings? Not even one
any more. Royalty
has gone to ground, its journeyings
over. Who now will bring

gifts and to what place? In
the manger there are only the toys
and the tinsel. The child
has become a man. Far

off from his cross in the wrong
season he sits at table
with us, with on his head
the fool’s cap of our paper money.


And here is an Epiphany poem by Geoffrey Hill (the setting of which is the grand parish church of Kidderminster, the largest in Worcestershire) – 

Epiphany at Saint Mary and All Saints

The wise men, vulnerable in ageing plaster,
are borne as gifts
to be set down among the other treasures
in their familial strangeness, mystery's toys.

Below the church the Stour slovens
through its narrow cut.
On service roads the lights cast amber salt
slatted with a thin rain doubling as snow.

Showings are not unknown: a six-winged seraph
somewhere impends – it is the geste of invention,
not the creative but the creator spirit.
The night air sings a colder spell to come.

This evening, having been obliged to miss all Christmas services, I shall be making my way to the cathedral for the Epiphany carol service. I look forward to being duly asperged...