Marion, at Burbank Senior Artists Colony (BSAC), stayed after Art Class to continue drawing her vase and flowers. She said, “This is my first time ever and I didn’t know it would come out so good!” And another artist is born!
~Nancy Goodhart, EngAGE C.A.O.
EngAGE begins programming on May 1st at Olivera Senior Apartments (an Integrity Housing community) in Pomona, CA, with classes in Lifelong Learning, Creativity, and Health and Wellness. The Community Garden is on the verge of thriving, and May will bring the community together for classes in Falls Prevention, an Essentials of Living Discussion Group, a Community Art Collage, and Computer Technology Classes. The month will end in celebration and dancing with the Chris Ross Band. Welcome to engaged aging, Olivera residents!
Photos provided by Integrity Housing: the kick-off event on April 30th
~ Nancy Goodhart, EngAGE C.A.O.
It’s always interesting and instructive to learn how other countries are dealing with their aging populations. Here’s a collection of articles about:
Canada – “Boom, Bust, and Economic Headaches”
Mexico – “An Aging Population with Limited Services”
Japan – “Japan’s Bold Steps”
The North Hollywood Senior Arts Colony “Readers Theatre” presented a reading of “Letters” on March 30th in the NoHo SAC lounge. The letters were to and from Presidents, Artists, Actors, Writers, and more. The performance was warmly received by an audience of over 35 residents. The group is currently developing their next project to be presented in June.
Readers: Eleanor Anasar, Jackie Benoit, Martin Greene, Judy Grimes, Gretchen Hailer, Naoomi Monroe, Susan Taylor
Thanks to Myrna Salzberg for sharing these photos taken at the event.
~ Sara Debevic, Program Director
This performance is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.
Unfortunately, there a scammers in the world who are particularly fond of taking advantage of older people. Fortunately, the National Council on Aging has assembled a helpful list of the top ten financial scams that you need to know about in order to protect yourself and your assets. Here’s a disturbing conclusion that’s pointed out in the article:
“It’s not just wealthy seniors who are targeted. Low-income older adults are also at risk of financial abuse. And it’s not always strangers who perpetrate these crimes. Over 90% of all reported elder abuse is committed by an older person’s own family members, most often their adult children, followed by grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and others.”
Tune in to Experience Talks, our weekly “Radio Magazine for the Experienced Listener,” on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98.7 FM Santa Barbara, 99.5 China Lake, 93.7 N. San Diego, streaming live online and now syndicated on up to 100 Pacifica Network stations! Experience Talks is produced by EngAGE, Inc.
Miss the show? You can always hear it as a podcast on the Listen Page of our website! You’ll also find an archive-in-progress of all of our previous shows there for you to enjoy. New shows are usually posted within 48 hours after broadcast.
Experience Talks will be preempted for special programming by KPFK-FM on Sunday, 4/30. This is a great time to peruse our Audio Archives and catch up on some shows you may have missed! You can search for guests in the alphabetical Previous Guests pages, and you can search for shows by date in the Audio Archives. Here’s a recent good one to get you started:
Teaching Artist T. Mychael Rambo
The Artfully Aging Radio Hour is a very special one hour show recorded live in Minneapolis, MN, and broadcast soon after on March 12th on Experience Talks. Click here to read the full story about this exciting endeavor made possible by our supporters, collaborators, and community residents in Minneapolis.
Photo by Kevin Simmons
Flickr Creative Commons
An interesting article in the Chicago Tribune exhorts, “Stop telling your friends they’re beautiful — it’s making them sick.”
A new book by Renee Engeln entitled, Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession With Appearance Hurts Girls and Women, “explores the ways we remind women — young and old — that the most important thing they can be is beautiful. ‘Then we pummel them with a standard of beauty they will never meet,’ Engeln, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, writes. ‘After that, when they worry about beauty, we call them superficial.'”
Although concerns about “beauty sickness” usually focus on young girls and women who develop eating disorders and, sometimes, depression, the relentless pressure on women to be beautiful continues throughout life. Anti-aging cosmetics, remedies, and exercise programs are continually foist on women of all ages because getting old is simply not acceptable. It was positively radical when Dove began its “Pro-Age” campaign.
How does this pressure to be beautiful affect older people? Or, perhaps equally significantly, how does it affect how younger people respond to older people?
Are old people beautiful? Does it matter? What do you think?
