Sixty4

Is 60 the new 30?

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:22:00 -0400

A friend passed on this link to a great article about how healthy older people are. Specifically, the writer, Sally Newall, marveled at how her 60 year old parents totally kicked her 25 year-old glutes on a long bike ride. What I especially love is that she coined the term The FASTT set – Fitter At Sixty Than Thirty.

She says: “The FASTTs are motivated by one thing: fear of old age. The way to combat the fear seems to be to push their bodies to the limit and under no circumstances let their age – or their twenty-something children – catch up with them. My FASTT dad will think nothing of a 6-hour-long hike in the Alps or a 50km bike ride followed by a round of golf, all while still working a 50-hour week. He laughs in the face of retirement – it’s for ‘old people’, apparently.”

Nice work Sally!

From Anne Muller’s Roots of Rodeo series, Mexico...

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 19:57:00 -0400

From Anne Muller’s Roots of Rodeo series, Mexico City, 2003

Some words from Anne Muller

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 19:55:26 -0400

I ran across Anne Muller when I was asking some friends to recommend interesting people who have lived at least 46 years. My friend Ariel suggested her mom who takes pretty incredible photographs. Anne, always involved in some sort of art, switched from painting to photography when she was 64. She takes documentary photos and her next project is in Clinton County, Ohio, one of the countries highest areas of unemployment. She was kind enough to answer a few questions for Sixty4

Sixty4: Can you talk about your next project?

Anne Muller: While the media has focused on the very real negative, a most extraordinary positive is also occurring in this county. I am told “where 2 years ago it was ‘every man for himself’ it is now ‘ we are in this together. We take care of each other’”…. When the shooting is done I will give the images to a group of young community activists who will then use them however they choose. Their intention is to put light on the reality of true community in very hard times.

On my own I am researching – with no clear idea of where it can or cannot go – the question ~ is music still being played just for the sake of music? This notion started with an appreciation of bluegrass and how relatively new it is. Are there still people singing the old music that lead to bluegrass? Are there people getting together just to sing and play together? I have a romanticized notion of an old front porch up a dirt or asphalt road wondering if that exits still but I imagine that is possibly just nostalgia on my part. So, free of that, I am wondering if music can still bring people together. Well, the idea is so nascent I can barely nail it down. It can totally change or just dissolve. Don’t know. Truth is, I love going into places and stories I know nothing about so it is probably the road that is calling me and any project will do!

Sixty4: I love this. I love the questions. I love the comfort with ambiguity. What was the last photo you saw that left you with an a-ha moment of understanding — compassion, joy, wonder, sadness, or any other deeply felt emotion?

Anne Muller: A fine question. It is a famous picture, maybe a Pulitzer winner a few years back, but I don’t know the photographer’s name. The picture, a color image, is of a solder’s flag draped casket, being removed from the belly of a parked 747. It is night. The windows on the airplane are illuminated and each window has a pensive passenger watching the casket. I suppose it is the same thing that always rivets me, the same as the community experience in Ohio, it is that we are all connected, all in this life together for better and worse.

[The photo Anne mentioned was by Todd Heisler of The Rocky Mountain News and you can see it here]

Annie Fratellini (1932 - 1997), French Clown. Photo/Painting...

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:30:17 -0400

Annie Fratellini (1932 - 1997), French Clown. Photo/Painting from Valerie Voinchet

A French Clown!

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:25:49 -0400

Today a friend passed on an article about the spending habits of those over 55 in France. According to McKinsey two-thirds of all growth in consumer spending in France will come from people who are over 55 years old. The report is suitably called: Older, smarter, more value conscious: The French consumer transformation. Nice.

So in honor of France I wanted to highlight an interesting character, Annie Fratellini (1932 - 1997), who was a third generation french clown. When she was 42 she opened France’s first native clown school and she was a major source of inspiration for Cirque Du Soliel. Her school was unique in that it taught art, not just technique, to performers. She was the first women inducted into the Clown Hall of Fame and founded a private vocational school to train back stage workers. She continued clowning until she passed away of cancer at age 64. Her daughter Valeri is continuing the tradition. I heart Annie.

William Willis, preparing to sail solo across the pacific in a...

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:22:00 -0400

William Willis, preparing to sail solo across the pacific in a hand-made raft…

4664: A cool palindrome.

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:09:00 -0400

1946 marks the beginning of the ‘baby boomer’ generation. And 1964 marks the end of that era. In 2010 those born in 1946 will be 64 years old, like my father. And those born in 1964 will be 46, like some good friends of mine.

4664.

Last week, Ad Age reported on a Nielsen study with the hapless title: This Isn’t Your Grandfathers Baby Boomer that challenges marketers to look away from the shiny new mom and towards the highly influential, with disposable income, and not nearly-so-brand-loyal-as-we-think, market of baby boomers. Amen.

It seemed like a perfect opportunity to launch my new blog. A blog that thinks ‘boomer’ is a an unfortunate pigeon-hole stereotype for people who are frickin cool and interesting and are in most cases much much smarter than me. Boomer says: Old fashioned, afraid of technology, and stuck in one’s ways. But when William Willis was 60 years old he built a custom raft out of 7 Balsa logs and sailed solo from Peru to Samoa… And he did it again when he was 70 (on a bigger raft that went farther)!

Age is irrelevant. It’s mindset we care about. So this coming collection of anecdotes is about defying expectations and embracing the hutzpah of people who have enough experience to teach us a thing or two.