Do you know who Leighton, Cuttino, Rihanna, Jensen, Dane or Feist are?
August 5, 2008
Do you know who Leighton, Cuttino, Rihanna, Jensen, Dane or Feist are?
No? Neither do we. Not a single one.
But shush. Don’t admit it. That’s the advice in Entry # 63 of the dead-on, always funny, sometimes laugh-outloud How Not To Act Old blog by Montclair writer Pamela Redmond Satran.
Satran, who will go no more calendarically specific than to hint she is “old enough to have written 14 books” and “in my fifties” says that when she started the blog two months ago she aimed it at “people of my age and generation, but to my surprise I think it's hitting hardest with the 40ish people, who probably still have some hope that they might actually be considered young and with it. ”
Much of the humor comes from the self-proclaimed Boomer belief that 50 is the new 40, and 40 is the new 30 (now that we haven’t been Thirtysomething for a while, we really don’t care how old people actually in their 30s think they are).
Of course, even our parents generation wanted to feel young, but back then 50 was still 50. And maybe it still is, Satran says. “We suffered through the ‘generation gap’ with our parents and swore we were never going to be like that, we were always going to be somehow cutting edge or at least appreciate what was new and cool and interesting. And we don't, and that shocks and horrifies us.”
But shock and horror are no part of Satran’s blog. Just responsible, professional advice about how not to act old: Don’t Count Out Exact Change, Learn To Type With Your Thumbs, only use “groovy” with irony.
Well, maybe there is a little shock and horror, like in entry #28, Don’t Listen To Springsteen. Yikes! We at NJ My Way went to last week’s Springsteen concert in Giants Stadium, despite the advice of teenagers we know who say Bruce is for old people.
But then again, if you are 50 these days it’s like being 40, no? And if 40s is the new 30s, then that makes us…ah, never mind. Maybe Pam can figure it out.
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