Boomers and sex

2006-05-30T03:56:00.000-07:00

Karen von Hahn: Hi David. This is an interesting question, how a new generation facing retirement age plans to retire. I don't think the boomers are going to be like prior generations, just check into some sunny golfing Epcot in Arizona with a bunch of old people and wait for their lives to end. It must be remembered that they are the generation who is actively re-defining aging and all our expectations along the way. Which is why the service that you are looking for to assist you with your retirement move is really somebody's genius business opportunity, because I don't think it exists yet.

My suggestion would be to go through your local university or museum, institutions which often offer continuing education trips to fabulous places. A dear friend of mine who was recently widowed has approached her retirement that way. She just came back from three months in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where she spent her days learning Spanish, and taking salsa dancing and Mexican cooking classes!

D Michaels from Canada writes: Is there anything sadder than aging boomers who still think they know what cool means? And if kids are preventing old people from having sex then that is unfortunate. More unfortunate is the fact that kids can't prevent these wrinkled bodies from writing about their sex lives. Here's a new flash: young people are aesthetically pleasing and foolish; old people are wise but ugly. The boomer generation's dream of culture triumphing over nature is just sad. tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock ... Flying into Los Angeles; needing one or two surgeries; pass the scalpel if you please Mr. Doctor man.

Karen von Hahn: Hello D. Michaels. First, I want to clarify that just because I write about parenting and other "mature" issues, I am not in fact a card-carrying member of the Boomers. I was born in 1961, smack dab in the shadow of the Boomer generation. By all rights I should loathe these people, who have incessantly shaped culture to fit their own needs and wants as it suited them over time. When I got out of school in the early 80s, there were no jobs or opportunities for younger people without "experience". Now the only voices anybody wants to listen to are from those who seem to be still in diapers.

More importantly, however, I couldn't disagree with you more about old people being ugly. I suspect you, like many others of your limited perspective, are merely blinded by the current aesthetic of dumb popular culture, which is all about perpetuating self-loathing in the interests of those who would sell us anti-aging snake oil.

The truth is that young people may be firm and fresh-skinned, but they have no style. They may look good in their jeans, but they are just copying their friends or the latest in InStyle. True style requires soul, not to mention substance and perspective.

In my view, what is beautiful isn't a hard piece of new plastic, but a soft bag of worn leather or the pillars of an ancient temple that has patinated over time. Moreover, perfection in and of itself is boring, which is why plastic surgery must be avoided. More than anything else, it represents the empty homogenisation of all of our wonderful and varied individual looks and irregularities that, if we really were open-minded, we would appreciate more over time.

2006-05-30T03:55:00.001-07:00

My last trip was a week in Sarasota Florida, where we all hung out on the gorgeous beach on the Gulf of Mexico and ate to much peel 'n eat shrimp. That part of Florida is a real treasure--it still feels comparatively southern and somewhat undiscovered. One place we went for lunch was called the Rod 'n Reel. It was out on an old pier in the bay, and you can fish your own lunch & they'll cook it for you, which was adorable. As for the delights of Sarasota, it is the MOST amazing place to shop for vintage furniture and clothing. There are streets full of used furniture shops and consignment stores (presumably the cast-offs of all those old rich people who come to Sarasota to die). I found a 1970s Lanvin handbag for next to nothing in one of them. But there are some savvy shoppers buying for their NYC stores. My theory is that this crowd is going to turn Sarasota into the next Miami.

Jasmine Parkinson from Wallaceburg, Ont. writes: Hi, Karen. I liked your column very much. Can you offer any tips you use to get the kids out of the way for the necessary quiet time with your husband?

Karen von Hahn: Hi Jasmine, I'm thrilled to hear that you like the column. It's certainly great fun every week to write.

My tip for getting some quality time with your husband is to somehow, some time, get out of town together. Sad as it may sound, we have made the error of including our kids in everything, and the only way you get to have adult time and remember why you ever got yourself into this mess in the first place is to leave them at home sometimes. And don't feel guilty about it! One reader had a less expensive solution — try waking up earlier than your teenagers. If a little romance works for you in the morning, you can be guaranteed to have peace and quiet at 6 am.

Allison D., from Toronto writes: You write a lot about your teenage daughters. What sort of attitude do you think this upcoming generation of women will have, with regards to feminism? Have they embraced its ideals? Have they rejected it entirely? Are they somewhere in between?

Karen von Hahn: Hi Allison, thanks for your terrific question.

Yes, I have a 16, almost 17 year-old daughter, and a 12 year-old son. The impression I get from my daughter and her contemporaries is that they are indeed somewhere in between.

Although they want to be doctors and engineers and make as much as men, a lot of the very recent advances that my generation fought hard for they seem to take for granted. Moreover, they would never describe themselves as feminists. I think that this is due largely to a generational complacency, as well as a major cultural backlash out there.

Thanks to Britney and Paris and Nicole, right now, our girls are more worried about whether guys think they're "hot" than they are about the fact that there are less women in political life now than there were a generation ago. Similarly they seem unconcerned with the fact that their mothers continue to struggle with balancing motherhood and work. If anything, I find them a bit of a worrisome throwback. And their new heroes are young celebrities who pretend that you can have your great body back a week after having a baby and that the entire goal of existence is to stay cool and look great.

David Bird from Fernie writes: My partner of 30 odd years and I are planning retirement in either the winter of 2007 or the spring of 2008. While we wish to remain in Canada for most of the year we would like to spend a significant amount of time travelling to warmer climes. We are more interested in going local as opposed to using resorts, renting furnished accommodation in University communities and the like. To date I have been frustrated in my attempts to find resources to assist me in planning such a getaway. Can you suggest strategies.

2006-05-30T03:55:00.000-07:00

Our guest today was Style's Page 3 columnist Karen Von Hahn, who pens an ever-popular weekly discourse called Noticed on everything trend-setting and cool. Karen is the country's pre-eminent voice on trends in the art of consumption. As host and producer of the groundbreaking television program The Goods, she introduced a whole new way of looking at social trends through the material world. An award-winning journalist and frequent contributor to a variety of publications from En Route to House & Home, Karen is also the author of one book The Hip Guide to Toronto

Recently, Karen has written about Melancholy-Genius and Madness in Art, a Berlin show that brings together diverse and miserable masterpieces from 6th-century Sapphos to tortured genius self-portraits, and HBO's controversial new series Big Love, about a family of Utah polygamists.

And don't worry, you can talk about boomers and sex, too (though Karen writes it's got nothing to do with aging bodies and declining sex drive — it's the kids' fault).

"As soon as they reach the double digits," she wrote last week, "these admittedly lovely young people who have sprung from your loins not only eat with you, but no longer say nighty-night after dinner. In fact, they want to hang out with you, which is very sweet and a lot of fun, but guess what? They're not ready to call it a night until you are so exhausted that the little slice of adult private time between seeing them off and hitting the pillows is taken up with brushing and flossing."

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Michael Snider, globeandmail.com: Hello Karen, thanks for being with us today. Welcome readers, glad you could join us, too. Karen, you were travelling recently, weren't you? Where did you go and what did you see?

Karen von Hahn: I have indeed been on the road the last few weeks Michael.

First in New York City, where I attended the opening of the International Photography Fair at the Armoury in Manhattan, which is this wonderful old building that is so old New York. The show turned out to quite an eye-opener about the state of the art photography market. The crowd was very well-heeled, very uptown serious art collectors--not the crowd one would typically associate with collecting photography. Even though there are still some doubts about the longevity of a photographic image, and its value as compared to a work of art that is not infinitely reproducible, like, say a painting, some iconic images such as an original Edward Weston nautilus shell, which is now so well represented on posters in college dorms that it is almost a visual cliche, was being offered at a staggering $750,000 U.S.! (It was snapped up and apparently the buyer hadn't overpaid -- the next week, the MOMA bought an original Steichen print of the same era for $2-million and change).

My next stop Michael, was Berlin, a fascinating city that I have had the pleasure of visiting several times over the years. The first time, when the city was still divided by the wall, and then several times since, as the former East Berlin has emerged as the city's new centre. All the hot new stores, galleries and restaurants are in the former East, and everyone wants to live there. It's almost ironic that the area that now looks sort of forlorn and almost retro is the former West, around the once chic Kurfurstendamm, which is now sort of stuck in a time warp of the 1950s as there has been little development and energy directed to that district.

While I was there, I was most fortunate to catch another great art show on Melancholy and its influence in art at the Modern art museum, which showed a whole new way of curating art. Instead of grouping together the Impressionists or artists of a certain period, it amassed over 300 works from the Greeks to Warhol that told a complex narrative about this theme.