Essays

How state lawmakers seeking a solution to St. Louis County’s municipal revenue problems found more than they bargained for.

The recent film Miles Ahead says a lot about how Miles Davis treated women and, by extension, the ways jazz fans view his legacy.

Some grace notes to our original May 3 listicle of great films about jazz.

Life stories and individual memory define our roles, however small, in history. The good news of growing old is that we have more to tell.

The ailments, agist stereotypes, and ultimate end-point of death itself rarely figure in the minds of the young. Until, that is, the long-term consequences of our short-term denial become more and more obvious as the years pass.

“Our span of life is divided into parts; it consists of large circles enclosing smaller. One circle embraces and bounds the rest; it reaches from birth to the last day of existence.”

No one—in either real or reel life—wants to confront the difficulties of aging, the imminence of dying. The point is best proved by Leo McCarey’s glorious Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), the most unbearably moving and resolutely unsparing work Hollywood has ever made about the elderly.

I cannot allow of our way of establishing the duration of life. I see that the wise shorten it very much in comparison of the common opinion. “What,” said the younger Cato to those who would prevent him from killing himself, “am I now of an age to be reproached that I go out of […]

The English romantic poet speaks to the envy of old age.

Future businesses may have as many as five different generations working together. Here is how to best cultivate an environment in which everyone works their best.