Philip Roth on Aging

Mr. Roth may have touched on a bit of wisdom in that one minute remark. I am old enough to be sure he is right–the only thing golden about these years is the t-chest of memories sharing time and attention with others. MJ, my sole idol, if I had any in the arts, represented portrait of a man -yes, a man, McWhorter (see TNR), getting older as he was. What writers do so often is comment effusively about what someone is or is not in America. Our nation is not a nation of manly men, rappers, baritones or falsetto voices. It’s everything seen and unseen, heard and unheard. Does America have an identity? Let’s be honest. We make up our lives as we go here and celebrate pretense. If MJ epitomized anything, it was that pretense, the fantasy of being whatever he wanted to be. With no axe to grind, I have no judgement againt my song and dance idol. Whether old age would have wore him well or wore him out, we’ll never know. But in anything that will remain of Americana, he’ll be there.