Autumn 2026

 

This year we have had a really lovely autumn in Toronto.  There have been so many beautiful sunny days during the last few weeks.  The temperature has been in that perfect range where it's comfortable to be out walking with a light jacket - cool enough not be feel overheated but warm enough that you don't start feeling chilly and want to get inside where it's warmer.

The leaves have been hanging on the trees.  Some autumns it feels like the leaves turn very quickly and within a week a strong breeze has come along and the leaves are all on the ground and the trees are bare.  

I'm so grateful to be experiencing  this "slow" autumn.  

I've been having that feeling of gratitude often during these recent years.  I'm an old man and now I often find I'm reminding myself to focus on what's around me, to appreciate the now, since anything I experience could be the last time I'm here to do it.  

This to me is one of the gifts of living into old age.  Certainly anytime in your life you could be experiencing something for the last time - young people die - but when you're young it's hard to keep that awareness of the ephemeral nature of life in your consciousness and maybe you shouldn't, maybe you should be focusing on living and the world and what you what to do with your life.

But for me, now, in these later years, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about five years from now or even next year. I find such comfort in the now, in the daily, in the simple fact of existence.

Not Watching

 

In her later years my mother stopped watching nature documentaries.

It wasn't that she was trying to pretend that there was no violence in nature, or that animals didn't kill and eat one another, or wound each other in fights over mates or dominance or territory.  She wasn't trying to pretend such things weren't the way of the world.   She just didn't want to watch it anymore.

In these my own later years it's not nature documentaries that bother me since I've never watched many of them, but I do find myself avoiding certain books, movies and TV shows.  I'm not trying to deny that there is violence and cruelty in the world. I just don't want to watch it unnecessarily.  The news provides plenty to be disturbed by.  

So I gravitate to cozy mysteries and TV shows.  Undeniably there are really violent things going on but I think in these cozy type things you tend to not lose track of the fact that it's just a story you're watching or reading, it's not real life, you're able to maintain that distance.   

Rate of Change

 

I have found myself thinking a lot about yesterday's (Sep 16) post.

I was born in the late 1940s, one of the early Baby Boomers.

The world began changing fairly rapidly with the Industrial Revolution  and the rate of change has only accelerated since then.  I think though that the changes since 1950 have been in many ways staggering.  I don't think humans have ever before had to deal with this much newness happening so quickly.

There were major events in this period, assassinations, wars, uprisings, mass deaths, AIDS, Covid, a devastating tsunami but these are things that humans have always had to cope with. But I''m thinking of technological and scientific things, and some sweeping social movements such as Civil Rights, The Women's Movement, The Gay Movement - not necessarily new ideas but in this period leading to major changes in society.

-When I was very young, in the summers I was not allowed to go swimming or even play with other children- the fear was exposure to polio.  I clearly remember the release of the two polio vaccines.

-There was also the fear of a nuclear war - the first time when humans were realistically capable of of actually destroying the world - if not the physical planet then at least wiping out humans.

-Sputnik, humans in space and landing on the moon, landers on Mars and other places, Voyagers, a flyby of Pluto, the space station, GPS.

-Colour TV, cable TV, VHS and Beta (being able to watch a movie when you chose instead of hoping a favourite would maybe show up on the late show), 33 1/3 LPs, CDs, DVDs, streaming services. Microwave ovens!

-Computers not just in government, universities and large corporations but in small businesses and then in homes and laptops and cell phones and now in just about everything - cars, appliances, doorbells.

-I went to university in the late 60s and early 70s - calculations were done on paper using slide rules and log tables.  Early calculators were forbidden in exam rooms.

-The Internet.  This still amazes me at times.  I lived in the age where you were lucky if you had a home encyclopedia- otherwise you went to the library.  Now if you and your friends have a question while at dinner you use your phone to find the answer in seconds.  Bills paid, forms filed, online ordering, social media.  AI.

-Genetics.  DNA, the triplet code, the Human Genome Project, gene editing, new insights into disease.

-Medicine. Lens implants to replace cataracts, laparoscopic surgeries, a huge number of new drugs.  Vaccines for flu, and Covid, and shingles, and pneumonia etc.  New cancer treatments. 

These are huge changes and they have happened very quickly.  Young people now have never known a world without computers or instant access to friends and information and entertainment.

So I think old people like me who are somewhat turning away from "the new" are not doing so just because of their age but also because they are worn out coping with rapid (and accelerating) change.

People growing up in this world have always lived with rapid change. They expect it.  Perhaps their brains are wired differently than those of us Boomers because of it.

Avoiding The New

 

I have noticed for a while that I have been avoiding or not finishing new content on my Netflix, BritBox etc.  I find myself watching and enjoying older programs that I have seen in the past - sometimes I remember them well, sometimes vaguely, sometimes not at all.  I imagine this is just another facet of growing old, and I'm not alone.  On my social media feeds content comes up from other aging people and it seems this is not an uncommon phenomenon.   

Someone commented today that, watching the Emmys, they didn't recognize any of the new, young actors and programs and that they had no intention of trying to correct that.

I wonder if this is just not wanting to deal with the "new" in old(er) age or if it is just not liking the content that is being produced.

I'm able to access Kanopy (thank you Toronto Public Library!) and it has a wonderful collection of classic films.  Many are "foreign" films that I didn't see when they were new (and I was young) and I'm enjoying seeing them now.  I don't necessarily understand them the first time through but the internet (something new that I do love) lets me track down reviews and opinions without having to leave home.

And there's Tubi.  They have so much content.  Lately I've been watching films with Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Norma Shearer.  Science fiction - good and bad.  Barbara Steele in those wonderful gothic tales she led. There's so much to choose from, from the entirety of film history.  I'm happy to watch ads in exchange for all they're providing.  

I'm finding a bit of the same thing with books - not as pronounced - but there are some new books that get really good reviews that I don't relate to at all. But there are still new books with rave reviews that fully deserve them.  

Nothing of course can be done about the fact that I am old and feel the limit of time I may have left.  So much to read. So much to watch.

Movie: Cinema Paradiso. (1988)

 

I'll start right off by saying that this to me is a perfect movie. I have thought that since the first time I saw it in the theatre.                  

The score by Ennio Morricone is exactly right for the film.  I just have to think about it and I can hear it in my head.

The story, the cast, the cinematography, the costumes - it all just works.  It's gentle and tender and nostalgic but never maudlin.

There are two versions available on disc - 124 minutes and 174 minutes.  I was looking forward to seeing the longer version when it became available but now I'm rather sorry I ever saw it.

In the 124 minute version there is much that is never resolved and that to me is part of what makes the film so wonderful - it feels so real because there are things in everyone's life that are never fully explained or understood.  That is why the scenes when Salvatore returns to his hometown are so deeply toughing.

In the 174 minute version all is explained and resolved and made concrete and I do my best to block all that out when I watch or even think about the film.

Two Movies Based on Andy Wier Books

 

Project Hail Mary (2026)

This movie was a hit and deservedly so.  It's fun, moving, Ryan Gosling is affable, Rocky was pretty believable, the special effects were good.  But for me something felt off.  Some scenes felt awkward and unfinished.  It was a very long movie.  I did enjoy watching it and I know the critics and public loved it.  But in the end I was left feeling that there was something lacking.  As though there should have more to it.  For me the book was far better than the movie.

The Martian (2015)

This movie was also a hit but for me it was a much better film.  I just found it more satisfying.  Perhaps it's just that it felt like a film for adults whereas Project Hail Mary felt like more of a family film.  In this case the movie was just as good as the book - not better, but just as good.

Retirement

 

I've been following a chap on Substack who has been writing about his experience of retirement.   He was someone who had left a position of authority and responsibility and was initially having difficulty finding his place in his new circumstances.  Someone who had probably been very busy with his work and for whom work had taken up a large part of his time.  I imagine this is not uncommon in people who are used to getting respect and obedience and loyalty from those around them and it has to be difficult when suddenly that is no longer true and for most people you are now just another being in the crowd, and you now have all this time to fill.

In my case I looked forward to retirement and was so happy from day one.  For me I didn't feel much different about my place in the world or who I was because I had always just had a "job" - I had responsibilities and I feel I was a always good at what I did, but it wasn't who I was - at the end of the workday I went home to my life.  So when the job was no longer there, my life was still there, intact.

My only real issue in my working days was with the middle management types who were often a little drunk with power and loved bossing others around.   I always just wanted to be told clearly what I was expected to do and then be left alone to get on with it.

I don't think I was ever particularly ambitious about my place in the world.  I wanted to make enough money to live and save and do what interested me on my own time and basically for the world to just leave me alone. 

I remember someone asking be once, when I was a recent graduate,  if I didn't want to pursue a law degree, or an MBA so that I could "be something in the world, be part of the real power in the world", and I just thought, "No, no I don't,  I don't want that at all."