ELDER MUSIC: Vivaldi

This Sunday Elder Music column was launched in December of 2008. By May of the following year, one commenter, Peter Tibbles, had added so much knowledge and value to my poor attempts at musical presentations that I asked him to take over the column. He's been here each week ever since delighting us with his astonishing grasp of just about everything musical, his humor and sense of fun. You can read Peter's bio here and find links to all his columns here.

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ANTONIO VIVALDI's most famous work won't be featured in today's column nor, indeed, in any column I write. You'll have to go elsewhere if you want to listen to it. I’ve heard those seasons so many times over the years I’d be quite happy never to hear them again.

There’s not much known about Antonio's personal life but what is known could be the basis of one of those best selling airport books or made into a film by Ken Russell. I’m surprised that he didn’t do it.

On the surface it sounds scurrilous: Antonio travelled about Europe with two sisters less than half his age; for most of his professional life he was the head music teacher for a girls’ orphanage; he earned serious money and lost it by investing in the opera business; he died a pauper far from home and his reputation languished in obscurity until the 20th century when vast amounts of his work were rediscovered all over Europe.

Alas, the surface isn’t the reality as far as we know. There probably wasn’t any hanky panky going on with the sisters or any of the girls at the orphanage because Antonio was really devoted to composing and playing music. But we’ll never know.

The sisters were Anna Girò (or Giraud) who was his favorite opera soprano and her sister Paolina. They lived with Antonio in Venice and, as mentioned, toured with him.

Anna was about 17 and Antonio 48 when they first met. Things were said about him in his lifetime. Guido Bentivoglio refused to allow Antonio to stage an opera in Ferrara. He claimed that Vivaldi was unfit for such an honor. He seems like yet another jumped-up city official who has an inflated opinion of himself. Those types are still around, unfortunately.

Antonio was technically a priest; however, he refused to perform mass. He said that his asthma hindered him from this performance. It didn’t seem to affect his ability to travel, write great works, perform them, teach or manage an opera house but who are we to quibble?

He took the position at the Ospedale delle Pieta (the Hospital of Pity or Compassion) the same year he was ordained and didn’t actually compose any religious music for the first 10 years in the job; it was all secular music.

This does rather suggest he became a priest only because it offered him a chance to compose and play his music.

The position called for him to teach the girls to play music and he had to write two concertos every month for them to perform. This is almost certainly the reason that he wrote works for many different instruments - to allow all of the girls a chance to perform. They must have had considerable ability as the works he wrote are quite challenging and not for any old hackers.

His position was up for grabs each year and he often came and went as the whim took him but off and on, he spent 35 years at the Ospedale.

In between, he liked to travel, especially to Rome but also Amsterdam, Dresden, Bohemia and Vienna. Towards the end of his life, his music was out of fashion but Emperor Charles VI offered him a position in Vienna. Antonio sold a bunch of his manuscripts to finance the journey as he was rather skint at this point.

Unfortunately, Charlie died just after he arrived so there was no job there for him. Antonio died soon after and is buried somewhere there in a pauper’s grave.

J.S. Bach knew his works well and he transcribed several of his concertos for other instruments. They didn’t ever meet though; Bach was a bit of a stay-at-home person.

That’s pretty much what we know about Vivaldi.

That’s enough talking, let the music play.

I’ve always liked the Baroque trio sonata; Handel was a master of this form. I see them as a sort of forerunner to the Classical string quartet, although there weren’t always just string instruments; Handel liked to bung in a flute or two in some of his.

Antonio wrote a number of these and I’m including one of them, Trio Sonata Op 5, No. 5 RV76, the third movement.

♫ Trio Sonata Op 5, No. 5 RV 76 (3)

Nisi Dominus (RV608) is a setting of Psalm 126. Here we have the fourth part (not really a movement) called Cum dederit. The violin in this rather reminds me somewhat of “Winter” in that work of Antonio’s that I’m not mentioning or playing.

♫ Cum dederit

Concerto Op. 4 No. 7 in C major RV185 is taken from a set of concertos called “La Stravaganza.” Gramophone magazine describes these 12 concertos as quite extravagant stuff (not surprising, given the name), full of fantasy and experiment – novel sounds, ingenious textures, exploratory melodic lines, original types of figuration, unorthodox forms.

Well, we’ll see about that in the second movement of that concerto.

♫ Concerto Op. 4 No. 7 in C major RV185 (2)

Mandolins are rarely heard these days outside bluegrass bands, but Antonio rather liked them, on the basis of his output. I don’t know how they were heard over the other instruments; even with modern recordings the rest of the instruments do rather dominate proceedings.

I’ve decided to go with the third movement of his Concerto for Mandolin, Strings and Continuo RV134.

♫ Concerto for Mandolin, Strings and Continuo RV 134 (3)

Antonio’s set of concertos for flute was not only the first collection of flute concertos published in Italy, it may have been the first set of flute concertos ever published. The one today has a name, “Il Gardellino,” the goldfinch, named thus because of flute passages that supposedly sound like a goldfinch chortling away.

I don’t know, I wouldn’t recognize a goldfinch if I tripped over one. Anyway, here is the first movement of the Flute Concerto in D, RV428.

♫ Concerto in D major (1)

The wonderful Cecilia Bartoli has recorded an album of Vivaldi’s works and naturally I’m going to include something from that. This is the aria, Dite, oimè from the opera “La fida ninfa”. The notes from the album describe this as having a melancholy lyricism. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

♫ Cecilia Bartoli - Dite, oimè

Next we have what folks in the music trade call a concerto for a bunch of things. Those with a technical bent might want to call this the Concerto in F major for violin, 2 horns, 2 oboes, bassoon, strings and bass continuo, RV569. This is the first movement.

♫ Concerto in F major RV569 (1)

One of Antonio’s commissioned liturgical works was the oratorio “Juditha Triumphans devicta Holofernis barbaric” that celebrates the victory of the republic of Venice over the Turks and their recapture of the island of Corfù. Here is an aria from that work by the mezzo-soprano Gloria Banditelli called Quo Cum Patriae Me Ducit.

♫ Quo Cum Patriae Me Ducit

I’ll finish with a cello sonata, indeed, cello sonata in B flat major, RV46 - the first movement of that one. Accompanying the cello there are an organ and a theorbo.

For those who are unfamiliar with that last instrument - and that would have included me until I did a bit of investigating - it’s a long necked lute, but has a second set of tuning pegs half way along the neck. It looks like this:

♫ Cello Sonata in B flat major RV46 (1)

INTERESTING STUFF – 4 February 2012

THE FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF...
Mr. Morris Lessmore. On last week's discussion of e-readers versus “real” books, Marian (sorry, the link you left to your blog doesn't work) left a reference to a little animated movie titled as above. It's magical and wonderful and nominated for an Academy Award this year. Here is the film from Moonbot Studios via Vimeo:

There is also an interactive iPad app for children available here. You can read more about the movie here.

NYC AGENCIES STILL USING TYPEWRITERS
Shocked the hell out of me to read that the City of New York has put out a request for bids to replace 1172 aging electric typewriters that various city agencies, including the police department still use.

“'The offices that use them here have to fill out old-style standardized requisitions and purchase orders, etc. — forms that have multiple carbonless-copy pages and which need an actual keystroke to make a copy on all the pages,' said Department of Transportation spokesman Seth Solomonow.”

Can it be that it has occurred to no one in city administration that nowadays there are apps for that along with printers and scanners and all? Read more here.

WHY VOTE
Nancy Leitz sent this video from Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC about the most important reason for us all to vote in presidential elections.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A FRIEND SENT THIS POLITICAL JOKE
he says has been making the rounds in New York.

Q. How did Newt get Sheldon Adelson to give him $18 million?

A. He promised his next wife would be Jewish.

MAUI THE CAT AND HER TREADMILL
Keeping a svelte feline figure. (Hat tip to Darlene Costner)

OR NOT - THESE CATS SEE IT DIFFERENTLY

STATES TAX POOR AT GREATER RATE THAN RICH
It's not just the federal government that gives the rich a break on taxes. All 50 states and the District of Columbia do it too. Yesterday, Kevin Drum at Mother Jones:

”...data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that in the median state (Mississippi, as it turns out) the poorest 20 percent pay twice the tax rate of the top 1 percent. In the worst states, the poorest 20 percent pay five to six times the rate of the richest 1 percent.”

You can see all the data for your state at the Corporation for Enterprise Development's scorecard page.

CANINE PIANIST/SINGER
From the YouTube page (Hat tip to Darlene Costner):

”Imagine, you are a singer and you accompany yourself on the piano. You have a small dog who is your constant companion and watches as you rehearse. Got the picture?

“Now, imagine that you must be away for a few hours and leave the dog alone at home. Here is what happened while you were away.”

ELDERS TEXTING ON THE TOILET
You have to wonder who thinks up these surveys and more, who bothers to answer such questions as, do you use your phone while you're on the toilet. Here's one answer [emphasis mine]:

”The survey of 1,000 people by the marketing agency 11mark found that private contemplation has given way to toilet-time talking, texting, shopping, using apps, or just surfing the Web, by both sexes and most ages. Among those 65 and older, however, only 47 percent have used their mobile devices on the toilet.”

You can find out more than you ever wanted to know about other people's technology/bathroom habits here.

COMMERCIAL FROM AUSTRALIAN TENNIS OPEN
Our own music maestro, Peter Tibbles, spent the past couple of weeks glued to television watching the Australian Open. Well, probably not glued, but still. He sent along this commercial that was broadcast several times during the tournament.

The “ball” in the commercial is a sugar glider, a small possum native to Australia. You can read more about them here and see tons of photos here.

Apparently sugar gliders are sold as pets in the U.S. but Peter tells me the cute, little marsupials are a protected species in Australia so not allowed to be owned as pets in that country.

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Interesting Stuff is a weekly listing of short takes and links to web items that have caught my attention; some related to aging and some not, some useful and others just for fun.

You are all encouraged to submit items for inclusion. Just click “Contact” in the upper left corner of any Time Goes By page to send them. I'm sorry that I probably won't have time to acknowledge receipt and there is no guarantee of publication. But when I do include them, you will be credited and I will link to your blog if you have one.

What It's Like to Get Old – on This Day, Anyway

Well, I mean yesterday, Thursday. It's been happening about every two months for the past five years or so, as it did yesterday.

I awakened at my usual early hour and followed my normal routine. Fed the cat, made the coffee, read some news and answered some email for awhile before I showered, dressed and had breakfast - the usual for a winter morning: hot oatmeal with fresh fruit. Yesterday it was half a banana, some blueberries and homemade apple sauce.

Then I got undressed and went back to bed.

As I said, it doesn't happen often but fairly regularly. I wake, apparently feeling fine and ready for the day. But an hour later, I don't feel fine. I feel tired and a bit sick. Nothing I can identify - like a fever or a cold or aches or pains or anything I'd bother a physician with. I just feel crummy.

It's not that I haven't had enough sleep – plenty of that. I'm not a drinker except for wine at dinner with friends which has not been the case for a week.

And so I spent the morning sleeping, broke for a light lunch, went back to bed again and alternately snoozed and watched an episode of an old British police drama on Netflix that I've come to like.

In the late afternoon, I rose again, dressed and prepared for an evening community meeting feeling fine and dandy. In fact, feeling as though I'd spent the day resting in bed – whether I needed it or not.

A good while ago, I decided to chalk it up to old age – that sometimes the ol' body and mind need time off from life for a day even if they haven't been overtaxed. It's another plus for retirement: I do it because I can.

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Mark Sherman: Idiot Moments

Elder Occupy

On yesterday's post about a (non)answer from the White House in response to my letter about Social Security, Jan Adams, Letha, Frank Paynter and Linda all noted that this is an example of what the Occupy movement is about and that we elders need to do some occupying.

As serendipity sometimes provides (hat tip to Margie), on the same day at Campaign for America's Future, Leo Gerard wrote about the dozen elders, “men and women in their 60s, 70s and even 80s” who have been occupying a median strip in front of a closed Century Aluminum plant in Ravenswood, West Virginia since mid-December.

”In tents and under tarps, a small group stays overnight, despite hypertension, arthritis and other old age ailments,” writes Gerard...

“These vulnerable people expose themselves to weather extremes although some have no health insurance at all. Century cancelled it. That’s why they’re occupying Century.”

Here is a photo of the some of these occupiers that I copied from their Facebook page.

The Ravenswood plant was shut down in February 2009, putting 650 employees out of work. A comfort, however, was the company's promise through all the years of their toil that they would receive lifelong health coverage would be paid for by the company. Gerard explains what happened next [emphasis is mine]:

”Nine months after the shutdown, [Century Aluminum] announced it would terminate as of June 1, 2010 health benefits for retirees eligible for Medicare. Then on Nov. 1, 2010, Century told its retirees who weren’t yet eligible for Medicare that it would stop paying for their coverage as of Jan. 1, 2011.”

The recently fired CEO of Century Aluminum was paid $4.9 million in 2010 and given $6.2 million to leave the company last November. (The greed of the one percent never ends; he is suing for $20 million more.) But the company is still fighting the retirees over payment for the health coverage they were promised.

In an odd move, Century Aluminum has provided port-o-potties for the elder occupy protesters; I have no idea what to say about that. You can read of other developments in this story here.

Temperatures in Ravenswood were 39F overnight and expected to be 54F today so at least the weather is helping. The West Virginia governor and the state's senators are supporting the elder occupiers but there has been no resolution and I know it must be physically hard – I'm not sure I could be out there next to a highway day in and day out.

Here is the 2 January Facebook announcement about one of the occupier's health:

“A very sad day at Occupy Century yesterday. One of our champions, Sonny Hinzman, was taken to the hospital with indications of a stroke. Please keep him in your prayers.

“Sonny had no co insurance because it was costing him $1700.00 a month to insure just his wife and daughter with COBRA. It was cost prohibitive for him to include himself. This is why we will never give up and endure whatever weather is thrown at us! This is murder without a gun!”

You might want to stop by the Facebook page to offer some encouragement.

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Terry Hamburg: Cruisin'

The White House Responds and...

...there is nothing to know. Did we really expect anything else?

Remember last Friday when I posted a letter here that I had emailed the White House asking President Barack Obama not to sell out elders in regard to Social Security?

Yesterday, Tuesday, I received a reply. Well, I assume it is a reply to that note since I haven't sent any others in the past couple of months. It's hard to tell since there is zero reference to me or to the subject of my letter:

January 31, 2012

Dear Friend:

Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas. I appreciate hearing from you.

Our Nation faces serious challenges, and we will only overcome them by involving all Americans in shaping the policies that affect their own lives. My Administration is continuously working to engage individuals in innovative ways. I encourage you to explore www.WhiteHouse.gov, which is regularly updated and more interactive than ever before.

Thank you, again, for contacting me and providing your thoughtful suggestions.

Sincerely,
Barack Obama

Not even a personalized salutation like “Dear Ms. Bennett” or an “about Social Security” at the end of the first sentence.

I have no doubt many of you have received similar communications in response to your own messages to Congress or the president - that is, polite, knee-jerk phrases completely devoid of meaningful information.

What a bunch of hooey. I feel like a third grader who's been patted on the head by her elders for doing good work in school today.

I am torn in two directions about this stuff. On the one hand, I understand that there is not enough money for the White House (or members of Congress) to hire the number of people – smart ones, too – who would be needed to read through, consider and give a thoughtful response to every letter received.

On the other hand, it infuriates me that the only people who can get the president's (or a Congress member's) attention for a serious conversation about real issues are captains of industry and finance or those (usually the same ones) who can bundle millions of dollars for election super-PACs – as though the accumulation of money is the definition of intelligence, knowledge and thoughtfulness.

It seems to me that this system precludes – entirely – any conversation and policy ideas that do not benefit the wealthy to the detriment of everyone else.

It's not that I don't see the problems – probably insurmountable - in taking seriously letters from citizens. A large number of them are from cranks and crazies. I know this from hundreds of pieces of fan mail delivered every day that, in my youthful employment on radio and TV shows, were my job to plow through.

A whole lot more are from people who have no idea what they're talking about along with those who just want to chat, let the president know what's going on in their family and by the way, could he send an autographed photo.

Oh, and don't forget the ones spewing pages of vitriol about how stupid the president is and how much he is hated. That leaves one or two in a hundred that are legitimate questions or thoughts that in a perfect world should require a reasonable response and maybe even a conversation.

An aide to Senate Leader Harry Reid once told me that the positions in all letters to senators are tracked. That is, if you write your senator supporting a bill, that's added into the others and compared to the number of letters that oppose the bill. (The aide did not say if the totals affect the senators' votes.)

I wonder if the White House tracks numbers of letters it receives on various policy issues.

Meanwhile, off on a tangent: Do you suppose there is such a thing as federal government or presidential grammar? If you look at the nation's founding documents, you'll see that compared with what we use today, 18th century scribes had interesting ideas about which words to capitalize.

Look at the capitalization in part of the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty...”

Odd isn't it, capitalizing People, Order, Justice, Blessings, etc. Now look at the capitalization in part of the email note from the White House:

“Our Nation faces serious challenges, and we will only overcome them by involving all Americans in shaping the policies that affect their own lives. My Administration...”

Nation? Administration? Weird.

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Jackie Harrison: Put on a Happy Face

What Old Timey Print Ads Tell Us

Within an hour or so of each other on the weekend, emails arrived from two friends – one from Nancy Leitz whom you know from her family tales at The Elder Storytelling Place and the other from John Brandt, whom I've known for nearly 40 years.

The serendipity of the emails is that they contain the same kind of material. The contents are not necessarily new; people have been forwarding historical print advertisements for years. But while looking at two different collections, what leaped out this time is how dramatically our culture has changed since we elders were young.

Nancy's images are from a 1934 Montgomery Ward catalog – Monkey Wards, my mother called it. Even if that date is seven years before I was born, the pages are familiar to me.

Here are some shoes that look almost modern; I've seen similar ones on young women dressed for work. I'm guessing the price has increased by about 10,000 percent.

Aren't we glad, however, that we aren't wearing these torture garments anymore:

This ice box is similar to the one we had during World War II. There was a drip pan at the bottom and my mother often recalled that we could never go away over night lest the pan overflow and flood the kitchen.

I realize that the Montgomery Ward catalog was a lifeline to rural America, but I was still surprised to see the listing for live chicks. And look at that price!

John's group of ads were designed for shock value showing how ignorant we were 70 and 80 years ago. Cigarettes, then, were widely used and look at by whom:

There is another with Ronald Reagan, then still an actor, touting Chesterfields. The Santa cigarette ad is likely from the 1930s or early 1940s since perhaps you too recall that “Lucky Strike green went to war and didn't come home.”

Ads pushing Coca Cola and 7-Up for infants were surprising enough; then there was this one:

If you have ever questioned what difference the second-wave women's movement of the 1960s made in women's lives and the importance of language in changing people beliefs and attitudes, take a look at these ads for a Kenwood mixer, a Pitney-Bowes postage machine and Chase & Sanborn coffee. It is hard to believe these images and language were ever tolerated.

Well, it's hard to say this many decades removed from the ad, if this is punishment or soft porn.

The one ad in John's bunch that portrays something that has not changed much is this one for the prescription drug, Thorazine. In some nursing homes today, elders today are routinely controlled through over-medication. The only difference half a century later is that it has become somewhat of a secret.

This has been an interesting little cultural survey of our early lives. Now here's your assignment for today: what do you think people in the future, 50 or 60 years from now, will find about us and our lives to be as odd, wrongheaded, surprising or shocking as these ads about life in the early 20th century are to us?

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Johna Ferguson: Superstitions in China

E-Books and Elders

Laurie Orlov who runs the excellent blog, Aging in Place Technology Watch, asked a good question last week: Why aren't seniors wowed by tablets?

Laurie's main interest was Apple iPads and the many Android copycat computer tablets that come with e-book readers but also the stand-alone e-readers such as the Kindle and the Nook.

As Laurie noted, according to Pew's recent survey, e-book reader and tablet ownership each nearly doubled over the recent holiday season from 10 to 19 percent. But – in a big exception – when broken down by age, ownership of tablets by people older than 65 increased from only five to seven percent.

Ownership of e-readers did better with the elder age group but only slightly, going from eight to 12 percent.

Laurie suspects that price may have a lot to do with elders' apparent rejection of these gadgets:

”...median income for women aged 65+ is $15,282,” she notes. “That's a barrier, as is broadband penetration (31%), enabling and potentially costly data plans. So those significant limiting factors are big deals.”

That makes sense as does Laurie's other suggestion – that elders are just too damned smart to jump for every new electronic gadget that comes along.

Generally, I do not see the need for a tablet computer. Certainly they are cool looking and fun to play with, pushing stuff around the screen with your fingers and all. But I mostly use my laptop not to play, but to write – email, blog posts, notes to myself, edit stories, personal business, etc. – and tablets have no keyboards. Well, not real ones you could actually use.

In fact, after you've spent $500 to $700 for an iPad, if you intend to write anything longer than a tweet, you need to purchase a holder to keep the iPad vertical on your desk and then add a stand-alone keyboard. You can see what I mean here.

That's a lot of extra moolah to get an already expensive gadget's functionality up to speed with what is included in the price of even the cheapest laptop.

E-book readers, however, are a different matter. At least, I think so. Let me tell you why I believe they should be uniquely valuable to elders.

FONT SIZE
As we get older, small text is difficult to read. Although some dead tree books are published in large-print editions, not all are, they seem to be fewer every year and they usually cost more. With an e-reader, the font can be increased to any size you need with the touch a button.

WEIGHT
For the past few years, I've noticed that large books, those that are more than 150 pages or so, are too weighty for me to hold for as long as might want to read.

I've taken to resting them on a pillow I place on my lap. Kindle and Nook e-readers, however, weigh in at about 10 to 13 ounces. Easy to hold.

PRICE OF BOOKS
Although publishing companies sometimes set higher prices by two or three dollars, the largest number of e-books at Amazon sell for $9.99. In addition, there are thousands of out-of-copyright classics that cost nothing. I had a fine ol' time re-reading Sherlock Holmes – all the short stories and the four novels - for the first time since my 20s for free on my Kindle.

I have no experience with Barnes & Noble, but Amazon holds regular sales of best-selling e-books at lower prices for short periods of time. And increasing numbers of local libraries are lending electronic books for free.

MOBILITY 1
On the theory that you never know when you'll be stuck somewhere waiting for someone or something, I do not leave home without a book. In the past, that was difficult when I was reading one of those five- or ten-pounders. Now I just drop the Kindle in my handbag and I'm good to go.

MOBLITY 2
Some elders have had to give up driving. Others cannot walk or stand for as long as they once could. So as much fun as hanging out browsing a good bookstore can be, it's not necessarily easy for elders to do. E-books are now here to help.

They download over the web in under a minute. No shipping costs. No leaving home. Easy peasy for those with limited mobility.

E-READER PRICE
There are fancy models of e-readers that also function as tablets and are nearly as expensive as Apple iPads. But if, like me, you only want the book reading function, Barnes & Noble is selling their Nook Simple Touch for $99; Amazon sells the Kindle Wi-Fi for $79.

Given all these reasons, I believe e-readers ought to be big sellers for old people and next holiday season, I am going to recommend them as good gifts for elders.

For those on severely limited incomes, a year's internet subscription could be included and/or a gift certificate for book purchases. And don't forget that, at Amazon, at least, it is now possible to purchase e-books to be sent electronically as gifts.

I also subscribe to newspapers and magazines on my Kindle which has sharply reduced the amount of paper needing to be hauled out to the recycle bin. Because I have the least expensive, black-and-white version, images don't show well or are often omitted. So if it is an art book you want or anything in which the images are crucial, you probably need the print edition. And, in fact, I make other distinctions about which books I purchase in print and which as e-books. The goal for me is not to eliminate print book editions, but to use the ease of the Kindle when that it what matters.

Of course, there are always the Luddites - elders among them - who will insist they only want to read "real" books. Fine. But in keeping with Laurie's good point that old people are too smart, too experienced to fall for every new useless doodad that comes along, we are also smart enough, I think, to be discerning of ones to embrace when the advantages improve our lives.

It seems obvious but nevertheless, one of the small thrills about my Kindle is that the device automatically opens a book to the last page read. And now I have downloaded Kindle for PC onto my laptop and the Kindle for Android app onto my smartphone. With one click of the mouse, I can sync all three so that no matter which device I'm using, I can pick up reading where I last left off.

Not that I do much reading on a the small phone screen – but it's there if I want.

So I am wondering: do you own an e-reader? Do you use it regularly? Do you like it? Why do you think e-readers have not sold well (so far) among elders? Any other thoughts about e-readers?

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Mickey Rogers: The Way the Cookie Crumbles