A fascinating and very personal look at the spectrum of our attitudes on aging. This is not a science movie. Rather, it is one man’s quest to come to terms with a general preoccupation that we all have with our own aging process. At the opening weekend in Santa Monica, Mark Wexler said that initially he set out to make a documentary on the scientific perspective on aging, but his quest became much more personal. Peppered throughout with interviews with some very extraordinary people, Mark travels to Okinawa, Japan. He meets the Laughing Guru in Mumbai, exercises with Jack LaLanne, films a funeral director’s conference in Las Vegas, and of course, some of the oldest living elders in the world.
One of my personal heroes, author and philosopher Pico Iyer, asks Wexler the pertinent life questions which helped Wexler revision the movie into a collage of inner growth for the filmmaker. Iyer and Wexler’s dialog is the rich thread that ties the movie together and makes this movie unique amongst current life extension documentaries. I really enjoyed it.
My co-author, Brian Delaney gives a brief account of calorie restriction. And there are great pictures of my dad, Roy L Walford, considered the godfather of today’s calorie restriction research.
Dear Lisa,
Just a note to tell you I still remember your kind “voice” in those days in the past.
Also to tell you that this old but once hard drinking, blue cheese salad with cunky dressing and sliced sirloin lunch eater who was converted by reading Roy and by talking to you , once, when I called to get a copy of the program. You asked if I were on the program, and I said no, and you sounded so disappointed that it gave an emotional reason to try. I have tried, and as mention in your book, I lost 50 pounds, and kept most of it off.
Most important, now, however, is that I will be 80 in less than a year. I know the punditocracy will say I have no chance of reaching 100, but I’m shooting for it anyway. Please know that even now, I believe that, wereit not for you and Roy, whose work I review regularly, I would long since be gone to the same place my fellow Account Executives and Broadcast Ad agency have goneMost of my friends and drinking buddies are long since gone. I miss them
Lisa, thank you, and thank Brian, too. When he visited Portland for Lunch one day,
I was mightily impressed with his clear mind and good humor.
I don’t know how to say “bless you” in Humanist with the warmth that I feel.
Maybe I should switch to following the buddha. Your email friend, Ed Sullivan