“This book explores the joys of newfound love in old age, the miraculous blossoming that can occur when two lovers find each other after a lifetime of searching…The crystalline poems in The Kama Sutra for Senior Citizens are shot through with a gentle melancholy leavened by wit and eros.”

— Alison Luterman, Catamaran Poetry Prize Winner

“I love this book for its reassuring frankness, subtlety, and genial intelligence.… a mind so inventive, so alive to possibility, always at the heart of loving and delight… This book isn’t just for seniors, it’s for anyone who wants to feel what it is to be fully alive.”

— Tess Gallagher, Author of Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems

“These poems come to grips with the melancholy of aging set against the backdrop of love and sex, community and loneliness, laughter and tears.”

— Joseph Millar, Guggenheim and NEA Fellowship Recipient

What does love look like in life’s later chapters? In this tender, mischievous new collection of poetry, Zack Rogow answers with the hard-won wisdom of a man newly single in his senior years.

“After being with the same person for over three decades, I found my life upside down, dating again after the age of 65,” says Rogow, a teacher, playwright, poet, and translator. “I went on over 75 first dates and tried every-which-way to meet someone that I could feel a loving connection with. Luckily, I did, but it was not easy.” Rogow adds: “I didn’t succeed in finding a long-term partner by dating online. I finally met my current partner through our mutual interest in French literature. In an interview, he will share the following:

How he survived 75 first-time dates until he found a second chance at deep intimacy

The challenges and rewards of aging

What he discovered on the singles scene after not dating for 35 years

Why the three-time Pushcart Prize for Poetry nominee writes about love

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Zack Rogow is the author, editor or translator of more than 20 books and plays. Nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize for Poetry, his previous nine collections of poetry include Irreverent Litanies, Talking with the Radio: poems inspired by jazz and popular music, and The Number Before Infinity. His memoir, Hugging My Father’s Ghost, was released in 2024. Zack’s co-authored play, Colette Uncensored, had its first staged reading at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and later ran in London, Indonesia, Catalonia, San Francisco, and Portland. His blog, Advice for Writers, features more than 300 posts. He has received the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize, the Northern California Book Reviewers Award in Translation, and the Celestine Award for Poetry. He also edited the anthology The Face of Poetry (University of California Press).

Additional career highlights include:

Bay Area Book Reviewers Association Award for translation of Horace by George Sand

Lili Fabilli-Eric Hoffer Essay Prize, UC Berkeley

Co-authored play Colette Uncensored, nominated for outstanding solo show by Theatre Bay Area, and co-authored play Groucho for President selected for JETFest, festival of new plays; staged reading

Taught at University of Anchorage and California College of the Arts

Contributing editor for Catamaran Literary Reader

Served as managing director of The Poetry Center at San Francisco State University

Wrote lyrics for several jazz songs, one of which was recorded by the chanteuse Carrie Wicks. Listen here: https://originarts.com/oa2/recordings/recording.php?TitleID=22175

His dad, Lee Rogow, was a widely published writer and man-about-town in Manhattan in the 1950s, before dying tragically in an airplane crash when he was three years old. Zack writes about this in his memoir, Hugging My Father’s Ghost.

Rogow earned his Master of Arts in English from City College and BA in English from Yale University, graduating Cum Laude. He resides in Northern California. For more information, visit www.zackrogow.com.

Social Media:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/zackrogow

X: @ZackRogow

Bluesky: Zackrogow.bsky.social

His blog is here: https://zackrogow.blogspot.com/

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#OceanLovers

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Trumpet Lovers – Kyoto Tachibana SHS Band
Source: https://www.facebook.com/share/85Yf9rFhgM56ao8P/?mibextid=xfxF2i

#trumpetlovers #kyototachibana #shsband #kyototachibanashsband #highschool #highschoolband

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The mysterious and little understood system called guardianship, or conservatorship, burst into the public consciousness in 2021 with the case of pop star Britney Spears. After living under court-ordered restrictions for nearly fourteen years, Spears finally spoke out about her plight: she had been stripped of her civil rights, forced to work, involuntarily medicated, denied the right to freely travel or spend the money she earned, and rejected when she wanted to marry and have a baby.
Britney isn’t the only adult who has lost crucial rights through the guardianship system. An estimated 1.5 and 2 million Americans are currently living under similar court-mandated circumstances. Many of these arrangements for so-called “wards of the court” work out well. But after a yearslong study of the system, author Diane Dimond discovered the number of predatory players appointed by the court to control the life and finances of wards is astounding, and the number of victims is staggering. As Dimond writes in We’re Here to Help, “Consider that every year new guardianships and conservatorships place more than $50 billion under the control of others, and with the average case lasting about six years. . . . Informed critics estimate that predatory players illegally divert multiple billions of dollars from this monstrous cache of money each year.”
Dimond insists that “the sheer numbers of these abusive cases—reported by loving family members and worried friends across the United States—screams for attention to be paid.”

We’re Here to Help reveals that:
• Anyone can file a simple petition with a state court asking that a guardianship be established. Petitioners can be family members, angry business associates, neighbors, former lovers, or total strangers.
• Those at risk include young people with inheritances; individuals who’ve won sizeable workman’s comp or medical malpractice settlements; veterans with attractive pension payouts; and victims of mental illness or brain injuries who, even after they recover, find it nearly impossible to break free from the system.
• Divorce attorneys in contested cases have counselled male clients to petition for guardianship of their uncooperative wives—and judges have complied. The cases highlighted in the book were found in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and Florida.
• Women are most affected by guardianship. As elderly widows they become ripe for conscription and their caregivers are most often their daughters, not their sons.
• Guardians give presentations at senior centers and nursing homes urging audience members not to saddle their children with caretaking responsibilities. Guardians may share contact information for those interested with estate and elder law attorneys, who pursue court ordered guardianships.
• Lawyers, guardians, and conservators operating in the guardianship field can charge between $250 and $600 an hour for tasks as mundane as opening mail, paying bills, or answering an email. They can hire any number of assistants, including financial advisors, in-home health care, cooks, landscapers, and personal shoppers. The ward’s estate pays for everything.
• Jurists often allow the guardian to ignore a ward’s will, power of attorney, and other legal documents.
• While some states are enacting reform bills to regulate the current system, there have been no proposals to overhaul it. Congress has known about guardianship’s systemic problems for nearly half a century, but no definitive legislation to curb the exploitation has ever been passed.
By highlighting a multitude of real-life stories, We’re Here to Help explains this secretive process step-by-step. Readers will come to understand how family squabbles over what to do with an at-risk relative can spiral into a complicated nightmare of unwanted court intervention.
Dimond includes chapters about alternative programs a judge could establish, and protective legal steps readers can take to help safeguard their families.

Five Questions for Diane Dimond
Qz; What is guardianship and why write a book about it? Guardianship, or conservatorship, is a system that was set up in the late 1800s and it was designed so that any citizen who couldn’t care for themselves got help from the state.
Traditionally, it protected elderly people with dementia or those with profound physical or intellectual disabilities and had no family to care for them. They became a “wards of the court.” But I discovered the system has morphed over the years into something almost sinister. Judges routinely declare all sorts of people as “incapacitated” and assign strangers—lawyers and guardians—to take control of wards’ personal lives and money. These appointees have enormous power because once a person is declared “incapacitated” they lose all their civil rights. Realize, wards can’t hire a lawyer, vote, write a check, or decide where to live or travel. They can be isolated from loved ones and, most shockingly, overmedicated to keep them compliant. Guardianships or conservatorships must be approved by a judge.
Q: Do “petitions for guardianship” state why the person in question needs to be guardianized?
Yes, but frequently a judge accepts whatever claims a lawyer has made in the petition. These might be exaggerations or outright lies; I found that’s not uncommon in these petitions. But these judges don’t have the staff or the time to vet the contents. They take the word of the officer-of-the-court and approve the guardianship. And, once a person is caught up in the system it’s very expensive—and almost impossible for their family to get them out. Court appointees love the fight because it means more time in court and more hourly fees they can charge.
Q: You’ve been writing about abusive guardianships since 2015. There have been other print and TV exposés about it. Why is it that a majority of the public doesn’t know about this system?
Because most guardianship/conservatorship proceedings are conducted in secret. The court and the players—the lawyers, the guardians, and all the rest—say the outside world cannot be privy to the inner workings because of federal HIPAA laws that protect the privacy of a person’s medical information. There have been some great exposes written and aired on individual horror stories—but never a big-picture, in-depth investigative look at the system as a whole.

Q: How did you obtain such detailed information about this secretive system?
In short, very brave family members came forward—at the risk of contempt-of-court charges and hefty fines—to tell me what their loved ones were going through. They shared horror stories about exploitive and abusive guardians: wards being isolated from the family or forcibly overmedicated, outright theft, even allegations of physical and sexual abuse. Most importantly, these relatives provided me with court documents to back up their allegations. And then they steered me to other families that had similar stories to tell. Throughout the book, you emphasize the role judges play within this system. Why should judges bear special scrutiny? To my mind, the ultimate responsibility for these obvious abuses begins and ends with the judge who ordered the guardianship in the first place. If judges need more training to truly understand what can happen after they establish a guardianship, or more money and staff to get the job done in a compassionate way, then their state legislature needs to step up. If a judge is found to be taking campaign contributions from those they appoint to these very profitable positions (and yes, I discovered that has happened), then that cash flow should be made illegal. If there are repeated complaints against a particular judge, then the state judicial board needs to seriously investigate and consider removing that judge. Think of it this way: most people plan where they want to live, travel, and how to spend their retirement. One judge shouldn’t be able to take all that away under the guise of “protection.” Some people really do need help living their life, but that doesn’t mean they should lose their civil rights or be subjected to humiliating and even criminal behavior.

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#ClassicalMusic #Soprano #ClassicalCrossover #NCCR #RadioInterview #ClassicalAlbum #NewAlbum #NewSingle #ClassicalMusicLovers #GiorgiaFumanti

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With hugs and kisses banned by experts to prevent the spread of the COVID-19, the joy of Valentine’s Day has paled for lovers as the epidemic wages on for over a year. Vaccines are rolling out, but only slowly, so most people in the intimate-active age group are still suffering under warnings about intimate contact and restrictions of quarantines, imposed lockdowns, mask-wearing, and restaurants closed for those traditionally romantic dinners.

Reasonable warnings but also fears were fanned last April when Dr. Anthony Fauci announced that people should consider that potential hook-ups can be asymptomatic carriers of the virus.  In a UK study, only about 40 percent of respondents said they have been sexually active, partly due to anxiety, availability or dampened mood.

Even married and co-habiting couples have been alerted that one partner can be carrying the virus.

While the traditional acts of sending flowers and handing over boxes of chocolate (from a safe distance) can prevail, the day calls for closer contact.

So what are lovers to do this Valentine’s Day?

As psychologists, we know that intimate connection satisfies desire, soothes the soul, and even stimulates chemicals that create physical as well as psychological well-being.  Research even proves that connection with others is the best remedy to negative states caused by the separation imposed by this long-lasting pandemic, including loneliness, heartache, desolation, and anxieties.

The complex emotions escalate during holidays and anniversaries.  Being starved for affection can drive people into deep desperation, depression and even drastic thinking. As one man admitted to me, “I’d rather die than be cut off from people much longer than this.”

The keys to reaping the benefits of love while resisting infection is possible for singles and those already-attached with these tips.

(1) Expand the number of people to whom you express love.  Think of Valentine’s Day is not just for lovers, but for friends, as is the case in some cultures. For example, the word Valentine’s Day in Finland and Estonia translates into “Friend’s Day” indicating that this day is more about remembering friends, rather than “significant others.” A study of 1,477 people over ten years showed that expanded social networks can predict living longer. In support of this, a survey by the Ypulse company that monitors Gen Z and Millennials found that 74 percent of respondents agreed that Valentine’s Day is a good opportunity to tell friends and family they are loved and appreciated.

(2) Limit in-person hook-ups to virtual ones. Practice principles of “phone sex” (from the 60s) upgraded in this electronic age to using handheld platforms — through audio and video formats like chat, sexting or zoom  — to engage with a partner in a desired interaction.  Talking through what you are actually doing as if in the act in the moment — more potent than just saying what you would like to do — takes a little imagination but can be fulfilling. Include not only the description of your actions but also feelings – how you feel and how you want your partner to feel — which is good practice for future times of true consummation.

(3) Resolve to practice “safe sex” during this public health emergency.  On April 8, 2020, the New York City Health Department published an explicit guide outlining safe sex practice during the pandemic.  It warned about spreading the virus spreads through particles in the saliva, mucus or breath of people with COVID-19, or those who are asymptomatic (though admittedly unclear scientifically about sex act transmission), advised against kissing and for limiting contact to those in a close household circle. Explicit tips for enjoyment while stopping the spread included masturbating alone or together (while mask-wearing); washing (hands, toys or other touched items) before and after the act; and even making it “a little kinky” by being “creative with sexual positions and physical barriers, like walls, that allow sexual contact while preventing close face to face contact.”

(4) Explore deeper levels of commitment and communication.  Findings from The American Family Survey show that despite the stress and disruption in family and work life caused by the pandemic, husbands and wives reported sustained sex and deeper commitment and appreciation of each other.  As a marriage counselor for years, I know that better oral communication creates sexual sparks, especially since messages go fastest to the brain through the ears than other senses.

(5) Take “sex” to higher levels. My own, and many others’, expertise in eastern sexology shows that high states of ecstasy (and enlightenment) can be reached between people without even touching. The techniques to do this are simple, as outlined in my book, The Complete idiots Guide to Tantric Sex. By focusing your energy, through your breath and intention, inwards and then extending it to another purposefully, through the breath, eye contact, and simple motions, you can direct and transmit highly charged loving feelings outward, and receive them back inward, in a dedicated exchange. The classic scene in the film “Cocoon” between actors Tahnee Welch and Steve Gutenberg shows how glowing sparks can fly between two people at opposite ends of a swimming pool that may look like otherworldly alien love but their charging the water and space between them with “life force” is actually achievable by us ordinary folks.

(6) Look for new paths to “passion”.  In my many surveys and research over the years as a dating, relationship and sex expert, I documented how couples can form strong bonds and feel erotic attraction by sharing activities and hobbies that “turn them both on.”  In my Complete Idiots Guide to a Healthy Relationship, I suggest taking up a new hobby together, either a new idea for both of you or throwing yourself into a partner’s passionate pursuit that you once resisted (gardening, sports).  Working together on a common project raises erotic interest, as evidenced in office affairs.  Bring that affair home by brainstorming ideas about what you could both enjoy that will spill over into finding new or refreshed thrill about each other.

Take the pressure off Valentine’s Day by using the occasion to make every day an ongoing celebration of yourself as a loving being, and expressing love to others.

xxx

Author: Dr. Judy Kuriansky is a clinical psychologist and professor who is well-known for wise advice on radio and TV, and in newspaper and magazines for decades.  Her Idiots Guide Books on Dating, A Healthy Relationships and Tantric Sex are on Amazon, and her website: www.drJudy.com. She is also a mental health advocate and humanitarian who has provided psychosocial support during emergencies worldwide.

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Valentines show Good News Friends and Lovers Special Broadcast from Paul Sladkus on Vimeo.

LIVE from the Montauk Manor we create a special broadcast that should entertain and inspire you for Love and the Beach! Enjoy Every Moment in Peace, Love & HOPE.

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Sending again for those who didn’t see this but are interested and haven’t yet registered! https://landing.pachamama.org/gathering There will be a pull-down menu there with my name, so our Pachamama folks can register you at “my virtual table”!

We are at that time of year of harvest and celebration even despite the hardships and stresses we have all experienced in our Mother Earth being insulted by policies to promote further drilling, by the rolling back of clean water and air policies, the evisceration of the EPA, serious encroachments on social, political and economic injustice and by the profound disregard for sentient life over these past several years.

Despite and because of all of this, we have doubled-down in our commitment to set things aright, and one of our ways of doing that, and gaining sustenance from other, like-minded, like-hearted people, is our relationship to each other of course and with the Pachamama Alliance who has been championing the cause of indigenous people in the Amazon Rainforest, the Rainforest itself, and justice of every sort across the planet.

Please watch this inspiring, 1-minute video: https://pachamama.wistia.com/medias/qgcg0db4di

And then register for our Virtual Luncheon this year right here—I’d love to have you. https://landing.pachamama.org/gathering

Because this year’s gathering is virtual, not just in NYC, I am inviting people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend, for an even bigger, more inclusive & Global turnout.

Positive Influences: Pachamama Alliance & The Tibet House – A Better World

And needless to say, I hope everyone receiving this has voted or is poised to. We need a landslide!

If you would, please send me an email to let me know if you’ve signed up to attend.

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Mitchell

Mitchell J. Rabin, M.A., L.AC.
CEO, A Better World Foundation

Creative Consulting, Stress Management
Host & Producer, A Better World Radio & TV
212 420-0800
www.abetterworld.tv www.mitchellrabin.com
http://www.youtube.com/abetterworldtv

www.huffingtonpost.com/mitchell-j-rabin

www.abetterworld.store

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Buckminster Fuller

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Nelson Mandela

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” Jimi Hendrix

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January 17, 2019 – New York, NY – Premier Event Management Inc. and Harvard Wealth Strategy & Management, LLC announce New York City Mayor David N. Dinkins’ participation in the Fifth Annual Chinese New Year Spectacular concert at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall to ring in the Year of the Pig on Friday, February 15, 2019 at 7:30 p.m., offering a special program that celebrates both Chinese and American cultures. A highly anticipated annual performance, Spectacular has become a NYC tradition to mark the beginning of the New Lunar Year.

“The celebration is a reminder that our city is a gorgeous mosaic of many cultures. The evening is a great opportunity to celebrate the diversity that helps to make New York City so vibrant,” said NYC Mayor David N. Dinkins.

Mayor Dinkins will read excerpts from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address with piano accompaniment by Jie Chen. New to the 2019 program, Chinese Pianist Jie Chen and Shanghai Soprano Quan Chen will perform, as well as returning artists, American violinist Deni Bonet and tenor Dr. William Weimin Cai. Joining Dr. Cai during his performance this year will be Dominican tenor Francisco Casanova, Chinese tenor Honghai Tang and a special choir of nearly 100 voices.

The evening’s program will feature a wide variety of musical compositions, ranging from: Fantasy Impromptu by Frederic Chopin and Zueignung by Richard Georg Strauss, along with Butterfly Lovers by He Zhanhao and I Love You China! by Zheng Qiufeng.

The annual Spectacular is produced by Premier Event Management Inc. and Harvard Wealth Strategy & Management, LLC, two American organizations which share the common goal of bridging the culture gap between Chinese and American cultures. The two groups have collaborated on a series of successful projects that bring Chinese culture to the U.S. including Tong Ren Tang, the world’s oldest brand of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) which opened its first U.S. location in New York City. Premier Event Management Inc. and Harvard Wealth
Upper Left: Jie Chen; Lower Left: Quan Chen; Upper Right: Dr. William Weimin Cai; Lower Right: Deni Bonet

Mayor David N. Dinkins at Chinese New Year Spectacular IV
2

Strategy & Management, LLC have worked together to sponsor American high school students and New York-based Police Athletic League (PAL) teens to attend “Joy Dancing Beijing,” a cultural event put on by the Beijing government.

Tickets start at $28 and are available online or by phone at (212) 247-7800. Children under 12, seniors over 60 and active duty military members are eligible for a 25 percent discount.

# # #

ABOUT PREMIER EVENT MANAGEMENT, INC. Our vision is to provide effective professional event management services including production of major events such as those on the main stage of Carnegie Hall, charity events for smaller audiences like those we have produced on the rooftop lounge of the Peninsula Hotel in New York City, academic events such as those we have produced for visiting executive MBA students from China at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts and business seminars such as those we have produced for delegations of entrepreneurs visiting from China and Europe at the Harvard Club of New York City. Visit www.premiereventmgt.com for more information.

Media Contacts: Alana Kiss, Alana@nicholaslence.com / Tel: 212-938-0835
Shin-Jung, ShinJung@nicholaslence.com / Tel: 212-938-0005

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