"Dating older women wasn’t a conscious decision — it was more a symptom of success in the dating market overall..."

"... than any particular urge to see someone ten or more years my senior. Being tall, combined with being one of the last Gen Z men to have read a book, meant I was very successful, especially on Hinge.... I would go on two or more dates a week from the apps. My Hinge age range... was set from 18 to 40. But despite my open-mindedness, the dating app algorithm rarely showed me anyone beyond 30 and my dates from Hinge were almost exclusively 22-year-old trainee lawyers who went to Oxford. So I met most of the older women outside dating apps.... The biggest difference is perhaps that older women are more relaxed. I don’t have to worry about them behaving like the 22-year-old lawyer who untucked my shirt and escorted me around Uniqlo until I 'looked sufficiently left-wing'...."

From "I’m 24 and I date older women: ‘In bed, age brings simplicity’/No-strings sex, real-life hook-ups and grown-up conversation — Jack Davey has discovered the joys of dating women in their thirties and forties. So is there no going back to girlfriends of his own age?" (London Times).

Uniqlo is just a store. I looked around at their Instagram. When I got to this, it renewed my mournfulness over the death of Peter Max:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by UNIQLO Global (@uniqlo)

"His 'cosmic jumper,' a young man in bell bottoms traversing the globe in giant strides, became an emblem of modern youth, eager to explore the far reaches of inner and outer space."

"Barefoot and surrounded by puffy clouds and chubby birds, the jumper appeared on the 10-cent stamp commissioned for Expo ’74, the conservation-themed World’s Fair in Seattle. In 'The Universe of Peter Max,' a memoir published in 2013, he wrote: 'My cosmic art subjects were always euphoric: Himalayan sages levitating under a shower of flowers beside snowcapped mountain peaks; faces and flowers exploding into a symmetrical cosmic butterfly; mirrored lakes and waters with a cascade of stars and planets; flowers in perpetual states of organic growth, begetting blossoms. My inspiration came from the new youth movement in America and in return spoke to it.'"

From "Peter Max, Trippy Artist of Counterculture Era and Beyond, Dies at 88/With work that breathed the spirit of the 1960s, he became fabulously wealthy from licensing his paintings and posters in all their euphoric Day-Glo glory" (NYT gift link).

Things were so much more colorful when we were young in the 60s, and Peter Max was a big part of it.

Look around at all the gray, white, and black and remember when everything was over-the-top colorful. Mourn the loss of everything that was Peter Max. RIP.

"Mary Max, the wife of celebrated artist Peter Max, killed herself in her apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side over the weekend."

The Daily Mail reports, and I'm blogging this because 2 weeks ago, I blogged "Several household employees also made allegations of neglect, including that Ms. [Peter] Max withheld food from her husband and sometimes put 'large Brazil nuts' in his smoothies, on which he might choke," quoting "Dementia Stopped a Major Artist From Painting. For Some, That Spelled a Lucrative Opportunity/Now Peter Max’s associates are trading lurid allegations of kidnapping, hired goons, attempted murder by Brazil nut and art fraud on the high seas" (NYT).

"Several household employees also made allegations of neglect, including that Ms. [Peter] Max withheld food from her husband and sometimes put 'large Brazil nuts' in his smoothies, on which he might choke."

"Not everyone agreed with the portrayal of an abusive marriage. One court-appointed lawyer testified that Mr. Max 'stated several times, without prompting, how much he loved his wife' and that removing him from their home could be 'highly detrimental' to Mr. Max’s mental well-being... Mr. Max continued to travel to the studio... and sign works of art, even as his condition steadily worsened....  The artist’s dementia, [a gallery employee said], made Mr. Max even more creative and prolific... Luke Nikas, a top art lawyer in New York... did not dispute that Mr. Max suffered from dementia, and noted that the 20th-century Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning also had the ailment and remained productive. He compared Mr. Max to Warhol and conceptual artists like Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, who exert creative control but typically rely on others to paint or construct the art. 'Not a single work goes out the door without being hand signed by Peter Max,' Mr. Nikas said... One Wednesday evening in April, I showed up at Peter Max’s apartment.... I told Mr. Max that I was a Times reporter... He just shrugged, asked me several times what year it was and then told me that he had spent his childhood in Shanghai.... I wanted to ask him directly about his career and the drama of recent years, but now that I saw his confusion for myself, I didn’t attempt an interview. So I thanked him and turned to leave...."

From "Dementia Stopped a Major Artist From Painting. For Some, That Spelled a Lucrative Opportunity/Now Peter Max’s associates are trading lurid allegations of kidnapping, hired goons, attempted murder by Brazil nut and art fraud on the high seas" by Amy Chozick (NYT).

Did you know that paintings with the Peter Max signature are sold on all of the major cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Norwegian, and Norwegian has a Peter Max-themed ship?

Didn't you love Peter Max 50 years ago? If you were around back then. If so, now you are old, and maybe you go on cruises and it would feel nice to go on a cruise on ship painted with Peter-Max-style art and to buy a painting that was signed "Max," and you'd hate to learn that not only was the painting done by someone else but that the signature was accomplished because the demented Mr. Max was "instructed to hold out his hand, and for hours, he would sign the art as if it were his own, grasping a brush and scrawling Max."

Oh, the happy cheerful bright colors! Peter Max was the picture of our youth. His art epitomized youthful optimism and energy. There's no going back, and now it seems he's the epitome of age. How old we all are! His decline reminds us. What year is it? We spent our childhood in Maxland.

ADDED: Here's CBS touting Max 4 years ago....



You do see him painting and hear him talking there. Do you detect dementia? There's something horribly phony about the "CBS This Morning" presentation. The pinchedly smiling face of Michelle Miller made me queasy.