The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode: Adam Gopnik on Aging, and a Visit to Maine with Elizabeth Strout
Date: October 4, 2019
Host: David Remnick
Featuring: Adam Gopnik, Joe Coughlin, Lifestyle Leaders, Wayne Thiebaud, Elizabeth Strout

Episode Overview

This episode explores the societal, personal, and artistic dimensions of aging in America through reportage and first-person storytelling. Staff writer Adam Gopnik shares his immersive experience at MIT’s AgeLab and reflects on society’s resistance to aging. The episode also features a moving conversation with 98-year-old painter Wayne Thiebaud on memory, creativity, and aging. Later, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout revisits formative Maine landscapes and discusses how the state and its communities have shaped her writing.

Section 1: Adam Gopnik at the MIT AgeLab

(00:45 – 23:55)

1. Aging in America: The Coming Demographic Shift

• By 2060, a quarter of Americans will be of retirement age—nearly 100 million people.
• Gopnik, having recently turned 63, notes, “No one thinks of himself or herself as old. We will all reject the label, no matter what it costs us.” (02:01)
• Paradox of aging: people resist aids and labels associated with old age, a challenge for society and technology.

2. Experiencing Age: The AGNES Suit

• At MIT AgeLab—a hub of specialists designing for the needs of older adults—Gopnik tries on AGNES:
  Age Gain Now Empathy System.
• “It's a composite snarl of bungee cords and weights and restrictive clothing… limitless amounts of Velcro and a good number of snaps, and it took me a full 15 minutes just to get it on.” (05:22)
• The suit simulates muscle loss, joint stiffness, sensory reduction, and other effects of aging.
• Gopnik describes the “numbing crocs” designed to mimic the diminished sensation in feet that causes the classic elder shuffle.

3. Design Fails and the Built Environment

• Gopnik tries to use a coffee machine, noting how touchscreens and eco-friendly packaging are not “gray-friendly”:

  “Ironically, that very thing that is being more environmentally friendly is not very gray friendly.” – Joe Coughlin (11:35)

  • “You’ve got to squeeze it to get a grip on [the cup]. As a result, you often take a bath trying to open up the water, or you may get the hot coffee all over you.” – Joe Coughlin (12:31)

4. Why Not Just Ask Older People?

• Coughlin explains that direct observation is necessary, as “older folks want to cope” and underreport or minimize difficulties. The cultural narrative of aging as inevitable decline can be as limiting as the physical effects themselves.

5. “Lifestyle Leaders” Focus Group

• MIT’s AgeLab brings together focus groups of elders—“lifestyle leaders”—to provide lived perspectives on aging.
• Jean (almost 95) and John (retired physician/woodworker) share their routines, struggles with ride-sharing apps, and the crisis of losing the ability to drive.
• Powerful personal stakes arise around independence:

  “If I pass [my driving test], fine. If I don't, I'm a different person. It will be a different life.” – John (20:50)

6. Reflections on Aging

• Gopnik concludes:

  “Aging is an insult to the human spirit, which is resilient, vibrant, forever nineteen years old… Aging isn’t a gentle slope down. It’s a series of lurches. And we just pretend it isn’t happening for as long as we can until we lurch to a final end.” (23:00)

Section 2: Adam Gopnik Interviews Wayne Thiebaud, Painter

(23:55 – 28:45)

1. Memory and Meaning in Advanced Age

• Gopnik calls Wayne Thiebaud, 98, seeking solace and insight.
• Thiebaud finds himself living “in a whole alley of remembrances.” (24:40)
• On the productive use of memory in art, Thiebaud says:

  “I’ve been lately…very interested in people who paint from memory or use memory in a very productive way.” (24:59)

2. Enduring Creativity and Joy

• Asked how he renews himself despite grief and loss, Thiebaud attributes joy to:
  “Probably also my Mormon upbringing, but I think teaching also was a very, very important part of my life. I just really see myself as really an old art teacher. So teaching and tennis are the two propellants for it.” (26:20)
  • “It’s really more hit and giggle today, but… still get out there two or three times a week.” (26:40)
• Gopnik reflects on the folly of focusing on age at the expense of art:

  “Suddenly I felt how wrong it was to ask Wayne about how it felt to be aged. He was old, yes, but he was working. And that meant he was, above all, Wayne.” (27:05)

• Thiebaud’s upcoming show features landscapes painted from memory.

Section 3: Elizabeth Strout in Maine

(29:05 – 36:41)

1. Returning to Mount David

• Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of Olive Kittredge, returns to Bates College and her favorite spot—Mount David.
• Recalls the meaning of vantage points:
  “This was different because this gave me a view of a city. And a city meant people… But I just loved to see that array of buildings that meant there were people down there. Yeah, it was like my first city.” (32:10)

2. Maine as Inspiration & Fiction

• Lewiston, Maine, appears in Strout’s work as “Shirley Falls.” The arrival of Somali immigrants and incidents of racism motivated her to fictionalize and humanize local events for her novel.

  “I realized, this has got to be told…The man who actually was the real perpetrator was 30 years old and he was a racist and he killed himself. And as I was thinking about the book, I thought, I can't…I have to make my perpetrator younger, much more confused. He doesn't understand what he did.” (33:45)

• Bates College classes and local work experiences, including waitressing at the first disco in town, deeply influenced her understanding of people and dialogue:

  “We read so many playwrights and I learned a lot about dialogue just by reading those plays…But then also the experiences that I had in town also informed my work. Because when I was working as a waitress, I was working with people who were from Lewiston, they weren't from Bates.” (34:45)

3. Personal Reflections

• Strout reminisces about the vividness of her formative experiences:

  “It seems like ancient history now, to be here and to be remembering this, and yet it's very vivid. And it was a very important part of who I became. I don't think I've ever talked about Mount David to anybody…just because it sits inside myself like one of those very private, quiet things.” (36:17)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• “No one thinks of himself or herself as old. We will all reject the label of being old, no matter what it costs us.” – Adam Gopnik (02:01)
• “Ironically, that very thing that is being more environmentally friendly is not very gray friendly.” – Joe Coughlin (11:35)
• “If I don't [pass the driving test], I'm a different person. It will be a different life.” – John, lifestyle leader (20:50)
• “Aging isn’t a gentle slope down. It’s a series of lurches.” – Adam Gopnik (23:00)
• “I live in a whole alley of remembrances.” – Wayne Thiebaud (24:40)
• “Teaching and tennis are the two propellants for it.” – Wayne Thiebaud (26:20)
• “I don't think I've ever talked about Mount David to anybody…just because it sits inside myself like one of those very private, quiet things.” – Elizabeth Strout (36:17)

Key Timestamps

• 00:45 – 23:55: Adam Gopnik at MIT AgeLab—experiencing aging, systemic design flaws, and elders’ perspectives
• 23:55 – 28:45: Gopnik’s conversation with painter Wayne Thiebaud on memory, art, and resilience
• 29:05 – 36:41: Visiting Maine with Elizabeth Strout, discussing landscapes, fiction, and personal memory

This episode balances vivid on-the-ground exploration with introspective interviews, offering a nuanced, often poignant look at American aging—how it’s perceived, lived, and reflected in art and literature.