I am sorry for the blog silence. It has been a trying month, filled with memorial services and medical appointments involving my mother. Onwards.

Cullen Gallagher reviews several new collections of pulp fiction stories for the "Los Angeles Review of Books," including a collection called Damn Near Dead 2: Live Noir or Die Trying that bills itself as "Geezer Noir."

Standout tales include "Joe R. Lansdale's pithy 'The Old Man in the Motorized Chair,' about a grumpy, retired detective who solves crimes between commercial breaks..."

NPR reports that retailers are making stores more senior-friendly. That's great news. Perhaps restaurateurs will adopt this trend and end their obsession with over-dim dining rooms coupled with menus printed in microscopic type. A restaurant is not a lounge. I'm tired of paying big bucks for dinner ordered with the aid of a flashlight. I can do that for free while camping.

L.A. based filmmaker Angela Garcia Combs has turned to the private funding platform, Kickstarter, to raise the funds necessary to release her latest film, "Noting Special," which tells the story of two older women committed to sharing their wisdom with the younger generation.

The project stars Karen Black and Barbara Bain. Who doesn't love Karen Black? She populated all those great 70s movies made by "maverick" filmmakers. Black was a maverick, too, who acted like a loopy old lady even when she was a hot chick in her 20s. I also adore Barbara Bain, who starred in the original "Mission:Impossible" TV series and lent gravitas to that 70's British TV import, "Space: 1999."

The funding description details the filmmaker's struggles to obtain financing from indie outfits who just don't see the appeal of 60 something characters who haven't had work done to their faces or spend the movie engaging in raunchy behavior that's beneath their dignity.

I'm sickened by this BusinessWeek report "Cougars Inc.: The Lady Predator Lifestyle" on the growth in commerce focused on the "Lady Predator Lifestyle." When did the term "Cougar" become synonymous with "chicken-hawk"? Are middle aged, sexually active single women who date younger men becoming a stereotype akin to the one projected by the media on older, gay men: moneyed individuals with voracious sexual appetites. If so, does that mean all middle-aged women have to defend themselves from a perception that if they are over 40 and single, they must be easy sexual conquests? Ever since Chaucer conjured up the Wife of Bath, middle aged women have struggled against the perception that they are automatically lascivious so the cougar meme isn't really new; however, must there be unreconstructed sexism encoded in the "cougar lifestyle" marketing message than is necessary to get the point across?

In other words, is all this cougar business good for the crones?

Iconoculture, the demography trends website, just posted an interesting graphic demonstrating the high number of seniors who volunteer their time in seven European countries.