Feldman's Faves: March 24, 2025

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE

I guess we are in election mode once again.  Given we are in the middle of March Madness I think if I were predicting an outcome, I would say it is a “jump ball” at the moment.

And while we are  on the subject of basketball, this weekend was as good a start to the tournament that I can remember. I had really high hopes for St. Johns and will miss Pitino’s white suits. He looks better at 72 than most of us will ever look (yes Neill, I am speaking for myself here)

And while we are on the subject of sports, who else is excited that baseball season starts this week – with our home opener taking place on Thursday. Pretty sure we will NOT be winning the World Series this year but at this stage in the season I suppose there’s still a chance.

I know everyone is really busy these days so just wanted to thank you all for you hard work. At least it’s a good distraction from what’s happening outside of Goodmans….

Finally, I want to take this opportunity to welcome Annie and Griffin into our section. As always, our students are eager to learn so please make an effort to get them involved in your files.

No theme this week – just topics of interest.

WE DO NOT PART By: Han Kang –  I love that the Nobel Committee scours the earth to find writers that are exceptional and original.  As someone who knows virtually nothing about the history, culture and life of Korea, reading Han Kang’s work is one hell of an education. Her work captures both life in modern day Korea and addresses certain aspects of Korean history that as a Canadian, I had absolutely no idea. As I mentioned when I reviewed The Vegetarian last year her writing has an ephemeral quality (think of listening to Comfortably Numb – similar vibe) where you never really know if things are happening in the world or in her mind.  She also is incredible in describing states of mind, settings and pure emotions, which we see a lot in We Do Not Part. We also learn about a dark period of repression and mass killings that she wants the world to understand. She grapples with horrors and beauty of life and does not really resolve how she feels or how we should feel or think about it. As one reviewer notes, “In a 2024 speech accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, South Korean author Han Kang confessed that “I had long lost a sense of deep-rooted trust in humans.” She wondered: “How then could I embrace the world?” Grappling with existential angst is a thread that runs throughout Han’s fiction, most notably in the Man Booker-winning “The Vegetarian,” in which the main character renounces meat and eventually believes she’s turning into a plant.  Han’s exquisite and profoundly disquieting latest novel to be translated into English, “We Do Not Part,” also attempts to probe that elemental dilemma. Her elusive protagonist, Kyungha, too has undergone a metamorphosis. In the course of her research for a book on victims of the deadly Jeju Uprising of 1948, she finds she is no longer able to reconcile the inhumanity she’s confronted with a belief in the goodness of people. “Having decided to write about mass killings and torture,” she reflects, “how could I have so naively — brazenly — hoped to shirk off the agony of it?” Four years on, she’s finished the book but remains haunted by its subjects. As a result, “a desolate boundary has formed between me and the world.”  When we first encounter Kyungha, she’s left her job and ceased contact with most family and friends. Her private life has crumbled “like a sugar cube dropped in water.” She’s spent months shrouded in gloom, cocooned in a flat outside Seoul, rarely rising from bed. Excruciating migraines leave her without energy or appetite; nightmares pervade her sleeping hours. One dream is more vivid than the others. It unfolds on a snowy seaside hill under which countless bodies have been buried. Waves crash over their shallow graves, which are marked by thousands of tree trunks jutting from the ground like “black torsos.” Kyungha’s preoccupation with this image leads her to reach out to Inseon, a documentary filmmaker friend with whom she hopes to collaborate on a project memorializing that vision. Inseon has moved from Seoul to the volcanic island of Jeju to care for her dying mother, who herself was traumatized by a government-backed massacre that left 30,000 dead. After her mother dies, she remains in her childhood home, working as a carpenter. One day Kyungha receives a text from Inseon, who’s suffered a gruesome accident while woodworking and is hospitalized in Seoul. She pleads with Kyungha to fly immediately to Jeju to care for her pet bird, a favor Kyungha agrees to do, though a blizzard makes getting there nearly impossible.Snow is a character unto itself in this novel, symbolizing both beauty and danger: “As the snow lands on the wet asphalt, each flake seems to falter for a moment. Then, like a trailing sentence at the close of a conversation, like the dying fall of a final cadence, like fingertips cautiously retreating before ever landing on a shoulder, the flakes sink into the slick blackness and are soon gone.” Han’s prose is translucent, shot through with poetic turns. A bus from the Jeju airport can transport Kyungha only so far, and she is left to stagger through snow banks to reach the remote hillside cottage while darkness descends. Freezing and disoriented, she burrows down, curling herself into a tight ball. Nearly losing consciousness, she forces herself to rouse: “I had to plunge my legs in, then pull them back up to walk through the snowdrifts. … The trees around me were increasingly sunk in nightfall and half smothered with snow. … I moved forward, the sound of my legs trampling in and out of the snow the only thing to shatter the hush of the evening.” Finally, Kyungha spots the glow of a lantern and enters Inseon’s workshop. While alone in her apartment, Kyungha had seemed to hover between hallucination and reality; on Jeju, the line between the two evaporates. The storm rages outside, while inside, there is no power. The fate of the bird is uncertain. Kyungha has a premonition that Inseon’s condition has grown dire, but then her friend appears to her — an apparition. At first Inseon is only in silhouette, until: “The black, rounded form shuddered and grew long. The body was extending itself out of its huddled pose. … Its face, which had been buried in its arms, turned toward me.” And then a voice rasps: “Kyungha-ya.” The two settle into conversation, as if nothing strange is happening. Inseon assumes the role of host, making tea and lighting candles. They sit comfortably across from one another at the kitchen table. Intermittently, though, Kyungha is aware that her friend’s presence may be an illusion, and that the real Inseon may be dying in her hospital room. We, too, become confused, no longer able to discern the real from the surreal.In the sections that follow, the language shifts in tone, becoming reportorial, as Inseon narrates the saga of her family’s tragic history as witnesses to and victims of the Jeju massacre. It becomes clear that this is her mission in appearing to Kyungha: Her friend must bear witness. When Inseon finishes chronicling their tale, she seems to vanish. Kyungha now senses the presence of someone or something that might or might not be Inseon. She wonders: “Is that someone you?” Han has observed that each time she works on a book, “I endure the questions, I live inside them. When I reach the end of these questions — which is not the same as when I find answers to them, is when I reach the end of the writing process. By then,” she says, “I am no longer as I was when I began.” Her characters experience similar transformations. I found no answers in this deeply mysterious and often eerie novel. To read “We Do Not Part” is to inhabit an unknowing. Whether Han’s characters live or die or exist in a liminal space remains a puzzle. We won’t learn whether Kyungha is one day able to transcend her grief or revive “the wiring inside me that would sense beauty,” or whether Inseon can survive her grave injuries. But Han’s radiant intensity, her singular ability to find connections between body and soul and to experiment with form and style, are what makes her one of the world’s most important writers. From something as simple as the strike of a match, she can compose these words: “Up leaped a flame. Like a blooming heart. Like a pulsing flower bud. Like the wingbeat of an immeasurably small bird.” As to how Han processes despair but doesn’t surrender to it: “I understood that writing was my only means of getting through and past it. … Could it be that by regarding the softest aspects of humanity, by caressing the irrefutable warmth that resides there, we can go on living after all in this brief, violent world?” Han Kang’s voice is original and refreshing. She deals with difficult issues – both personal and historical – in way that draws you in.  She really makes you feel her pain and emotions in a way that is unparalleled in my experience. She is worthy of her Nobel Prize and I hope she continues to keep writing for years to come. Here’s good review from Kirkus - https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/han-kang/we-do-not-part/

The Peter Attia Drive  - Longevity roundtable — the science of aging, geroprotective molecules, lifestyle interventions, challenges in research, and more | Steven Austad, Matt Kaeberlein, Richard Miller – Longevity and healthspan are the trends of the day and Peter Attia is the man of the moment.  In this extremely long PODCAST (you will need to have longevity to listen to this…), Attia sits down with some of his peers that are experts in aging where they discuss a whole host of issues on this theme.  Attia is focused on taking actions that increase the length and quality of life and gets into some pretty technical issues (i.e., some stuff that is hard to understand) that are quite interesting when it comes to understanding the aging process, how to counter some of its health impact and how the future of medicine and aging research could provide a modern day version of the Fountain of Youth – and so it leaves you wondering if this version of finding a version of seeking immortality is just another example of fake science or if this time its different. I guess we will see (or not).   Here’s an excerpt from the PODCAST itself, “View the Show Notes Page for This Episode Become a Member to Receive Exclusive Content Sign Up to Receive Peter’s Weekly Newsletter In this special episode of The Drive, Peter introduces a brand-new roundtable format. Joined by three renowned experts in longevity science—Steven Austad, Richard Miller, and Matt Kaeberlein—the group explores the rapidly evolving field of geroscience. Together, they dive deep into topics like the relationship between healthspan and lifespan, evaluating interventions like rapamycin and senolytics, the role of epigenetic changes in aging, and whether GLP-1 receptor agonists hold geroprotective potential. They also tackle major challenges in funding and public acceptance of longevity research including how geroprotective interventions might be tested in humans. Packed with nuanced debate, humor, and groundbreaking insights, this episode is a must-listen for anyone fascinated by the science of aging. We discuss: The recent rise in public interest in longevity, misconceptions, and the link between healthspan and lifespan [3:45]; Redefining healthspan, the US healthcare paradox, and separating longevity science from commercial hype [12:30]; The need to redirect medical research from disease-specific models to aging-focused approaches [21:30]; Proactive healthcare: rethinking health, disease, and the role of aging [30:00]; Biologic age versus chronologic age, and the limitations and potential of epigenetic clocks [35:00]; The utility and drawbacks of the “hallmarks of aging” as a framework for research and funding [49:30]; The role of epigenetic changes in aging and the challenges of proving causality [56:45]; The translational challenges of moving aging research from preclinical studies to human applications [1:03:45]; Distinguishing between a biomarker of aging and aging rate indicators [1:17:15]; The difficulties of translating longevity research in mice to humans, and the difficulties of testing interventions in humans [1:21:15]; Exercise, aging, and healthspan: does exercise slow aging? [1:35:45]; Are GLP-1 receptor agonists geroprotective beyond caloric restriction effects? [1:41:00]; The role of senescent cells in aging, challenges with reproducibility in studies, and differing views on the value of current research approaches [1:46:15]; How funding challenges and leadership in NIH and other institutes impact the advancement of aging-related research [2:00:15]; Metformin: geroprotective potential, mechanisms, and unanswered questions [2:02:30]; Canagliflozin and rapamycin as geroprotective molecules: mechanisms, dosing strategies, and longevity potential [2:10:45]; Resveratrol and NAD precursors—a lack of evidence for anti-aging effects [2:22:45]; The potential of parabiosis and plasmapheresis to slow aging, the challenges in translating mouse studies to humans, and possible design for human studies [2:29:45]; and More.” https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-peter-attia-drive/id1400828889?i=1000685584057

Thank you for your ongoing engagement and participation.

And remember to stay safe, stay healthy and to docket daily.

Jon