November 24, 2009

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but scientific findings seem to indicate otherwise. Research shows that our brains literally rewire in response to new stimulation. And when it comes to computer use, Internet activity may stimulate and possibly improve brain function, according to scientists at UCLA.

“Technology may be changing our minds and changing the way we think,” said Dr. Gary Small, a neuroscientist speaking last month at the UCLA Technology & Aging Conference at the Skirball Cultural Center.

Small, director of the UCLA Center on Aging, described results of research he and colleagues performed with volunteers between the ages of 55 and 76. Half of the participants were familiar with how to search the Internet, and the other half were new to it. The participants engaged in Internet searching while simultaneously undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

The MRI images clearly showed activity in the areas of the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning — but only in the Web-savvy group. The inexperienced group showed no such activity.

However, after just five one-hour sessions of practice, the Web newbies showed activation in the same areas of the brain as the savvy group.

“Five hours on the Internet and the naïve subjects had already rewired their brains,” said Small, writing about the findings in “iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind” (HarperCollins). “Recent studies demonstrate that older brains do remain malleable and plastic throughout life. Even areas of the brain that were reserved for specialized tasks can be recruited and retrained.”

In other words, “use it or lose it” applies to the brain. Indeed, Small notes, “Several studies have shown that exercising the brain with mental aerobics not only can improve cognitive performance scores but also may delay brain degeneration.”

Achieving brain fitness requires more than mental exercises, however. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, being physically active, eating a healthy diet and maintaining social relationships are also components of promoting brain health.

While the mental stimulation provided by digital technology can fuel our brains, there’s a flip side to this phenomenon. On the one hand, video gaming and digital interaction can quicken reaction time and improve some forms of attention. On the other hand, digital natives — those who were born into the world of laptops, BlackBerries and iPods — may be depriving their brain of some important aptitudes.

Digital natives tend to have shorter attention spans. They’re also less adept at relationship skills. Digital immigrants may take longer than their native counterparts to process information, but they show a superior ability to think globally.

“Today’s adolescents are now spending more than a full eight-hour work day exposing their brains to digital technology. By spending this much time staring at a computer or television screen, these young people are not solidifying the normal neural pathways their brains need to develop traditional face-to-face communication skills,” Small said. “Our high-tech revolution has plunged us into a state of continuous partial attention … [We] no longer have time to reflect, contemplate or make thoughtful decisions.”

Small believes these differences have created the beginning of what he refers to as a “brain gap” between younger and older minds. “What used to be simply a generation gap … has now become a huge divide resulting in two separate cultures,” he said.

His solution is for both digital natives and digital immigrants to find a balance — one where “we use technology effectively while remaining connected to others in a personal way.”

To achieve that, Small suggests finding ways to bring younger and older people together to help optimize the neural circuitry for both generations.

In other words, not only can old dogs learn new tricks, they have a few to teach as well.

Annie Korzen strolls through the open front door of a duplex condo just north of Carthay Square in Los Angeles, leaving her husband to park their Volvo in the chronically congested neighborhood.

It’s early on a Saturday, and dew still clings to car windshields. This is the time when bargain hunters descend on neighborhoods, rummaging through merchandise set out on front yards, in backyards and garages.

“Estate sales, at least they’re organized. With yard sales they throw everything on the lawn,” Korzen says, adding a hushed confession as she walks upstairs: “Plus, I like looking at the houses.”

For Korzen, 70, Saturday marks the beginning of her weekend shopping expeditions in search of high-end clothing and Bakelite jewelry at prices well below retail and resale. She wears her acquisitive nature with pride, but insists that living a good life shouldn’t come with sticker shock.

Korzen calls herself a frugalista, and she’s sharing her collected prudent wisdom with the growing ranks of the downwardly mobile through her blog and new book, “Bargain Junkie” (Andrew McMeel).

The timing of Korzen’s book couldn’t be better. Frugality is the new black, thanks to the Great Recession, and more Americans than ever are looking for ways to get their favorite brands and products at deeply discounted prices, whether through consignment shops or on eBay.

Rather than teaching her readers to clip coupons or shop at Goodwill, Korzen’s advice focuses on helping people to embrace frugality in all aspects of life without sacrificing.

“I have a lifestyle based on living well and spending little,” she says. “To some people, fashion is wearable art. To me it’s not worth the retail price. I would rather splurge on theater tickets, restaurants and airline upgrades.”

Planning a trip to Rome? Skip the sightseeing-friendly $200-a-night hotel in favor of $80 seaside suburban accommodations and ride the commuter train, she advises. Do you have a skill or service a friend or neighbor needs? Consider bartering. “I heard about a wine dealer who pays for his therapy with fine vintage reds,” she writes. “This may explain why one of my many shrinks was not always quite focused during our sessions.”

Korzen is an actress best known for her time on “Seinfeld” as Doris Klompus, the acerbic wife of Del Boca Vista presidential hopeful Jack Klompus. Her most recent work includes the one-woman show “Yenta Unplugged,” roles on shows like “ER” and “Hannah Montana,” and a small part in “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” playing the mother of Seymour Simmons (John Turturro).

When she’s not acting or working on her new show, tentatively titled “Keep Your Mouth Shut (And Other Things You Can’t Do),” Korzen sells jewelry, as well as vintage and designer clothing, both online and to resale shops. Her Danish-born husband, Benni, an Oscar-winning producer of the film “Babette’s Feast,” has his own Web-based business selling antiquarian or hard-to-find books and collectables, which supplements his income between films.

The couple says their respective side businesses get busier with each passing year. 

“In this economy, people have to shop outside of the box,” she says.

The National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops, a trade group that monitors the industry, says that more than half of such stores have experienced a 30 percent increase in the past year. And online auction site eBay reports that listings are up 30 percent over last year.

Korzen, who holds a biannual yard sale, says that a film executive spent $100 on a Prada suit and other outfits at her most recent sale in October.

“I think the economy has changed people’s opinion about shopping used,” she says. 

At the estate sale near Carthay Square, clothing is piled on a bare mattress in an upstairs bedroom, and furniture has been emptied of its contents, save for a bookcase with a selection that includes an ArtScroll siddur. Korzen searches the closets for inventory.

“I can tell already this is large-size old lady clothing,” she says, flipping through hangers until she stumbles across a slender vintage dress. She looks at the tag.

“Fifteen is high for me, because I sell them for $20,” she says.

Korzen heads downstairs several minutes later, her arms loaded with dresses. After schmoozing with the estate sale’s organizer and haggling over prices, she walks away with three pieces — one of which is an Escada gown. “It probably retailed for $1,200,” she says, glowing about the find. 

What drags the actress and her producer husband out of bed early on a Saturday morning isn’t the lure of money. That’s beside the point.

“It’s the fun of the chase,” she says on the drive to the next sale. “I was buying for myself until I realized I could sell things.”

In her book, Korzen writes that a yard sale was the original inspiration for her own bargainista transformation.

Ten years ago, as the economy was gaining momentum, she was invited to her first Hollywood party after moving to Los Angeles from New York. Korzen wanted something glitzy to wear, and her first instinct was to head to Loehmann’s near the Beverly Center, but she got sidetracked.

“I passed by a yard sale and found this fabulous Lillie Rubin jacket covered in sparkly red sequins and beads. The price was $20, and that’s when I decided I would never buy retail again,” she writes. “I had been bitten by the second-hand bug and have never recovered.”

Not that Korzen grew up in the lap of luxury. The daughter of an immigrant tailor, her childhood was spent in a three-bedroom Bronx railroad apartment.

“My parents were poor. They had to be thrifty,” she says. “My mother frequently reused teabags.”

And Korzen continues to draw on their example at home. She is a compulsive recycler, often printing on both sides of paper.

“If you’re a frugalista, you’re also green,” she says.

At a yard sale that’s just opened off Fairfax Avenue, a young couple is still hauling out boxes as the Korzens walk up.

“I’m cleaning you out,” Korzen tells one of the sellers, a former Betsey Johnson rep, as she digs into a box of bracelets. “I’m like a kid in a candy store here.”

When she is finished, she pays $41 to the seller for a Gaultier and a Celine purse, a Dolce & Gabbana skirt and at least 30 pieces of jewelry, including rings, necklaces, a gold lace choker and bracelets.

“These I’m not going to sell,” she says, running her hand over the bracelets she’s heaped onto her right arm. “I like these.”

For Korzen, who once pined for the comforts of a middle-class life, including shopping at Neiman Marcus and Barneys, the streets of Los Angeles are her department store.

Even if she suddenly became wealthy, Korzen says, she would continue living the same frugal existence.

“I enjoy my lifestyle,” she says. “This isn’t a hardship for me.”

To read Annie Korzen’s blog, visit http://www.thebargainjunkie.com/

When John Sullivan became Yochanan Rachmiel Ben-Abraham earlier this month at American Jewish University (AJU), he made the record books for one of Los Angeles’ most venerable Jewish institutions.

Before the ceremony, Anthony Elman, Sullivan’s mentor, teacher and sponsoring rabbi, said his student’s conversion to Judaism would be a historic event for the Los Angeles Jewish Home, where Sullivan has been living for nearly two years.

“He will be our first, in my knowledge,” he said.

On Nov. 11, Veterans Day, Sullivan entered AJU in Bel Air wearing a lapel pin bearing American and Israeli flags intertwined. As the two-hour ceremony opened, Sullivan, 79, stood in front of the three-rabbi panel at the Sandra Caplan Community Bet Din, or religious court, and answered questions that tested his knowledge of Judaism and his sincerity.

After the bet din rabbis, including Elman, voted to accept him as a Jew, Sullivan recited the Declaration of Faith, including these words: “Today I join the children of Israel, casting my lot with theirs, my hope with theirs, my pain and joy with theirs.”

Rabbi Dan Shevitz, head of the bet din and author of the declaration, proclaimed: “As my scuba instructor used to say, let’s go get wet.”

Sullivan’s journey to Judaism began 20 months ago, when the retired Hughes Aircraft engineer moved into the Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer Medical Center on the Grancell Village campus at the Los Angeles Jewish Home in Reseda. At the time, he was a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist, believing that enlightenment can be attained in one’s present form and in one’s lifetime.

Since the Home accepts government funds, it can’t restrict its admissions. Elman said a small number of non-Jews live at the Jewish Home.

Bonnie Polishuk, the Home’s marketing director, said, “We don’t run statistics on such things, but the majority of our residents are Jewish.”

When Sullivan moved in, he was recovering from cancer surgery in which his entire stomach was removed. He could no longer live on his own.

Sullivan had a friend who, more than once, had served as his guardian angel. Rick Young, 65, was the last president of the former Temple Emet and past president of its successor congregation, Temple Kol Tikvah, both in Woodland Hills.

“I had no idea the Jewish Home took people who weren’t Jewish,” Young said. “But I checked, and they told me they did.”

Young met Sullivan through his youngest child, Stevan Kenji Sullivan, 40.

“Steve operates a computer service company,” Young said. “He came over once five years ago to fix my computer, and we’ve been friends ever since.”

Young, who describes himself as Sullivan’s “caretaker,” never had an opportunity to see his parents into old age: “My dad passed away at the age of 49, leaving my mom with three young boys, and then she died five years later at the age of 54, leaving us three boys at 17, 20 and 22 with no parents.”

After all 239 residents had settled into the new Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer Medical Center building, officers were chosen. Sullivan, a gregarious man, was elected president of the resident council on a unanimous vote.

“Once I said I was interested in the job, everyone else dropped out. Now I’m in my second term. I take care of the monthly meetings. Everybody treats me like a million dollars. It’s embarrassing,” he said.

At the Jewish Home, Sullivan can’t kiss babies like other politicians, but he has endeared himself to other residents through endless acts of kindness.

“I try to be nice to everybody. It’s a zoo here on Mother’s Day. You could get trampled. One resident, a woman, is blind. She was just standing there. She couldn’t move. I helped her up to her room. I like getting along with other people,” Sullivan said.

The more time Sullivan spent at the Jewish Home, “the more I became interested in Judaism. In time, I fell in love with it. I met some very, very nice Jewish people in the Home, so I was exposed to Judaism. I’m a curious man, and I studied with Rabbi Elman,” he said, referring to Grancell Village’s spiritual leader. “The more I studied, the more interested I got. This was the religion I had looked for my whole life.”

Sullivan was raised in a nondenominational Christian church in his hometown of Kansas City, Mo. “My father made me go to church. He went hunting and fishing with me, but he wouldn’t go to church. I always went alone. In time, I became friendly with the minister. I was baptized several times.”

But Sullivan’s quest did not end there. He married his late Japanese wife, Chiyo, and took a deep and abiding interest in her culture. Chiyo was a Presbyterian, but Sullivan pushed her toward her ancestral faith. She lasted only two years as a Buddhist, but Sullivan stayed with it for nearly 10 years. He had no intention of abandoning it when he moved into the Home.

Today, he will not enter or leave his room without reciting a Hebrew prayer.

“The Jewish Home has given him religion, given him life,” his friend Young explained. “He believes there’s no better way to say thank you than by becoming a Jew. He goes to services all the time, wears a yarmulke for most of the day. When he’s lying in bed he wears a yarmulke.”

Elman, a tall, stately Englishman, said Sullivan has a “powerful wish to be fully at home as a Jew.” Sullivan has “a contemplative nature,” Elman said, and continues to meditate, as he did when he was a Buddhist.

“Typically, when a Jew meditates, he recites the Shema,” Elman said.

At AJU, Sullivan joined Rabbi Arinna Moon at the edge of the mikveh’s outer pool, its holding tank, as she explained why the mikveh was filled with ice heated to 85 degrees and why this was kosher.

Stevan, wearing a chai, accompanied his father.

Behind closed doors, Sullivan removed his clothes and then immersed himself three times in the 4 1/2-feet-deep inner mikveh. He lowered his head into the water, then recited the Shema and the Shehecheyanu prayers, and Elman gave him his Hebrew name.

“I could have spent another day in there,” an exultant and newly Jewish Sullivan said. “You don’t know how happy I am.”