Calvin Tomkins was born on December 17, 1925, just months after the founding of The New Yorker. Today, he becomes, like the magazine, a centenarian. I mention this not merely to celebrate Tad’s birthday––yes, he goes by Tad, while Calvin Trillin goes by Bud, but that is another story. I mention it to bring your attention to the moving and hilarious diary he has kept all year. In it, Tad provides an unvarnished account of what it is to grow old, to confront mortality, to take pleasure both in memory and in everyday pleasures, particularly art and the love of his wife, Dodie Kazanjian. “Old age is no joke, but it can feel like one,” Tad writes, noting that a life can be divided into three stages: “Youth, Maturity, and You Look Great.”