The Imagination Diet

If my writing seems a little different in this post, it’s because I recently lost 10.2 pounds. I’m writing thinner, my friends. Like this sentence right here: just a wisp of a thing! A recent study by scientists at Carnegie Mellon helped me lose the weight: the repeated imagining of a certain kind of food can quash cravings for that food. Goodbye, cheesecake. I test-drove the study in yesterday’s New York Times–join the abstinence party here.

Tina Fey’s “Velvet Glove”

Henry makes spanikopita with 30 Rock creator, producer, writer, star and soon-to-be-memoirist Tina Fey in the April issue of InStyle, on newsstands now.

In between all the spinach-sautee-ing and dough brushing, the Bossypants author talks about what she does to stay in control of a career moving at break-neck speeds, while her friends Rachel Dratch (SNL) and Jack McBrayer (30 Rock) explain the “velvet glove” that is Tina’s managerial style.

Both CNN.com and People.com have now mentioned the InStyle interview as evidence that Tina “feels Gwyneth Paltrow’s pain.” I won’t give anything away, but here’s a hint: it has nothing to do with post-Glee dance number soreness.

Still Hungry

What are independent-minded older folk eating these days? My article, “My Unhealthy Diet? It Got Me This Far,” from yesterday’s New York Times.

UPDATE: The reviews are in:

“Tongue-in-cheek” (Boston Globe)

“Thoroughly delightful” (Epicurious)

“Filthy” (Slate)

How Is My Mother?

Welcome, Krysti

I have a new column in Vanity Fair: I’ll be writing the campaign diaries of one Krysti McCandless, a supposed superstar of the Tea Party. Here is the first one. Lock ‘n load, people!

Oscars Ho

Here I am talking to the Hollywood Reporter about Oscars campaigning. (The writer included my favorite Oscars fun fact: that when Miramax Films held screenings for Academy members to promote “My Left Foot” in 1989, Miramax’s marketing department handed out chocolate feet.)

This Week in Old

– God *does* play favorites: Pope John Paul II put on the fast-track to sainthood. (Los Angeles Times)

– Rudy Giuliani is gearing up for another run at the presidency. (New York Post)

– And now meet Herman Cain, the first official presidential contender for 2012. (National Journal)

– Hugh Hefner takes Playboy private. (The Wall Street Journal)

– Congress’s 20 biggest gun enthusiasts. (The Daily Beast)

– The Pecan Braids were totally worth it: Laptop containing critical prostate cancer research stolen from a Panera bakery parking lot. (News 9)

Elderism #102

“In a dream you are never eighty.”

–Anne Sexton, poet.

Elderism #101

“Calmly considered, I have no quarrel with intelligent people making use of the blog constructively.”

–John Simon, world’s meanest theater critic. This summer, the 85 year-old Simon, who has has written for newspapers and magazines for 50 years, called bloggers “the vermin of society.” But now–“like a giant tortoise from its shell,” to quote the tortoise himself–Simon has just launched his own blog, Uncensored.

Baby Busted?

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Brett Arends is looking at the possible repercussions the extension of the Bush-era Tax Cuts will have on an nation full of aging baby boomers. With the new Tax Deal expected to tack another $900 billion on to the national debt, the US Government may have to make big slashes in spending to keep its head above water. And whenever the words “big” and “spending” come up, the conversation immediately turns to Social Security.

If Social Security were axed, retiring Americans wanting to ensure that they won’t outlive their savings would have to purchase their own annual income annuities from private insurers to replace the monthly check they would typically receive from Uncle Sam.

A cool $128,000 can buy a 66-year-old man an annuity with a yearly income of $10,000. However, “only a third [of workers] have saved as much as $50,000,” which, if put into an annuity, would provide them with a salary of $54 a week.

Arends’s advice? Save up. “Starting about 20 years ago.”