The Big Five-Oh!: Fearing, Facing, and Fighting Fifty

CBS commentator Geist (Little League Confidential) here collects his essays, some of which appeared in the New York Times and New York magazine. The topic of becoming middle-aged is not a new one for humorists, and Geist begins inauspiciously by touching on such subjects as failing memory, pot bellies, impaired vision and lack of physical vigor, none of them particularly amusing despite Geist's witty style. But then he turns to more personal material like his attempt to recapture his youth at a Rolling Stones concert, his search for with-it jeans that will fit a pear-shaped male, pajama parties where the only thing the middle-aged participants do is sleep, health clubs that strike him as S&M temples and his plan to get exercise via the pastime of sportsitting. A few compensations of being 50 are mentioned, but these offer Geist minor reassurance, for, as he puts it, ""Who cares if the glass is half empty or half full when your teeth are in it?"" (Sept.)