Bruce Springsteen has been collecting praise for nearly four decades now; in a few short years, he'll be collecting social security, too: Bruce turns 59 today. Others celebrating: Hedge fund manager (and Chelsea Clinton's boss) Marc Lasry is 49. Jermaine Dupri is turning 36. Playwright and director George C. Wolfe is 54. Seinfeld (and pretzel commercial) star Jason Alexander is 49. Writer Joshua Foer (and brother of JSF) is turning 26. Ani DiFranco is 38. Actor Mickey Rooney turns 88. And singer Julio Iglesias celebrates his 65th birthday today.

With the Seinfeld Curse finally lifted in the form of the not-particularly-funny The New Adventures of Old Christine (but it hasn't been canceled! So the Curse is lifted!), Elaine spreads the wealth by giving George a job, a CBS rep says. [abcnews.go.com]

· Forest Whitaker will put his Oscar-winning talents to the ultimate test by trying to match acting chops with Monosyllabic Method master Keanu Reeves in The Night Watchman. [Variety]
· Professional badass Ray Winstone reportedly signs up to play Harrison Ford's sidekick in the upcoming Indy 4. [THR]
· Paramount promotes Austin Powers second unit guy Marco Schnabel to full-fledged director on Mike Myers' new funny-talking-guru film, perhaps hoping that a trusted, familiar face will keep the actor from freaking out and abandoning the project after a week of shooting. [Variety]
· Jason Alexander takes a role in one of the roughly 6,000 comedy projects ABC has developed this pilot season. (It's about a wacky police station, if you must know.) [THR]
· Oprah anoints Amazing Race creators Bert Van Munster and Elise Doganieri as showrunners for her upcoming reality project, Oprah Winfrey's The Big Give, in which TV's infinitely generous demigod will hand do-gooders a pile of money and challenge them to use it in a way that properly reflects Her beneficence. [Variety]

Now that we've all had time to digest the hidden brilliance of Britney's high school essay on Antigone, it's time to turn our attention to Jason Alexander (remember him?), Britney's 55-hour husband, whose attempts to stay in the spotlight are approaching Shar Jackson levels. In this exclusive interview he gave to the UK Sun, we learn that he's writing a book about his and Britney's adventures. And what a book it promises to be!