"2007. Ladies, I think it's time to switch roles."

Five things I never imagined would happen, but somehow miraculously have happened, or are about to:

That Ciara's video for "Like a Boy" would deliver on the promise of its single to such a gob-smackingly complete extent it would feature an army of dancing near-drag kings. It's hard to believe this is real, it's so beautiful and feminist and gender-slippery, as if Ciara's been reading her Judith Butler. Aaliyah comparisons are totes deserved from here on out.




That the New York Times Magazine would run a full-page portrait of Miranda July. I still do a double-take every time I see her in a mainstream publication. It's like Huggy Bear in Newsweek--that insurmountable question of, "HOW DID THIS GET HERE?" It was awfully lame that the NYT decided the most important part of this feature was the pictures--as if all you really need to know about the six female actors and directors they interviewed can be gleaned from their headshots. There were quotes and tiny bios in the print edition, but you could barely make them out. The New York Sun has a much less fluff-dried piece on July's new show going up at The Kitchen here.

That someone would find a way to make "My Humps" even more annoying than it was. That that someone would be Alanis Morissette.

That Matthew Bourne would announce his next project is a male-male re-do of Romeo and Juliet. He's going to use the Prokofiev score rather than the Tchaikovsky one. I like the Guardian's report best, with its overtones of, Listen, buddy, you'd better really queer it up this time and not just tease us under the table! And finally, speaking of teasing under the table, I also never imagined

That Morrissey would come to a tiny theater in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and that said theater would be within walking distance of my house, and that I would not be in town at the time. Similarly, that Morrissey once gave an interview wearing what appeared to be a leather jacket in a room full of taxidermied birds while sitting next to an unflappable Johnny Marr decked out with a human skull and a sparkly debutante necklace. I'm not complaining about that last bit, but one wonders whether the producers had the Smiths confused with Sex Gang Children.