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Pointe, Counterpointe
A supposedly too tight tutu is causing a stir at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. The theater fired ballerina ANASTASIA VOLOCHKOVA last week because, officials said, she was too hefty for her male partners to lift. Volochkova, who is 5 ft. 6 in. and 109 lbs., according to the New York Times, called the Bolshoi's story "a myth" and said she had switched from ice cream to spinach and was as fit as ever. Volochkova's plunging necklines and friendships with rich, powerful men have made her a pop icon in Russia. "You have such a high opinion of yourself," a theater official told the dancer on Russian TV. What may have really got too big for the Bolshoi, it seems, was the ballerina's head.

Q & A With Elvis Costello
Elder rocker Elvis Costello's new album of ballads, North, arrives in stores Sept. 23.

This album is very quiet. You're croonin'. What's got into you?

That's the way the songs came out. It would have lost a lot in the feeling of the songs if I raised my voice. It's about starting out in a more desolate place and going to a more optimistic place. That's what I was feeling, and so that's what I wrote.

Why did you call the album North?

You know the expression "That's gone south"? What's the opposite of that?

So life is good. It was fun to watch you and [fiance Canadian jazz singer] Diana Krall perform at Willie Nelson's birthday concert. Will you collaborate in the future?

We're just gonna do 70th-birthday parties. You just have to work out which one's coming up next and get your tickets now.

What do you make of record companies suing people who download songs online?

People pirating other people's work is theft. And record companies suing those people is one pirate suing another. But there's an awful lot of bands that can't take the loss, you know. That's actually how they make their living.

Just what is so funny about peace, love and understanding?

I have no idea. You tell me. Why don't you ring up the President and ask him?

What's your favorite thing about Canada?

I can't possibly tell you. This is a family magazine.

So it's not Labatt's.

I don't drink. Nor is it hockey.

Taking The Heat
Not all Americans traversing Europe in July wore Bermuda shorts. ANNETTE BENING smoldered through the continent's record heat wave in a fur stole and long gloves. She was in Budapest and London to film Being Julia, an adaptation of a W. Somerset Maugham novel. The American Beauty star says she plays "a theater actress in London in 1938 who falls apart and finds herself" while cheating on her husband, played by Jeremy Irons. Bening says she was concentrating too hard to mind "a few hot moments." Perhaps when you're married to Warren Beatty, you're always cool.

When Do We Get J. Lo's Series For Tweens?
MADONNA'S The English Roses, published this month in 100 countries, is one of several books big-name authors have written for little people this fall. A guide to star scribes:

LYNNE CHENEY
A pictorial history of American women, the Second Lady's A Is for Abigail follows up on Cheney's America: A Patriotic Primer. Consider this one a flag-waving women's-studies course for bunk beds and bunkers alike.

JOHN LITHGOW
The 3rd Rock from the Sun actor's Seussian rhymes made best sellers of The Remarkable Farkle McBride and Micawber. In I'm a Manatee a little boy dreams of a life of "gigan-atee" manatee proportions.

JULIE ANDREWS
Mary Poppins has been writing kids' books since the Material Girl was reading them. With Dumpy and the Firefighters, Andrews gets her own imprint at HarperCollins and teaches fire safety with a spoonful of sugar.

LEANN RIMES
A tale about a shy and skittish young female jaguar, the pop-country singer's Jag draws on Rimes' experience getting picked on as a kid. Jag never wins a Grammy, but she does befriend some interesting cats.