Taking Names

No skin

Fresh from her recent Super Bowl-esque “exposure” at the Juno Awards (Canada’s equivalent of the Grammys), Alanis Morissette was in town yesterday to promote her forthcoming “So-Called Chaos” CD at the Canadian Embassy.

We can report that she was wearing normal street clothes in lieu of the nude body suit she donned for the Junos.

Hosted by local radio station WWZZ-FM (104.1), Miss Morissette played a brief acoustic set for a gathering that included Peter Boehm, the embassy’s minister for political and public affairs.

With her long black locks shorn to neck length, Miss Morissette, currently dating actor Ryan Reynolds, was all smiles and was aglow. Asked if she’s still the angry girl of her breakthrough hit, “You Oughta Know,” the singer, who turns 30 in June, replied enthusiastically: “Of course.”

Big-screen ’Simpsons’

Lisa Simpson will still be 8 when “The Simpsons” movie comes out, but the rest of us will have aged a bit.

Writers are working on the movie now, Yeardley Smith, who voices Lisa, told Associated Press. However, production won’t start until after the series is over in two years.

Once the show concludes its run, it still will be at least three years before the movie hits theaters because “animation takes forever,” Miss Smith said.

Still, she thinks a “Simpsons” movie is a good idea. “My wish for the show is that we go out with a bang, not a pimple. If we can do a movie and it can be as good as our best episodes, I’m thrilled.”

Of two minds

Elvis Costello’s split musical personality is showing again.

The British songwriter will release two albums this fall: a rock disc plus his first full-length orchestral work, his publicist said yesterday.

Mr. Costello is recording the rock album with his backup band, the Imposters, in Memphis, Tenn., and Oxford, Miss.

The classical album, “Il Sogno,” is already in the can. It was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.

Traffic woes

Heather Mills McCartney, wife of Paul, was in the District yesterday to announce that she will appear in public-service ads without her prosthetic leg to raise awareness of the 1.2 million traffic deaths that occur annually worldwide.

Mrs. McCartney’s left leg was severed below the knee when she was hit by a police motorcycle in 1993, AP notes. Nearly 20 years earlier, her mother also had lost a leg in a traffic accident.

“It took one human error to take my leg and one human error to take my mother’s,” Mrs. McCartney said yesterday at a kickoff of the World Health Organization’s yearlong focus on traffic safety.

Sales malfunction

After the public controversy she has stirred, Janet Jackson has failed to make much of a mark on the Billboard album chart.

Her new album, “Damita Jo,” sold about 381,000 copies in its first week of release, debuting at No. 2. By comparison, her previous album, 2001’s “All for You,” debuted at No. 1 with more than 605,000 copies sold.

Claiming the top spot this week, again, was Usher, the red-hot R&B singer.

Miss Jackson released “Damita Jo” late last month, about two months after her infamous breast-flashing Super Bowl halftime performance with Justin Timberlake.

Compiled by Scott Galupo from staff and wire reports.