Who can forget 2007: the year in which our writers wouldn’t write, our cabbies wouldn’t drive, and our stagehands wouldn’t stagehand. America embraced the finale: The Sopranos went out with a bang (not literally, alas), while Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean capped their trilogies (but not their franchises) with a whimper. We lost the life of Kurt Vonnegut and the sanity of Britney Spears. And all to the looping soundtrack of Rihanna’s infectious summer anthem “Umbrella” (ella, ella, ella ...*), which we’ve been unsuccessfully trying to get out of our heads since June.

*..."eh, eh, under my"...