Arts Briefs

Holly’s Follies

Holly Woodlawn

The first time Holly Woodlawn came to New York, she was homeless, penniless and clueless. On Oct. 29, when the legendary Warhol superstar comes back for a birthday party performance at The Cutting Room, she’s hoping to be much better prepared.

Arriving in town after a tour that took her to Poland, Washington, D.C. and other cold, unfriendly places,Woodlawn will sing her trademark songs, answer audience questions and welcome several surprise guests to the stage to celebrate her homecoming.

“What are you wearing,” she asks over the phone from Los Angeles. “I’m wearing Shalimar, smoking an American Spirit and having a glass of chardonnay. As far as the show is concerned, it’s going to be mayhem!” Woodlawn plans to sing, “Walk on the Wild Side,” the Lou Reed song that immortalized her, as well as “A Perfect Day,” another Reed ditty; “It drives him crazy when I sing it,” she says. “If I sing that and he’s in the audience, he’s gonna be crying.”

Unlike so many other 1970s idols though, Woodlawn doesn’t waste many of her own tears lamenting days gone by. “I’m going to be 62 years old and, I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I’m having the best time of my life.” Though New York has changed—”now there are children and poodles,” she says—coming back is still a thrill for the performer.

In fact, as far as birthday presents go, she says, “I don’t want diamonds, I don’t want furs. I just want to come home. I’m going to be home in New York.” — Adam Rathe Just (Up) Do It Having spent 30 minutes on the phone discussing Sarah Palin’s hairdo regimen, we feel a strangely more intimate connection with the woman. We now know what she goes through every morning (or at least before every television appearance). We can picture her sitting before the mirror, fingers in hair, frowning those full lips or scrunching that cutie nose at her reflection.

This has been a year full of mock-worthy characters, whose curious underskulls are flagged on top with now- iconic hairstyles. Simply throwing on a costume this Halloween will not be enough: The hair must be attended to. According to the experts we consulted, Sarah Palin’s should be the most popular coif this Friday, followed closely by the Amy Winehouse beehive and other favorites like the chemically straightened mane of Ashley Dupree or the short, white mop of the dearly departed Estelle Getty. Ricky’s on Broadway has already sold hundreds of its Miss Alaska sets. If you too are determined to dress as Caribou Barbie, you can shell out the 50 bucks or so for a Palin wig at your neighborhood Halloween stop, or you can go for the real thing—transform your actual hair into Sarah Palin’s.

Your stylist won’t soil his hands with conservative keratin? Not to worry. New York Press, your favorite fake style magazine, has obtained a DIY Sarah Palin hairdo tutorial, brought to us by salon owner and self-described celebrity hairstylist Philip Pelusi.

Apparently, the first step is to divide the hair into two halves along the top of the scalp.The back half is lifted into a ponytail, and most of the front half is wrapped around that ponytail.The remaining front hair will become the crucial “power fringe” or “extreme right-wing fringe.”

Palin’s “maverick bangs of might” are about three or four inches long, says Pelusi, but you should leave more length at first—you’ll want to give those hairs a slight bend with a curling iron. “That’s important to the look,” Pelusi says, “because if they were down flat with the glasses, it’d look kind of stupid.”

Then no one would take her seriously! Oh, there’s more—Velcro rollers, ponytail pins—but really, the best you can do is approximate. You’ll never nail down that effortless, irrepressible wink anyway.

— Justin Richards