By Simon Doonan

April 1, 2008 | 12:12 p.m

Last week I wore a pair of six-inch Lanvin sling-back stilettos while hosting a fashion show in Dallas. They looked great with my new Band of Outsiders jacket. I told the assembled crowd of socialites that it was the only way I could see over the lectern, which was true-ish. It was all fairly transparent. Anyone could see that I invented this excuse in order to walk the runway wearing those insane shoes and have my Linda Evangelista moment.

I’m a big believer in excuses. The more baroque, the better. I see them as a form of politeness. Running late? Tell them you accidentally ingested a small bird while riding a bicycle. Forgot to show up? Tell them your pantyhose spontaneously combusted. Anything but the boring truth! If you are looking to bail on a date, then at least have the decency to fabricate an entertaining and outlandish excuse. Nobody wants to hear that you have a headache or a dental emergency. Yawn!

I once worked with a bloke who attributed a bout of tardiness to the fact that “a squirrel came in through the window and nibbled through the electrical cord on my alarm clock.” When I heard this cheeky excuse it took me back to my gritty postwar school days. One wet morning, the scabby-kneed troll who sat in front of this scabby-kneed troll foolishly told our teacher that “our hamster ate my homework.” A well-deserved spanking followed.

When it comes to dreaming up baroque excuses, schoolboys have always shown great inventive panache. However, the trolls have nothing on today’s celebs. Whenever they decide they don’t feel like doing what they are supposed to do, the red-carpet gals always pull out the big guns. There’s no “Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to dine today, Madam.” It’s more like “Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to dine today because her mother has leprosy and her husband’s testicles exploded, all three of them.” It’s never a cold. It’s never jury duty. Poisonings, car crashes, bubonic plagues—these are the things which prevent these hard-working troopers from fulfilling obligations.

The logic is quite simple: If a celeb offers up a really bonkers excuse of the my-bum-is-radioactive variety, the excuse recipient is much less likely to challenge it. It’s also a great way for the celebs’ handlers to convey the impression that their clients are unimaginably busy and unimaginably “special.”

The problem is that the excuse-fabricators have cried wolf. Now, anytime a well-known person reschedules on me, I just assume they are having an everyone-in-my-family-has-Ebola moment and respond with cackles of uncaring derision.

In the past month, two separate celebs have both offered up family deaths as reasons for rescheduling little ol’ moi. In both instances I poo-poo’d them with a “Yeah right! And I’m the Queen of Sheba” response, only to discover subsequently that they were both telling the truth. I cannot tell you who the celebs were, but here’s a clue: one was Anne Hathaway and the other was Kimora Lee Simmons. In both instances, a well-deserved spanking followed.

As a general rule I will say that the higher up the celeb totem pole you get, the less likely you are to encounter people whose alarm clocks are being eaten by leprous squirrels. Dame Edna, the self-proclaimed international giga-star, was coiffed and punctual for our appointment last Monday. (Historically, she always offered up her husband’s “rumbling prostate” as an excuse for canceling.) And then there’s Madge. No I’m not talking about Dame Edna’s old bridesmaid and sidekick, I’m talking Ciccone.

When I interviewed Madonna recently—crash, bang, clang!—she was on time. No buggering about. No excuses. If any family members had kicked the bucket recently, she wisely chose to prioritize her rendezvous with yours truly over any shivas or wakes. Look for our tête-à-tête in next month’s Elle.

Oops! Gotta go! My clavicles have just turned to chalk and my pet iguana is eating through my computer cor—

By Sara Vilkomerson

December 12, 2004 | 7:00 p.m

Wednesday 8th

Dame Edna returns! Somehow, it escaped our notice that last night was the start of that latke-eating, candle-lighting extravaganza known as Hanukkah (sorry, mom and dad) …. But we're in no mood to decorate any bushes, if you know what we mean. Instead, tonight, a 25-foot spruce takes center stage in Duffy Square for a big, gay Broadway holiday-tree lighting performed by Wonderful Town giantess Brooke Shields, along with purple-haired cross-dresser Dame Edna Everage. " She is lighting it with me," corrected "Ms." Everage in her distinctive contralto. "It's a symbol, really-me and little Brooke are lighting up Broadway. What's going to happen is, I'll turn up and I'll say ha-llo and it will most likely be pouring rain on the Chrissy tree. But I'm quite sure I'll be wearing something spectacular." We're afraid to go to her show, Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance; don't want to get picked on …. "No, I wouldn't say I pick on people," Dame Edna said. "I prefer to think of it as giving them all a wonderful career opportunity. And besides, no animal has ever suffered-I test my show on kangaroos." Speaking of things that hop, some Observer staffers are still wondering what happened to Dame Edna's son, Oscar, who was an intern here back in 2000 but disappeared one day after our predecessor sent him for a fruit smoothie-last we heard, he was boinking some rich British chick …. Speaking of which, don't you love it when educational publishers get in on the smut? Oxford University Press is having a party for Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show, by some well-intentioned gal named Rachel Shteir. Dress code: black-rimmed glasses and pasties! [Broadway Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony, Duffy Square, Broadway and 46th Street, 5:15 p.m.; Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show , the Slipper Room, 167 Orchard Street, 6 to 9 p.m., by invitation only.] Thursday 9th Trunk show: Sometimes the fashion "community" does something so completely unexpected and fully out of character that we have to retract every nasty thought we'd ever had about it and just submit to its magical whimsy. To wit: W magazine's January issue will feature elephants. And no, we don't mean one of those "plus-sized" models who are really a size eight, we mean actual elephants! Said W's creative director, Dennis Freedman: "Bruce Weber called"-that's this big, fancy photographer you're supposed to know-"and said, 'I know you're going to think I'm crazy, but …. '" As I always do, I said, 'I'm game.'" The elephants are named Tai and Rosie. " In the elephant world, they are supermodels," said Mr. Freedman, who sent out the creatures' measurements (theyhave106-inch waists) out to a wish list of designers and was overwhelmed with a massive response that included Marc Jacobs, Karl Lagerfeld, Ralph Lauren and Dolce and Gabbana, all of whom have clearly gone quite mad. "Marc's dress"- poplin with a ruffled organza petticoat-"is straight from the spring collection, adapted to the size of an elephant," Mr. Freedman said, adding: "We also have some Chanel suits complete with pearl earrings." Tonight, the magazine celebrates this loopier-than-Diana Vreelandesque extravaganza with 11 elephant-sized topiaries showcasing the designers' creations (real elephants would've been far too smelly), plus cocktails and peanuts (natch). What it all benefits: Elephant Family, some Asian animal-rights organization. Meanwhile, downtown, there's more proof the uptown set is finally beginning to subscribe to the Lower East Side hype machine: ElleGirl magazine is celebrating its " 50 Hottest Rockers" issue down on Norfolk Street. Fun party gimmick: a "kissing and photo booth" into which young squealing ladies, no doubt wearing sparkly brooches, can jump atop the laps of the hot rockers, who will promptly offer them drugs and try to feel them up. [ W magazine party, 545 West 22nd Street, between 10th and 11th avenues, 6 to 9 p.m., by invitation only; ElleGirl party, Angel Orensanz Foundation, Center for the Arts, 172 Norfolk Street, 8 to 11:30 p.m., by invitation only.] Friday 10th Cashmere if you can! Crank your Lucky editor alert up to DEFCON 4-and hell, you may as well leave it there till Dec. 24: There was a major sample sale of Inhabit sweaters; everything marked down a gazillion percent …. If the holidays make you "stressed out," meanwhile, you'll be wanting to hit the Metropolitan Pavilion for some spa and yoga certificates and fashionable trinkets, if you go for that sort of thing. [Inhabit sample sale runs Dec. 7 to 9, 1441 Broadway, Suite 3101, 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Fashion at the Pavillion, 125 West 18th Street, 5 to 10 p.m., www.metropolitanevents.com.] Saturday 11th Lethem rips, Pixies stick: Remember Jonathan Lethem, the literary heartthrob of a hundred goggly-eyed Boerum Hill brunettes? The critics worked themselves into an honest-to-goodness fury over the National Book Critics Circle–winning Motherless Brooklyn and went equally nuts for The Fortress of Solitude (which apparently has nothing to do with our apartment)- alas, the best-seller list has not quite yet bent over and let him do his bidding …. Today, Mr. Lethem reads from the newly released paperback edition of Solitude at the Brooklyn Public Library after returning from a month-long tour of the West Coast. "I'm glad to be back-I was pining for New York," he said. And how did our Left Coast friends find such a New York–centric book? "I think it's an urban book," said Mr. Lethem diplomatically (translation: He didn't cause any earthquakes). Later, the Pixies return to New York after a 12-year absence-yes, a band so good we can forgive the fact that they hail from Boston. Expect to see all of rock royalty filling the V.I.P. section over the next week, plus some newbie players who were probably all of 7 or 8 years old when Surfer Rosa came out. Fun charity notion: bring Ashlee Simpson? [ The Fortress of Solitude reading, the Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, 2:30 p.m., 718-230-2100; the Pixies at Hammerstein Ballroom, 34th Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues, 6:30 p.m., www.ticketmaster.com.] Sunday 12th Wake and bake! Alternatively: The Marijuana-Logues, the Off Broadway show now featuring Tommy Chong, one half of pothead comedic duo Cheech and Chong (our baby-sitter used to watch their movies and fall asleep drooling on the couch), is apparently still chugging along in the West Village; what hath Eve Ensler wrought? "It's the must-see show of the century," insisted Mr. Chong, who also appears on That 70's Show. "Hey, in light of the world, you better go see it before Bush is able to get his hands on it." Yes, we're all bracing for that Big Crackdown …. Mr. Chong, by the way, recently served a nine-month prison sentence for conspiring to distribute drug paraphernalia. "I learned my lesson: Don't sell bongs over the Internet," he said cheerfully. He'll appear onstage with show creators Doug Benson and Tony Camin for what Mr. Chong coyly called "a little bit of everything." "This is the last chance to see an icon-me!" he said. Does this mean he'll be retiring soon, we asked? "I'm going to be like Cher and do an annual farewell tour." Without the bared buttocks, we trust …. [ The Marijuana-Logues , the Actors' Playhouse, 100 Seventh Avenue South, between Bleecker and Christopher, 8 p.m., www.marijuanalogues.com.] Monday 13th Simply the Bass: In order to get through today, you're going to need big lung-filling breaths: David Sedaris, the man whose family is probably more eccentric than yours, will not be present for the celebrity reading tonight of his holiday collection of stories, Dinah, the Christmas Whore, as he is living overseas ( apparently combating boils). Reading in his place is a bevy of actors: the pregnant (again?) Molly Shannon, bootylicious Rosie Perez, deep-voiced Liev Schreiber and pudding-faced Alec Baldwin. All proceeds for the evening go to the Everybody Wins organization, which benefits children's literacy programs. More from the lit league: Wallace Shawn, diminutive spawn of the great William Shawn ( The New Yorker, numskull), will read with longtime collaborator and gal pal Deborah Eisenberg at 192 Books in Chelsea this evening. Slightly dressier, and certainly with better cocktails, will be the party at the W in Times Square celebrating the publication of superstar caterer Serena Bass' first book, Serena, Food and Stories: Feeding Friends Every Hour of the Day. Listen for lot of faux and real British accents, as well as the clink of drinks concocted from the book, with names like the Smart Blonde and the Pink Bitch. "Both are me," laughed Ms. Bass, from Los Angeles. "I'm not sure which the alter ego is, actually." Don'cha miss the days when "entertaining" just meant room in the fridge for a six-pack and a glass jar for the deli flowers? [David Sedaris celebrity reading, Studio 54, 254 West 54th Street, 8 p.m., www.boxofficetickets.com; Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg reading, 192 Books, 192 10th Avenue, 7:30 p.m.; Serena Bass book party, W Hotel, Times Square, 6 to 8 p.m., by invitation only.] Tuesday 14th Still more booze: Everybody knows that a few drinks -O.K., maybe the entire bottle-can help one bob afloat the lurching emotional seas come holiday time. And sometimes a drinking event can even be educational …. Tonight, the Culinary Historians of New York -no relation to Les Dames D'Escoffier of last week, we think-present "Punch: A Brief History of the Monarch of Mixed Drinks " …. If you want some good factoids about the holy marriage between alcohol and citrus fruits , this is the event for you. Samples will be served-cheers! (And keep an eye peeled for the notoriously thirsty New York Times Dining In, Dining Out section-is it just us, or does that paper seem to have more people chowing down for money than covering the war in Iraq?) ["Punch: A Brief History of the Monarch of Mixed Drinks," National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, 8 p.m., www.culinaryhistoriansny.org.] Wednesday 15th We knew this day would come. What we didn't know was that the finale of America's Next Top Model (which is to say, the focus of our lives for the past 13 weeks, thank you very much) would land smack in the middle of the holiday season. It's left us pondering a very modern question: Should the results of a reality show interfere with your reality? Either way, it's all over after tonight-at which point we plan on becoming, like, complete party animals …. [America's Next Top Model finale, UPN, 8 p.m.]

By John Heilpern

December 5, 2004 | 7:00 p.m

I declared undying devotion-love gets more complicated-to the one and only Dame Edna Everage when she was last in town four years ago. Now that she's back with a vengeance, I see no reason to change my mind. I wouldn't mess with her if I were you, but Dame Edna is just the best.

The mythic bird of paradise is of course the creation of the Australian comic genius, Barry Humphries. And genius he undoubtedly is. You should catch Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance! at the Music Box, particularly if you've never seen Dame Edna before. Mr. Humphries has firstly invented something that never existed in the public imagination until now. That is to say, Australia. He's also the last of a glorious kind-the last link to those unique artists and brave, half-nutty individualists who give cross-dressing and vaudeville a good name. His postmodern heir is Eddie Izzard (but the wizard Izzard doesn't have the audience playing charades onstage with him. He chats like Dame Edna). The cross-dressing Dame, incidentally, is a British pantomime tradition in which the elderly Dame is always played by a man (and the male lead, known as the Principal Boy, is played by a girl with short hair). The Dame is extremely fond of the boy, and all ends happily after. See it as opera. But Mr. Humphries knows all this in his blood. Apart from his innate talent, the link with vaudeville and panto accounts for the suggestive Dame Edna's love of bawdiness, her give-and-take with the audience, eccentricity, high energy, lightning response, improvisatory flair, danger. Only the great vaudevillian strikes a solo bargain with extreme danger. Dame Edna belongs to a warrior class of entertainer. The audience is to be conquered. But the moment-the instant-she falters onstage, she's finished. That would be true of any performer, but it's truest of Barry Humphries, who risks the most. For example, he's the only stage performer I've seen who makes the audience the show. It's a stroke of perverse genius. In a sense, the audience does the work for him. The audience becomes Dame Edna's straight man. If we want to be high-minded about it-and we certainly do-there's a link with the timeless art of circus: Circus performers have always made the audience part of the show. But not as much as Dame Edna. Naturally, she's aged a bit over the years-from big sister to favorite aunt to everyone's dreaded Mom to … Wise Woman. She's always been timeless. She could be a sequined Pierrot or white-face kabuki. She's our Edna instead, homey in her faux innocence, lethal in her wit-looking, as she says, "gorgeous and intensely vulnerable." The show was always a sacrosanct ritual in classic vaudeville. The show never changed. Yet in the company of a master comedian, you were on the floor with laughter just the same. And you laughed because you knew what was coming. But Dame Edna has upped the ante: Her show doesn't change much, but it's always different. The audience participation makes it new every time. It's well-known by now that if you happen to be somewhat shy, or might not enjoy being publicly humiliated in front of a thousand strangers, it's best to avoid sitting in the first four or five rows of a Dame Edna performance. True, in her caring, nurturing way, the lady points out that it should be an honor to be singled out by her. After all, did the Apostles pray for Jesus not to pick on them? No, they didn't. An Edna disciple is someone who knows better, but can't resist. They're good sports. "You're retired?" Dame Edna says sweetly to an elderly lady in the audience who's named Lola. "How lovely! Take me through your day, Lola." And so Lola actually describes her day as if she's having a private little chat with an old friend-as if the rest of us aren't even there. And after two or three staggeringly inconsequential minutes, Dame Edna says to her, "And it's not even noon yet." A mere megastar when she was last on Broadway, she describes herself now as "a glittering gigastar." But she was always gig; it's the others that got small. In the satirical essentials, Dame Edna sends up fleeting fame and all celebrity, even her own. This is the thing, though: For a caring person who's intensely vulnerable underneath, she isn't nice. Her family is dysfunctional: the dykey, disappointing daughter, Valma, and son Kenny, the practicing homeopath and friend of Sam Champion. Dame Edna believes in tough love. "My children come last," she announces with a heart-warming smile. "Quality time is the time I spend away from them." If that weren't the case, she adds, we wouldn't have the benefit of her being here with us. And we are glad. We are all Dame Edna's possums now. And so we wave our gladioli in tribute, as custom requires. Not so sure about Eve. I was never a big fan of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues. Naturally I was pleased for her that after a global feminist struggle, she finally came to like her vagina. But I didn't see what it had to do with me. To be honest, all this talk of vaginas sort of ruined the mystery for me. Or as Dame Edna points out nostalgically about Vagina Monologues, "There must have been something about the show, but I can't put my finger on it." Anyway, just when we thought we were out of the woods, just when Rhea Perlman has stopped making guest appearances in Vagina Monologue readings-not that I've anything against Rhea Perlman-Ms. Ensler announces that she's realized her self-hatred has just crept from her vagina into her stomach. At least it's on the up. Hence her show about the politics of being overweight, Good Body, at the Booth Theatre on Broadway, no less. I must say I hadn't seen packing on the pounds as a political issue. I thought it was about overeating. In my naïve way, I thought the answer for us all is to be found in the two most unwelcome words in the English language: diet and exercise. But Ms. Ensler blames her eating habits on the usual suspects-cruel parents, neurotic lack of feminine self-esteem, universal male expectations and the beauty industry, and maybe I'll have another doughnut. It's true that since I last saw her onstage, she's gained a pound or two. But nothing to build a Taj Mahal of self-love around. Her adoring disciples are almost all women. My friend, the veteran Post critic Clive Barnes, described the women surrounding him at the show as mostly "beyond the easy reach of diet, gym, surgeon or prayer." I couldn't possibly say that. It's an unnatural audience, though. As far as I could see, there were scarcely a dozen men present, as if they'd wandered into the wrong show instead of Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance at the Music Box across the street. Ms. Ensler impersonates a number of women she interviewed on her travels in search of an answer to her miserable life-including earnest meetings with Isabella Rossellini, a 74-year-old Masai woman in Africa, an Indian lady in a gym in India, an Afghan woman in Kabul, a Puerto Rican Weight Watcher and Helen Gurley Brown. Unfortunately, they all look and sound more or less like Eve Ensler. Not to be personal, but her lifelong preoccupation with her own body is getting a wee bit narcissistic. Even the wise old Masai woman could have been her. "You've got to love your body, Eve," she advises. "You've got to love your tree." The last image we have of Ms. Ensler before the curtain comes down at last is of her diving into a bowl of ice cream. Apparently, she's seen the light. She's given up all hope. "I eat for my mother," she chants in poetry for us: I eat for me …. Soft belly, Merciful belly, Receive, please Let the fat sweet sugary wet Enter and encompass me. Let me not be afraid of my fullness, Let me not be afraid to be seen. The rapidly expanding Eve Ensler is believed to have already completed her next solo show, Tits and Ass: A Tragedy, and its long-awaited sequel, How I Pigged Out on Ice Cream and Got It All Horribly Wrong. Meanwhile, I promise you there really is a new V-Day project, inspired by Ms. Ensler's meeting with the wise old Masai woman and entitled Love Your Tree. It's described in the Playbill insert as her "vision of a space to go after The Good Body … to empower and enlighten the way women look at their bodies." Currently at ABC Carpet and Home, 888 Broadway, through Jan. 13. See you there.

By Simon Doonan

September 10, 2000 | 8:00 p.m

J.D. Salinger liked to take the piss out of himself … literally.

Margaret Salinger's memoir of her father, Dream Catcher (published Sept. 6 by Pocket Books), catalogs many of reclusive J.D.'s less-than-savory eccentricities, including the fact that he drank his own urine. It's not really such a shockeroony; after all, he did it decades ago, when everyone who was anyone sat in an orgone box and employed his own yogi. But guess what? Quelle horreur ! It's back and it's flooding the nation! Taboo-busting renegade New Yorkers are partaking of golden gargles, and they're loving it! Eeeeuw ! The extra 'e' is for extra eeeeeeeuuuw ! Convinced of the health and beauty benefits of this verboten activity, these "open-minded" urbanites are enthusiastically partaking of their own piddle on a daily basis. But prominent urine guzzlers are– quelle surprise –less than enthusiastic when it comes to making it public. "I'm a devotee," a magazine editor told me on condition of the strictest anonymity, "and I never get colds. My Japanese uncle taught me how, but it's not the subject of dinner-party chat. It's between me and my pee." "It's healing and cleansing and, yes, I think it's really catching on," said a fashion consultant and stylist. "If you do drugs or booze, you can taste it the next day. I'm very careful about who I tell. If word got out, I could never show my face at the Four Seasons again." Others know no such reticence. "What's the big deal?" said New York photographer Johnny Rozsa. "Urine therapy has been around for so long and the benefits are so well documented. I'm not a golden-shower queen: I started doing it to help my psoriasis. During that period I noticed my skin was like a baby's bottom–a clean one, I might add. People think of piss as dirty, they associate it with poop. What I've discovered, along with many others–including Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri–is the pure magic of pee. It's mostly urea, which has so many gorgeous properties!" Mr. Rozsa is currently not partaking. "My psoriasis is better. Plus the whole thing is a bit of a palaver," he said. "You see, you have to drink the middle pee when you wake up." Middle pee? "You pee out the first bit, then clench, then pee into a glass, clench again and pee the rest down the toilet. I add apple juice to the 'middle' urine and gulp it down." Mr. Rozsa, like many of the adherents I spoke to, became a convert after reading The Golden Fountain: The Complete Guide to Urine Therapy , by Coen van der Kroon, and Your Own Perfect Medicine , by Martha Christy. Both contain a steady stream of tepidly convincing historical and anecdotal data from Indian yogis, plus the alleged cure rate on everything from baldness to cancer and AIDS. Mr. van der Kroon insists that drinking your pee is less harmful than canned soda and "less distasteful than gelatin made from hooves and tendons." Coen, darling, ever heard the expression "two wrongs don't make a right"? If you are contemplating a golden guzzle, then please, before you unzip, please , do me a favor and read the "urine therapy" entry on www.skepdic.com. Robert Todd Carroll writes fascinatingly of the pros and cons, ultimately labeling it a fairly harmless practice. Pee is, after all, 95 percent water; the rest is nitrogenous waste from the liver, including a few excess minerals and nutrients that might get absorbed if you gave them a second chance. However, he writes, "as a daily tonic, there are much tastier ways to introduce healthful products into one's blood stream." Mr. Carroll does highly recommend drinking pee "for those rare occasions when one is buried beneath a building or lost at sea for a week or two." P.S.: Gandhi notwithstanding, the only person approximating a urine-therapy celebrity proponent would appear to be Dame Edna Everage. In her Coffee Table Book , she talks buoyantly about "the Cinderella of secretions." According to her Dameship, it's great for corns: "Place one and a half pints of fresh fluid"–Australian trannies must have large bladders–"in a spotlessly clean enamel bowl and soak your feet in it–taking care of course to remove your shoes and stockings first!" After a week, corns will "loosen their grip and fall out." Re: freckle removal–one memorable summer, Dame Edna's grandmother successfully banished "a mass of hideous freckles" from her little face by anointing it with the young Edna's own "little jobs" every morning. Dame Edna, like my prissy self, comes out strongly against "some authorities who recommend the drinking of 'little jobs' to cure you of various ailments. These folk tend in the main to be ratbags." Last season you carried your stuff around in a Prada bowling bag. This season is all about dressing like a lady, and as you have probably observed if you've ever been to the Bowlmor Lanes on University Place and 12th Street, ladies don't often go bowling. Ladies go to smart cocktail parties–and ladies keep their stuff in a clutch bag. More specifically, a clutch bag by Neal Decker. This de rigueur fall 2000 accessory comes in black or poo-brown leather with Donegal tweed flaps–and at $168, Neal's clutch is a damn good buy. So rush into Henri Bendel and grab one while their stock lasts. But before you take it out on its maiden voyage, test-drive it in the privacy of your own living room (i.e., learn to carry it correctly). Trust me, it's not just as simple as sandwiching it in a vice-like grip between your bicep and your torso à la Joan Collins. There are nuances. The three basic positions are: 1) Into the Gutter; 2) Horizontal Hold; and 3) Hello, Sailor! (See my demonstartion on the previous page.) Aug. 22 was the anniversary of Diana Vreeland's passing; and if you were churlish enough to have left this important occasion unmarked, then you always have next year. The most appropriate way to remember the Empress of Fashion is to follow one of her edicts. I fully appreciate that your schedule may preclude you from dragging "your Aubusson rug to a waterfall" for a picnic or rinsing "your blond child's hair in dead champagne to keep its gold." But how much time does it take to put your sweater on backwards? Yes, D.V. once said, "I always wear my sweater back-to-front; it is so much more flattering." Though seemingly more mundane than much of the recorded Vreelandiana, this particular piece of advice happens, in my opinion, to be her most useful. Sweaters–and for that matter, tightly cinched belts–always look better when worn back to front. That tired old cardigan which some of you Upper East Side girls still insist on tying around your neck like a dead cat would be a hell of a lot more flattering if you actually inserted yourself into it–back to front, of course–with the top button undone to draw attention to the nape of your neck, which is now visible thanks to your new shorter hair. Every time friends gather chez toi , you go on a mad scramble through your CD collection (chipping your manicure) to find something appropriately ambient and yet life-enhancing. I hate to break it to you, but those Burt Bacharach and Carpenters CD's have lost their camp resonance, and your friends are starting to roll their eyes at you behind your back. Run immediately to Mondo Kim's (6 St. Marks Place, 598-9985) and buy El Baile Alemán by Señor Coconut y su Conjunto ($11.99). Hailing from Santiago de Chile, these first-rate musicians deliver poignantly faithful versions of Kraftwerk songs in the Latin idiom–meringues, cumbias and cha-chas. Even guests with a limited acquaintance with the Kraftwerk canon will be spellbound by Señor Coconut's version of "We Are the Robots–cha cha cha."

By Frank DiGiacomo

February 6, 2000 | 7:00 p.m

Liza!

Ben Vereen was staring reverently, joyfully at Liza Minnelli as he addressed the crowd in the Pierre Hotel ballroom. "How appropriate to start off the millennium, this millennium, with us sitting here giving praise and honor to–" he paused dramatically, " our lady ." Somehow, appropriate was not the word that came to mind as The Transom watched Mr. Vereen breathily pace the stage at the Drama League's Jan. 31. salute to Ms. Minnelli. Here in the new millennium, well into an affluent digital age of self-consciousness and caution, 430 swells had paid between $400 and $875 a head to watch a collection of performers with not a self-reflective bone spur among them (Sam Harris! Chita Rivera!) celebrate a colleague whose life had too often resembled the public evisceration scene in Braveheart . Why, even the gossip columnist Liz Smith had thrown caution to the wind and gotten on stage in white cowboy boots to caterwaul her appreciation. This was not appropriate. This was entertainment. If there was a moment that grounded this 20th-century emote fest in the 21st century, it was a cheeky taped segment featuring Australian comedian Barry Humphries as Dame Edna Everage with a confession to make to Liza. In video close-up, Dame Edna explained: "You see, after your triumphant first night at the Palace Theater, when you did your wonderful, wonderful show, I came back and we cuddled a bit, didn't we? We hugged each other, and I was crying." Here the emotional Dame Edna stifled a dry sob. "I didn't tell you, Liza, but I'm going to tell you now, I think if I was there in the flesh , I'd break down." Going back "a long time," Ms. Everage recalled a time when "I was a very, very young aspiring actress, no more than a rather precocious and sophisticated teenager" who had won a competition to go to Hollywood. There, sitting by the pool one day, no doubt looking smashing in a tank suit, Ms. Everage met Ms. Minnelli's father, Vincente Minnelli. "He learned a little of my aspirations. Oh, I was so young, so silly," said Ms. Everage coquettishly. "And he offered me a very small role in a film he was making called Cabin in the Sky , which was a musical featuring an all-black cast. It was a long time ago. I did the best I could in that tiny role, but sadly it ended up on the cutting room floor. You see, there wasn't much room for a purple-headed little Australian ingénue in that film even though it was in black and white." Ms. Everage said that Ms. Minnelli's father apologized and took her for a meal at Chasen's. "My eyes were like saucers," said the dame. "We may have had a little too much champagne. I was, as I told you, young and vulnerable. But this is the hard part, Liza. This, is the hard part. We, we had," she struggled to finish the sentence, "an intimate moment. Why it happened? Your wonderful mother was off on tour. I suppose he was bowled over a little by my youth and my bone structure." The crowd loved that line. Weeks later, Ms. Everage explained, "Dr. Marcus Welby confirmed that I was to have a little one. My body started changing. I was in a panic. Who was I to tell? My parents in Australia would disown me. I would never have a career. I'd disgraced myself with a caring and wonderful man." Ms. Everage was looking even more moist than when she started. But then, she said, "a miracle happened." After she contacted Mr. Minnelli, "He told your saintly mother, and Judy adopted you." The crowd roared. Dame Edna then fondly recalled that the infant Liza "had a little black mop of hair and loved to wear fishnet stockings, even when I was breast feeding." Then she grew even more emotional. "You were snatched from me, and I've missed you over all these years," she said, adding in between sniffles and sobs, "I've seen all your shows, and I just want you to know, darling Liza, that next time we meet if you ever forgive me, don't call me Edna. Call me Mom!" From there, things got progressively more earnest, which meant, often, that they were even more riveting. Here, on stage at the Pierre was an entire year's worth of material for Martin Short or Rick Moranis, or the entire SCTV cast, for that matter. In the middle of performing "Magic to Do," Mr. Vereen broke into a piano-accompanied stage patter in which he explained that he had been on his way to Tunisia that very afternoon when the phone rang and he was informed that the Drama League was honoring "our lady." Mr. Vereen explained that ever since meeting Ms. Minnelli, "my life has never been the same." "I love this woman. I love this woman with all my heart. I love you for loving her," said Mr. Vereen. "And what people don't know and the press don't take into consideration is that coming back on adversity is not an easy thing to do. And when you took the initiative to come back and stand on the stage," Mr. Vereen explained, it was not because of ego, but because of Ms. Minnelli's "devotion and your love for the people, for your craft." At this, Mr. Vereen roused the crowd to stand up and give Ms. Minnelli a standing ovation, which lasted for a long time. Then Mr. Vereen said: "You see, the point is, we of the American theater. We , of the theater. We , of the arts. We here in America must honor our own. We must pay tribute to our own." Mr. Vereen thanked the Drama League and then told a story about Ms. Minnelli. "You know, Liza taught me something some time ago," he said, pacing back and forth to the tinkling ivories. "She joined me one day, and I was feeling bad that day. I had a matinee that day. And I said, 'I don't think I can make it. I'm too tired.'" Well, Mr. Vereen said, Ms. Minnelli looked at him and said, "No, this is what we do. This is why we were placed here." He sounded like an evangelist now. "So you must go forth and do that," Mr. Vereen said, still channeling Ms. Minnelli. "She said, 'Necessity is the mother of invention. The necessary things you need will be there when you step upon the boards.'" Cue music, and Mr. Vereen delved back into "Magic to Do." "Maybe this time we'll be lucky," he sang. The crowd had to be feeling lucky. Dr. Ruth Westheimer was soon to come out and sing, well, actually read, from index cards, "Arthur in the Afternoon." Then she was carried off by a shirtless, muscle-bound man who seemed to impress even Dr. Westheimer, the diminutive doyenne of dalliance. She would be followed by Sam ( Star Search ) Harris, who said that he and Ms. Minnelli came from the "Belter Belt" where "Less is–well, less," and Ms. Rivera, whose physical trainer, if she has one, should be a millionaire. The finale, of course, was Ms. Smith, whom The Transom, in all sincerity, can only admire for getting up on stage before hundreds of people and letting her freak flag fly. Ms. Smith always handles herself with grace and good humor in public settings. That said, Ms. Smith should think twice about singing in public again. Even though she had help from a chorus of extras and even from the audience at times, Ms. Smith's singing brought to mind that scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 where Donald Sutherland smashes his head into a live cat. Ms. Smith looked smart in a cowboy hat and what looked like an old uniform of General Custer's. "I'm going to sing because I've been told that I have the phrasing, the style of Frank Sinatra, even if I do have the voice of Dame Edna. So it'll be all right," said Ms. Smith. "I need help, though." She was joined on stage by a chorus of shapely men and women. Earlier in the evening, Ms. Rivera had been cavorting on stage with a bunch of buff men. "Chita had boys, but I got girls and boys," said Ms. Smith. "One of my favorite combinations." The band struck up the tune of "Deep in the Heart of Texas," but Ms. Smith was working off another lyric sheet. "There is glitz and guts/ And Fosse struts/ Deep in the heart of Liza!/ Sequins and dungarees/ Chanel and Eloise/ Deep in the heart of Liza!" Ms. Smith vocalized in a twang that seemed to have been stolen straight from Annie Get Your Gun . "Yes, there are Vincente's eyes and there are Judy's thighs/ Deep in the heart of Liza!" Then, in a scripted moment, she stopped the band, which was led by Billy Stritch. "Wait a minute," said the gossip columnist. The band was going too fast, and there wasn't enough audience participation. "I want you all to imagine that you are Tommy Tune in high heels . I want you to sing with me. I want you to clap . Liza, you too ." Ms. Smith started up again, this time with some real support. "Her heart is full and stuffed My God is that Sid Luft? Deep in the heart of Liza!" When the group reached, "Those lush Minnelli lips and two bionic hips," there were a few titters in the audience for the wrong reasons, but everyone loved it when Ms. Smith really threw herself into, "Just take a closer look/ Shit! There's Lorna's book!" Ms. Smith wrapped her vocal cords around the epithet as if she'd suddenly found herself back on the Texas plains with no water and a rattlesnake in her boot. On the last verses the crowd was really with Ms. Smith. When she bellowed, "And there's a final plus/ Because there is all of us [ clap-clap-clap ]/ Deep in the heart of Liza!" Then the piano got quiet and Ms. Smith was solo again. "And let me say, I'm proud/ John Simon's not allowed …," a reference to the New York magazine critic who panned Ms. Minnelli's Minnelli on Minnelli show. The crowd cheered at this and then, before Ms. Minnelli got up on stage and hugged everyone in sight, Ms. Smith, the audience and the chorus brought it all home, shaking the moldings of the Pierre ballroom and letting the world know that the Belter Belt was alive and emoting in the digital age. "Deep in the heart of!" "He's not a part of!" they sang, as if they could, tarantella-like, cast Mr. Simon from this earth. "Deep in the heart of!" "Liza!" The Transom Also Hears … Ralph Lauren chief marketing officer Hamilton South's departure from his position isn't the only transition he'll be making. Mr. South recently put up for sale his Shingle-style home on Lake Waramaug in New Preston, Conn. The circa-1900 house has six bedrooms on the second floor, its own greenhouse and a dock that's large enough to anchor a boat. It's also one of the few houses on the lake that has direct water frontage. Mr. South is asking $2.25 million, apparently a lot more than he paid for it a couple of years ago. He declined to comment. … There in the lobby of the Mercer Hotel, Paco Rabanne stared at The Transom. Mr. Rabanne, who was in town to promote his new fragrance Ultraviolet (which included a dinner at the Clockwork Orange -like restaurant Canteen) fancies himself a bit of a mystic who has lived several different lives over the course of 70,000 years. And now he was trying to divine The Transom's past lives. He stared and he stared. "Caucasian," he said. Rémi Cléro, the " directeur général " of his company, translated: "A very important Caucasian chief. At the time of Attila. You were a warrior. A very important warrior." Mr. Rabanne stared some more. "You passed some time in Lombardy, Italy." (We passed something in Lombardy, but it wasn't time.) The reading continued: "A man of writing, of letters. Maybe a monk or something." (That would explain the hair thing.) And then Mr. Rabanne looked extremely disappointed. "Your last life was French," translated the directeur général .

By John Heilpern

October 24, 1999 | 8:00 p.m

Well, possums! Let us not delay the happy news for a second. The Broadway debut of Dame Edna Everage is a complete triumph. We agree, without hesitation, with her own modest description of herself that she's probably the most popular and gifted woman in the world today. No "probably" about it. I guarantee you have seen nothing like this peculiar mythic bird of paradise, and no performer has us laughing so much.

Who–or what–is the dame? These are challenging questions, not easily answered. I'm resisting the coy when I say that Dame Edna can't be pinned down. She's such an outrageously unique self-invention, she resists classification. She was born in Australia. (But then so were Dame Judith Anderson and Zoë Caldwell.) She is played by a man, Barry Humphries, and, as Dame Edna puts it, "If it wasn't for him, she wouldn't be where she is today." But Mr. Humphries tactfully prefers to take a back seat. A star in England, Dame Edna may have put Australia on the map. John Osborne of Look Back in Anger , an early fan, wrote admiringly 30 years ago: "Her poetic instinct and genius created something that was not there before. That is to say, Australia." She says she is a housewife, investigative journalist, social anthropologist, talk show host, swami, children's book illustrator, spin doctor and icon. She lists her hobbies as counseling royalty, addressing gender issues, redefining cultural strategies and posing for photographs with refugees. She's everyone's wicked aunt, or nurturing mother of our nightmares. Her motto is: "I'm sorry but I care." We might feel a little uneasy in her company, but she means well. (Don't all mothers?) I last saw her in London 20 years ago, God love us and save us. Then she was more Auntie Dame Edna; today she's a granny. And, as Dame Edna would put it: I mean that in the nicest possible way. Whether aunt, mother or grandmother, Dame Edna was never young. Therefore, she has never aged. Her surreal, glitzy flamboyance and love of her signature gladioli–her "gladdies"–are a neat tribute to Australian kitsch and overdressed, overfriendly suburban housewives everywhere. Her astonishing eyeglasses clearly derive from the half-mask worn by medieval troubadours, but not necessarily. It's undeniable that from the gloriously politically incorrect opening moments of Dame Edna: The Royal Tour at the Booth Theater, we're in the company of a masterly entertainer. Only a master would take such risks–and get away with it. Subtitled "The Show That Listens," Dame Edna opens with a video of an elderly lady giving instructions in sign language. "To fully appreciate the show," goes the voice-over, "you must remember to face the stage." She is anxious to remind us that we are not at home. "You cannot use your remote," we are told. It's live! To remind initiates who Dame Edna is, we're next shown a montage from her cult British talk show during which she told Richard Gere he was a turn-off, really, and asked Roseanne: "Is there anything you wish you hadn't eaten?" And here she is! Dame Edna enters–live!–down the retro-staircase with her gladdies to sing a jolly opening number about being abused by her mother, the lyric of which goes: "She said, Look at me when I'm talking to you!" "Thank you, darlings," she adds, greeting us all like old friends. She confides later, "I always say there are no strangers in life. Just friends you haven't met yet." Then she adds in her lethally sweet, maternal way: "Isn't that lovely?" Dame Edna is the most sincerely insincere person we could ever meet. The cross-dressing theatrical heritage is the proud one of British pantomime in which a man traditionally plays the dame, sometimes known as Widow Twanky. The intimate style is a brilliant echo of the individualism of the lost music hall era–with its improvisatory daring, audience participation, solo bargain with danger, courage, spontaneity, bawdy suggestiveness. "Every poet would like to convey the pleasures of poetry to a larger audience," wrote T.S. Eliot, and he should know. "All the better, then, if he could have at least the satisfaction of having a part to play in society as worthy as that of the Music Hall comedian." "Feel me! I'm real. Touch me!" she says to the front row, shaking their hands. "What have you been handling? Is it fish?" she asks one. "Is it cheese?" Then she adds philosophically, "Something in between, I'm afraid." "Hello, paupers!" she calls to the balcony, throwing them a few gladdies and promising "to glance up there in strict proportion to the amount you've paid." The paupers in the balcony are also known as "the mizzies" (from Les Misérables –miserable, poor people). She then had a nice little chat with a lady in the audience named Belinda, who told her she has a baby boy named Spike. "Spot," said Dame Edna. "How lovely!" Belinda–we all learned–had a Filipino babysitter at home. "Yes," said Dame Edna looking pleased. "One of the biggest advantages of a democracy is you can have a slave class with a clear conscience!" She's smart, then, fast and improvisatory. "I wouldn't insult you with a rehearsed show," she protests. Her put-downs might level you, but no one seems to mind. "Was she a disappointment to you?" she caringly asks a mother about her daughter seated next to her. "Mine was." Dame Edna's estranged daughter, Valmai, lives with her partner, a retired Czechoslovakian tennis player who breeds pit bulls in Flushing. "The most terrible words a parent can hear: 'Meet my partner,'" a distressed Dame Edna tells us. Her son, Kenny, a former Qantas steward, is president worldwide of the Yvonne de Carlo Appreciation Society. "All together now!" she says, encouraging us to join in the rousing song, "Any Friend of Kenny's Is a Friend of Mine." We all do join in, too. Dame Edna's mother is electronically tagged in a maximum-security twilight home. She told us she's just been to Australia buffing up her beloved late husband's obelisk. "He used to like me doing it when he was still alive." The autobiographical diversions reveal a loopy dysfunctional family, like the royals. The saucy political incorrectness will disturb only the politically correct. After all, Dame Edna was pretty borderline before P.C. was ever invented. But this is the beautiful, daring thing: The uniqueness of the show resides in the audience. It really is "the show that listens," in its own fashion. Dame Edna makes friends with various members of the audience as if the rest of us weren't there. She actually builds the show around half a dozen of them–willing gulls or wary good sports. There's danger involved. She's a cozy confidante, an ironist in sidelong affectionate put-downs. "What kind of home do you have in New Jersey, dear?" she asked the lady in the audience, who paused for thought. "Think back!" Dame Edna commanded. If it were me, I would run a mile. The sweet, innocent gullibility of the public astonishes, making some of us feel timid. A couple actually had dinner on stage, having been graciously invited up by Dame Edna. They'd told her earlier they were feeling peckish. "You can't get this at Annie Get Your Gun ," Dame Edna said gleefully. You can't get it anywhere. The image of the couple enjoying dinner, as well as the show, seemed miraculously normal . They even had their photo taken with a beaming Dame Edna–a souvenir. And why not? Why not wave your gladdies? As is her charming custom, she throws the gladdies into the audience. "Come on, possums!" she calls out, encouraging everyone to wave and shake them at the end and sing along with her. "Stick up your gladiolas," goes the lyric. "And thrust, thrust, thrust!" And everyone joined in, because people are nuts, in the unsafe, irresistibly good company of Dame Edna Everage.