People

By Michele Orecklin

MAYBE WE'LL JUST ABBREVIATE

FIONA APPLE, hoping perhaps to become the Tolstoy of rock, has composed the War and Peace of album titles. The name of the pop urchin's second CD, due in early November, suggests that brevity is fine, as long as it's limited to clothing and time spent not taking yourself too seriously. The title? When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'Fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter 'Cuz You'll Know That You're Right. That's 90 words--in iambic quadrameter--if you're counting at home, but we could have said it in one: nonsense.

PIERCED BUT STILL PIOUS

JAY BAKKER is not a traditional man of the cloth, unless all clerics are hiding tattoos under their robes. As Rolling Stone reports, Jay, 23, son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, has followed his father into the family business, but he preaches to a flock of punks and outcasts instead of TV viewers. After his father went to prison for fraud and his mother remarried, Jay turned to drugs and alcohol. He has straightened out and now aims to reach others who feel alienated. Says Bakker: "The church needs to stop figuring out ways [to] fight Marilyn Manson [and] start accepting all types of people."

ACTRESSES TAKE THE TRESS TEST

It's sort of the Sampson effect in reverse: after their first brush with success, ingenues chop off their locks as if to prove their power does not flow from their follicles. The most recently shorn is Felicity star KERI RUSSELL, who, by cutting her hair, banished one of the highlights of her show's first season. In the tidal wave of fame that followed the release of Pretty Woman, JULIA ROBERTS got cropped. And GWYNETH PALTROW ditched her do upon garnering acclaim for Emma. Maybe it's just a way to avert fallout.