WHAM! Make it Big

Give a home to the fleas in my hair, / A home for fleas / A hive for bees / A nest for birds. --From "Hair: The Musical"

"Back in the '60s, it wasn't a big deal to have a lot of hair," says David L. Edeli '99. Maybe back then it was common for all God's creatures to frolic in someone's hair, as the 1968 song suggests. 30 years later, however, Big Hair isn't as common as it was in those heady days of long-haired hippies and afro-puffed Black Panthers. A person who gives each strand of hair the freedom to grow from its follicle--to find its own path from the scalp to the sky--is a rarity. Harvard has a few students who understand the Zen principles behind Big Hair. Some shape their hair, while others let their hair shape them. Here, some of Harvard's Big Hair population discuss the give-and-take that goes on each day between head and hair, between what's upstairs and what's way upstairs.

THE ORGANICS

1. Brian J. Norton '01

Norton's hair is "a big, poofy thing." When Norton wants to control his wild locks, he must wear a baseball cap for about two hours before he goes out. Otherwise, like a Jekyll to his Hyde, his hair takes on an uncontrollable life of its own. "It's got its own personality," Norton says, "It does its own thing." Some might say that Norton's hair has the electrified Eraserhead look, but Norton considers his flaxen head in more organic terms: "It's very alive, even though hair is just, you know, dead skin." It even communes with nature, often catching objects like sticks and leaves when Norton rides his bike. Though it "looks kinda funny" and sometimes inconveniences him, Norton isn't planning on cutting his hair's lifeline any time soon. "We give to each other," he explains. And he hasn't found any nesting birds in there...yet.

2. Noel M. Norcross '01

Norcross has not cut her hair since she was six years old. Because Norcross hula-danced in her native Hawaii, her long hair "came with the territory" of the Hawaiian dance's aesthetic. Though her dark brown hair runs nearly three feet, she does not find it unmanageable. "It's my roommates who get annoyed mostly, when I leave these long hairs in the sink or on the floor," she says. But the relationship between her and her Cousin It coiffee never strains. "You take care of each other," Norcross says of their symbiotic relationship. "It keeps me warm, and I take care of it." But the fun doesn't stop there; Norcross has at least 101 uses for her hair including scarf, flyswatter, whip, fake beard, zipline and instrument of bondage. "I've never used my hair as a weapon on anyone," she insists. What about the bondage, Noel?

THE THROWBACKS

3. Marie E. Hicks '00

"All the gel and hairspray keeps it off my face," Hicks, who is a Crimson editor, says of the big bangs that hang over her forehead. Hicks admits that her hair, with its teased bangs, is a vestige of the 80's in which she grew up. "My perverseness made me keep it going," she says. The 80's hair she has maintained nearly into the next millenium serves as a perpetual conversation piece. She has been told that she resembles anyone from the vampire Elvira to white-trash TV mom Peg Bundy to country-western singer Wynona Judd. Which would Hicks most like to be? "Elvira, of course, but I fear I look more like Peg Bundy." Are these comparisons supposed to be compliments or insults? When it comes to Big Hair, the line between the two is blurry.

4. Danielle E. Sherrod '98

If Marie's hair says "Wham! Make it Big," then Sherrod's hair says "Bee Gees' Saturday Night Fever." Sherrod's hair--which she describes as "a cross between a collegiate Brooke Shields and Diana Ross"--definitely has some affinity with disco balls and hot pants. Through a "ritualistic getting-ready process," Sherrod "tames" her locks without the aid of gel or hairspray. She simply curls them repeatedly around bobby pins. "I realized how big my hair was when this two-year-old came up to me in the MAC and said, 'Wow, you have Big Hair!'" Sherrod says laughing. "I've definitely toned it down since I've been here. I'm not sure where it's going." She knows where it came from, however; her mother's hair has always been "teased to the fullest...My Big Hair, I guess, is part genetic and part socialized." The world may never know whether Big Hair is a question of nature or nurture--the Human Genome Project has yet to locate the Big Hair gene.

5. David L. Edeli '99

Edeli pays homage to the father of 20th century Big Hair by dressing as Buckwheat for Halloween.FM