NEWS LITE : IN JAMES TAYLOR, FARM HAS A FRIEND.

Singer-songwriter James Taylor has sold his 100-acre farm in Connecticut with a provision it be preserved forever.

After a year of negotiations, Taylor, the Housatonic Valley Association and the new owners agreed to a conservation easement that will prevent development in the rolling meadows and open farm fields on the eastern banks of the Housatonic River.

The new owners, Marianne Pirotta and George Boyle, paid $375,000 for the farm, which they had been renting from Taylor for about five years. They operate a horse stable and a millwork business on the property.

Taylor bought the property in 1983 but he had never lived on it.

Rosie not always rosy to admirers

Rosie O'Donnell needs her space and says a key to getting it is knowing when to tell admirers to back off.

The daytime talk host says an obvious time to draw the line is while shopping.

``I don't mind if people say hello,'' she says in the November issue of Redbook. ``But I really mind when people come over and I'm with my kids and they hug me. That's when I say, Hold it. I'm just a person at the mall with my kids. Just hold it.''

O'Donnell is taking another step to slow down the stream of attention coming her way. Recently, she decided not to write her autobiography.

``I really feel like there is so much information out there that even I'm getting sick of me,'' she says.

`Lolita' parody spawns lawsuit by author's son

Sequels to ``Gone With the Wind'' and ``Casablanca'' have come off without a catch - but a retold ``Lolita'' is fanning a hot legal affair.

The son of novelist Vladimir Nabokov has sued an Italian woman for parodying the story of a professor sexually obsessed with a 12-year-old girl - from the child's point of view.

``Lo's Diary'' by Pia Pera, according to a lawsuit seeking to ban its U.S. publication, is ``a rip-off.''

Not quite, says attorney Leon Friedman, who represents New York publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux. ``It's funny, it's a parody. It adds something new, with different characters,'' he said Saturday.

The original narrator, Professor Humbert Humbert, becomes Humbert Guibert and he doesn't kill Clare, the evil playwright who lures away Lolita; and Clare, a man in the original, returns as Filthy Sue.

Dolores Haze, a k a Lolita, is now Dolores Maze. And she's a blatant little seductress with come-hither techniques: ``Swing a foot back and forth, flutter your eyelids, fan yourself, snap your fingers to the music, blow a bubble then suck the gum slowly back into your mouth.''

Unlike Nabokov's 1955 book, the professor and ``Lo'' don't die. ``They all stick around, and she gets married and has a child and she's happy,'' Friedman said.

The lawsuit accusing Pera and her publisher of copyright and trademark infringement was filed Thursday in federal court in New York by Nabokov's estate, represented by his son, Dmitri Nabokov, a race car driver who lives in Florida. The lawsuit also names Italian and British publishers of the book, published in Italy in 1995.

The book is ``inferior and amateurish merchandise'' that tarnishes the reputation of a work that has sold about 50 million copies in more than 20 languages, according to court documents.

From pie charts to pie in the face

An environmentalist in San Francisco slapped Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman with a coconut cream pie.

Friedman was attending a conference on education when Al Decker, a member of the Biotic Baking Brigade, let him have it.

Decker said he can't stand neoliberal Friedman because his ``economic philosophy is responsible for the destruction of our environment, the deterioration of our social structure and has brought the world to the brink of an economic collapse.''

In February, pranksters in Belgium hit Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, and Procter & Gamble Chairman John Pepper was pied about two weeks later in Columbus, Ohio, by animal rights activists.

And last November, designer Oscar de la Renta was smacked with a tofu cream pie while signing autographs at a shopping mall in suburban Portland, Ore.

Her `Beloved' fans swarm to new film

Oprah Winfrey could feel beloved.

As Winfrey arrived at Friday night's premiere in Philadelphia of her movie ``Beloved,'' fans shouted ``Oprah! Oprah!''

Shot in Philadelphia and nearby locales of Lancaster and Elkton, Md., ``Beloved'' drew several hundred fans who paid $250 to watch the film and attend a reception with the cast Friday night.

``We're not in Hollywood, but this kind of brings Hollywood to you,'' said Amy Hendry, who bought a ticket after seeing it advertised on Oprah's television show.

Winfrey produced and stars in ``Beloved,'' which tells the story of an escaped slave haunted by the ghost of a child she killed.

The proceeds from the event benefit the African-American museum in Philadelphia, the Freedom Theatre, the Philadelphia Reads program, and Women in Transition, a counseling agency for battered and addicted women.

News Lite is compiled by Karen Duffy from Daily News staff and wire reports.

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

PHOTO (1) TIPPED COW

Rosemary Blutcher washes a balloon in Detroit that will float through America's Thanksgiving Parade.

Paul Warner/Associated Press

(2) TAYLOR

(3) WINFREY

(4) Dominique Swain and Jeremy Irons star in a 1998 film of ``Lolita.''