Madonna

MADONNA Harold Jaffe wanted to live in the San Remo, a hincty high-rise in New York City, but her application was turned down by the tenant-owners, including other celebs, though Madonna appeared at the crucial interview with three crucifixes around her neck, or maybe it was four, she had (she is firm on this point) a "very" Catholic childhood, so that her nom de video, Madonna, serves the practical dual purpose of alloy and allegory, each encouraged and denied, likewise in her smash-hit single "Material Girl," material is of course lucre while being a timely reminder of our composition as vile matter, ditto Madonna's participation in a '79 soft-core flick in the Big Apple for which she was paid the princely sum of $100, and what was billed as the real scuz was not-so-deftly simulated, ditto her nudie photos disinterred, but my dialectical (so to speak) gloss on U.S. iconizing-commodifying was evidently lost on Paul Simon, Dustin Hoffman and the others on the application committee of the San Remo, the higher you climb the ladder of success the more your (pardon my Greek) arse is exposed applies in spades to Madonna , though she'd rather expose her navel, I've seen more female navels in rainy London this summer, Madonna-invoked, than you would imagine: Earl's Court, Shoreditch, Chelsea, King's Cross, saw a brace on Princess Street, Edinburgh, in the pouring rain, why shouldn't she issue a "restraining order" on the redistribution of her porn flick, on the publication of her nudies in both Penthouse and Playboy, the year was '79 (Before AIDS), Hamilton Jordan was deftly counseling Jimmy Carter on "Human Rights," Madonna was an eighteen-year-old tyro called Louise Ciccone, slim but breasty, brown hair and lush bush and sexy hair on her belly and lots under her arms, her "look" Lower-East-Side-sulky, even then she was religious as heck, in her way, only Diane Keaton among the bigs voted Yes on Madonna's application to live in the San Remo, perhaps on the grounds of 17 sisterhood, I can only speculate, perhaps on the grounds of charity, we are in the grip of BAND AID, aid to the strife-torn in Africa, if only those Marxists would let our dollars get through to the folks that need them: the good poor (in Matthew Arnold's father's phrase), Poverty Sucks, like the bumpersticker says, but isn't it just the incentive you need to get rich, a buffer (I mean poverty) against getting poor, as AIDS discourages congress with Haitians, homos, hemos, so wear your necktie munch on irradiated bean sprouts phone your broker don't bend over, "Like a Virgin," Madonna's first mega-smash, has got it all if you alter the words, while inserting Mother Teresa in her habit for Madonna in her confection of silks, no big deal, not with our technology, I think of the poor when I eat Tandoori, you wouldn't believe how many Indian/Pakistani restaurants there are throughout the U.K., Sikhs though scarce, evidently because of their continuing dispute with India, because of their stubborn insistence on possessing their skins, tough for a male Sikh to hide when you think of it, appearance isn't everything, well, it's darn close, take Madonna's navel, truthfully I prefer reading about her navel from a distance, the U.K. isn't distant enough, and I'd prefer reading about her navel in another language, Basque, say, or Punjabi (as spoken by the Sikhs in northwest India), Gosh, she's the very reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe, a tramp with style, a composite of styles, a xeroxed composite of apparent styles accessed, video'd, transmitted via satellite, take the incessant rain in London, filthy weather and the thing is we have the technology to do something about it, the Brits though would like it both ways: the Queen Mother at Ascot and creeping Americanization on the telly, "Dallas" reruns are all the rage, "MERRY MPs DANGLED A TOPLESS GIRL OVER THE RIVER THAMES IN A STAGGERING EARLYHOURS RAVE-UP" [this wasn't Madonna though it...