January 10, 2017

"Madonna has no patience for bad wine... Madonna's house smells amazing—something delicious, maybe roasted chicken, was cooking in a kitchen elsewhere in the manse..."

"... and there was a gentle fragrance in the air, jasmine, perhaps. While I waited for Madonna, her day-to-day manager, her publicist, and I chatted while reclining on gorgeous cream-colored furniture set upon the largest rug I'd ever seen, on top of immaculate black wood floors."

The furniture is cream-colored, and the prose is purple... in Harper's Bazaar.

But I can believe that, subjected to the chatting of a day-to-day manager and a publicist, one would resort to the distraction of smelling the indoor air and speculating about what might be cooking somewhere... somewhere in the manse.

The writer of the purple prose, Roxane Gay, had to wait a long time for Madonna to show up and when Madonna finally arrived she said: "Roxane, you don't have to wear that dress tonight."

And Roxane didn't unleash sarcasm — like, congratulations on being the millionth person to say that to me — she purportedly "exhaled," because:
This was familiar territory. My name is part of a well-known song or two. I smiled and said, "No, I do not." At one point she asked me for my opinion on a particularly troublesome wine, handed me her glass, and swore she didn't have anything contagious. I believed her and took a sip. To be fair, the wine was terrible....
Sounds as though Madonna did have some patience with bad wine, just not with other people noticing how bad it is.
"Take the mediocre out of here," she tells Dustin, the strapping young man who served all the wine and apologized for its mediocrity even though that mediocrity was not his fault. "I'll go broke before I drink bad wine," she declared...
But you were drinking it, Madge. You were drinking that wine.



I think you meant: I'll go broke before I serve what other people can recognize as bad wine.

And you do have something contagious. You have dishonesty, bad taste, and tardiness.

Now, the Mayor is calling me out, so I've got to move on past this post. I've got to quit this Harper's Bazaar article half-read. Here's the Roxane/Roxanne song.



Roxanne you don't have to wear that dress tonight/Walk the streets for money you don't care if it's wrong or if it's right....

AND: The lovely George Michael version of "Roxanne":

58 comments:

MayBee said...

I like it that the reporter called the wine "terrible" and Madonna called it "mediocre".

Ron Winkleheimer said...

This is how you get Trump?

My house frequently smells amazing because I know how to roast, among other things, chicken. Also, a bread machine makes making bread a breeze and also causes the house to smell fabulous. We do, however, drink two buck chuck, I doubt the journalist would approve.

Sebastian said...

From the annals of the 1%. Which is bad, except when they are prog feminist icons who show their butts in public and have manses that smell nice and dislike bad wine, cuz then it's good.

Bob Ellison said...

The correlation coefficient between wine quality and wine price is 0.2.

I mis-stated my earlier, now-deleted comment.

Otto said...

Time to change your reading material. Typical Northeast dribble.Play golf and maybe serve at a soup kitchen.Grandchildren?

Wince said...

Roxane, you don't have to wear that dress tonight.

How cliche! Paglia now Althouse piling on poor "Madge."

"But you were drinking it, Madge. You were drinking that wine."

"You're hands are soaking in it."

Karen of Texas said...

Wait. The mayor is calling you out?

rehajm said...

Wine can be difficult that way. Some faults like cork taint are obvious and some are more subtle. Some people are better than others at detecting faults. Anosmia is not a condition to possess. I do on occasion detect faults that aren't present or find fault with a particular grower. There's a lot of crap out there, too...

I enjoy Two Buck Chuck! Though I'd never purchase any on my own. Big House Red is about as low a price point as I' go, but it punches well above it's price point.

Mike Sylwester said...

Camille Paglia: How to Age Disgracefully in Hollywood (Guest Column)

[quote]

In December, at the Billboard Women in Music Awards in New York City, Madonna was given the trophy for Woman of the Year. In a rambling, tearful acceptance speech that ran more than 16 minutes, she claimed to be a victim of "blatant misogyny, sexism, constant bullying and relentless abuse."

It was a startling appropriation of stereotypical feminist rhetoric by a superstar whose major achievement in cultural history was to overthrow the puritanical old guard of second-wave feminism and to liberate the long-silenced pro-sex, pro-beauty wing of feminism, which (thanks to her) swept to victory in the 1990s.

Madonna's opening line at the awards gala was edited out of the shortened official video: "I stand before you as a doormat — oh, I mean a female entertainer." Merciful Minerva! Can there be any woman on Earth less like a doormat than Madonna Louise Ciccone? Madonna sped on with shaky assertions ("There are no rules if you're a boy") and bafflingly portrayed the huge commercial success of her 1992 book, Sex, as a chapter of the Spanish Inquisition, in which she was persecuted as "a whore and a witch." ...

[end quote]

The article continues.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/camille-paglia-how-age-disgracefully-hollywood-guest-column-960794

Lewis Wetzel said...

Like Madonna, I have no patience for bad wine. Unlike Madonna, I do not look like Skeletor.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

@Bob Ellison

I either like a particular wine, or I don't. I don't have a educated palate, and have no desire to acquire one since that would mean spending more money on wine.

In any event, "studies" seem to confirm that wine experts are mostly making stuff up and cannot actually tell the difference between an expensive wine and a cheap one.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis

YoungHegelian said...

When I was in college, I bought the Leonhardt Consort recording of the Brandenburg Concerti. The album came with the autograph score, including the dedication, in flowery court French, to the Margrave of Brandenburg. My father picked it up one day & read it & said "That guy really knew how to pile it on, didn't he?".

Here's the dedication, translated:

As I had the good fortune a few years ago to be heard by Your Royal Highness, at Your Highness's commands, and as I noticed then that Your Highness took some pleasure in the little talents which Heaven has given me for Music, and as in taking Leave of Your Royal Highness, Your Highness designed to honour me with the command to send Your Highness some pieces of my Composition: I have in accordance with Your Highness's most gracious orders taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments; begging Your Highness most humbly not to judge their imperfection with the rigor of that discriminating and sensitive taste, which everyone knows Him to have for musical works, but rather to take into benign Consideration the profound respect and the most humble obedience which I thus attempt to show Him.

Ms Gay is just the latest example in a tradition of flattering the ruling classes that goes back a long, long way.

Wince said...

A question I've been asking since the beginning of time:

Is that jumbo cupcake wrapper on the inside or the outside of that bowl of Palmolive?

It looks to me like the inside. What a mess: a jumbo cup cake wrapper soaked with Palmolive!

Is that to protect the bowl from the Palmolive or the the Palmolive from the bowl?

If the latter, why don't they just first wash the bowl with Palmolive?

mccullough said...

I love the scene in the jail cell in 48 hours when Eddie Murphy's character sings Roxanne

Wince said...

Okay, I just had a breakthrough: it's to protect the hand from the bowl.

After 50 years, my mind is now at ease!

Birches said...

Yeah, I want to know more about the mayor.

Birches said...

Yeah, I want to know more about the mayor.

Breezy said...

As an aside -- youtube George Michael Roxanne -- simply beautiful...

Fernandinande said...

"Roxane, you don't have to wear that dress tonight."

Yo mama's so fat, we got her in the drive-in free by dressing her as a Chevy.

Fernandinande said...

Yo mama so fat her dress size includes an exponent.

jv said...

From our inarticulate mayor:
http://www.waxingamerica.com/2017/01/our-public-market-and-economic-opportunity-capitalism-in-madison.html

Bob Ellison said...

Ron Winkleheimer, your comment deserves a hot link.

urbane legend said...

Now that's funny, Fernandinande. How long will you be playing here? I want to see another show.

Anonymous said...

"You call this a Chardonnay, Ann?" -- Paul Soglin

urbane legend said...

If I were Roxane, every time someone said, " you don't have to wear that dress tonight, " I would stand up, take it off, and say, " You know, you are right. That's the last time I will. Or any another dress. " But the interviews would go differently, I'm sure.

ken in tx said...

The word manse is not short for mansion, as it appears to be used here. It specifically refers to the church provided living quarters of a Presbyterian minister.

rehajm said...

From our inarticulate mayor:

Wow is that bad. Quoting liberal scripture is 'analysis'?

walter said...

"At one point she asked me for my opinion on a particularly troublesome wine, handed me her glass, and swore she didn't have anything contagious."

Says the gal who promised ("really good") blowjobs to the masses.

Kathryn51 said...

If they ever do a remake of "Sunset Boulevard", Madonna would be a perfect Blanche Dubois. Blanche in "What Ever Happened. . . "? Not so much.

[Question for the experts - once I post, is there a way to edit? Or must I delete and try again? Thanks in advance.]

traditionalguy said...

Mad Donna is afraid of Trump leading the United States of America. That's a cheap Hollywood hit, if there ever was one.

But just wait until she tries Playing on a Trump golf course.

walter said...

No editing..

Will said...

History will show the tide of the 2016 election turned when Madonna threatened Hillary voters with blowjobs…

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/madonna-offers-oral-sex-hillary-voters-amy-schumer-gig-article-1.2836485

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Madonna is boring.

Steven Wilson said...

Kathryn51 I'll help you out. Norma Desmond is I think the role you have in mind for Madonna.

Wilbur said...

A very good friend's mother was a Mrs. Robinson. The Graduate jokes and song renditions wore thin very, very quickly.

robother said...

I have two friends from Ivy League backgrounds who have no ability to tell bad wine (short of vinegar) from good. They depend on me to know, and just buy whatever I serve at home as long as its available in the liquor store.
While taste in wine can be cultivated, for some (and Madge sounds like one), there just doesn't seem to be the basic ability to distinguish.

Joe said...

So Madonna has no patience for wine....

Ann Althouse said...

@Breezy

Thanks!

Did another embed on the front page.

I'd never heard that. Beautiful.

Ann Althouse said...

"The word manse is not short for mansion, as it appears to be used here. It specifically refers to the church provided living quarters of a Presbyterian minister."

I knew there was a language issue and would have wrestled with it to it but word came down that the Mayor was calling me out.

richlb said...

So Madonna calls the reporter a whore. Huh.

buwaya said...

"I like it that the reporter called the wine "terrible" and Madonna called it "mediocre"."

This is just showing their Privilege.
All wine is fine to the campuo, as it is inevitably carried in a leather bota, and it is a mark of the good companero to hand your bota around to give your visitors a drink.
What are they, aristocrats or something?

Gk1 said...

Madonna reminds me of those dinner party guests that can't take the hint they need to start gathering their things to go home. "Yawnnn yeah, well it sure was nice....the thing is I got an early meeting tomorrow....Wow, is that the time?!?!" She can't take the hint apparently.

Kathryn51 said...

Steven Wilson said...
Kathryn51 I'll help you out. Norma Desmond is I think the role you have in mind for Madonna.

Steven, you are correct and I don't know why my mind came up with the name "Blanche DuBois". I still think Madonna fits the part. I see from a google search that Glenn Close is scheduled to play the part on Broadway in the musical version.

tcrosse said...

Gloria Swanson was only 50 when she played Norma Desmond, eight years younger than Madonna is now.

BJM said...

Madonna morphed so slowly into a parody of Mae West that I barely noticed until I saw those VF photos.

Leslie Graves said...

I don't think I would be able to detect "a gentle fragrance in the air; jasmine, perhaps" while simultaneously being enveloped in the manse[sic]-wide amazing smell of a roasting chicken.

Bill said...

She should have retired after "Ray of Light" and devoted the rest of her life to charity.

Brando said...

Rich people saying they'd go broke before [insert something unthinkable, like drinking bad wine] aren't really saying much. It's like saying you would give your right arm for something, when there isn't a crazy guy with a machete next to you ready to take you up on it.

Show me someone below the poverty line saying they'd sooner lose what small amount they have left and be penniless before drinking bad wine, and that'd be impressive.

chickelit said...

Madonna is much more Baby Jane Hudson than Norma Desmond.

JaimeRoberto said...

I always imagined her home smelled like leather, sweat and used condoms.

Unknown said...

When I need a reading on Madonna (almost never), I just default to Camille Paglia on it, such as recently... 'It's truly tragic to see her maudlin displays of self-pity'

Biff said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Biff said...

Kudos to the production staff for their Photoshop skills!

Jupiter said...

George Michael doesn't get Roxanne at all. The listener is supposed to understand, what the singer does not, or would rather not; that Roxanne *wants* to wear that dress tonight. It's not just for money, 'though the money doesn't hurt. A gal likes to have her own. And no, whether it's wrong or right is not a big factor in her cogitations. I'm sure Madonna understands perfectly.

Breezy said...

Madonna's behavior is about power, period. It is not about "her own", its about her seeming more sophisticated and discerning, because in the raw she does not want to anyone to think she has done all she has done, exposed all she has exposed, to be just any old broad...which is exactly what she is now.

BN said...

I did read this one, all the way through (though not the comments yet), and this is your best post ever!! (I sometimes get accused of sarcasm when i'm serious, so just for the record, I'm serious). I almost even want to click the links,(but I have like 10 or so rituals i have to perform before i will do that, and a few involve push-ups, so... no.

Anyway,..

"And you do have something contagious. You have dishonesty, bad taste, and tardiness."

Somebody somewhere is falling on their knees.

Powerful stuff.

BN said...

I did 10 pushups, I twirled around 3 times, I said "who is there?" one time, and then once more again. That's 2 times.

Two times, but softly. It's important to do it very, very softly.

I walked to the door and to the wall, i did that 5 times, which is 2 + 3, and then I did it 8 times more, which is 2 cubed.

I repeated the secret phrase 3 times. And then on the fourth time i changed the words in the secret way.

Then I huffed a little paint. Just a little.

And just for a small while.

And then i clicked.

George Michael.

Because he's dead. And... well, you know.

...Best.Post.Ever!

Quaestor said...

The embedded clip led me to find and watch What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? for the first time. Wow. I mean, wow. That is one f'ed up flick. Not that it's bad or incompetent, far from it. It's evil. EVIL, I say! Bette Davis... that hair, that Bela Lugosi makeup, that rat Ă  la mode, that SHRIEK! Not only is WEHTBJ a motion picture of purest iniquity, it's also a classic. Not only that, Baby Jane garnered (GARNERED!) a flock of Oscar nominations, including one for Best Sound (Apparently Joe Kelly deserved one just for keeping the VU meter in the green while Davis did her mad as a hatter schtick.) And it won the Palm d'Or at Cannes. I was gratified to learn that the Baby Jane's box office spawned a whole new genre called psycho-biddy.

Madonna seems a natural star, a shoo-in, for a new round of psycho-biddy horror extravaganzas. I can see it now. Served a flute of indifferent côte du Rhone she screams "No... mediocre... wine... EVER!!" at the top of her famously ear-splitting voice as she bludgeons her private sommelier to death with a jeroboam of 2002 Saint-Pantaléon-les-Vignes clutched in her sinewy old-lady hands. Academy Award material, guaranteed.