Losing Faith and Ordering a Curry

My boyfriend and I lay in bed and watched The Graham Norton Show last night, since Madonna was on it, complete with the lead actor and actress of her new film, W.E. I adored Madonna when I was a teen and enjoyed her for many years after, but that love has dissipated over recent years. After watching her last night, it was near on dead. With someone that famous, it is often hard to detach the working persona from that of her real personality, but when you do manage this with Madonna, you realise that the latter finds it hard to stand up on it's own. Of course, I do not know her personally, but on shows like this, she comes across as an unrelaxed and wooden woman, whose every move, laugh or word is contrived and geared to audience response. It's an act she has been playing for many years now, and like the majority of her film performances, appears unnatural and not particularly human. It might be that she has become so obsessed with herself that she has disappeared somewhere up the entrance of her own little world. From listening to the audience of last night's show, it would seem that her fans have disappeared up there too, never to be seen again in reality.

It kind of pains me to slay Madonna, because her music has been the soundtrack to much of my life. I still look back at more than a handful of her songs and when I do, I slip off into a daze, remembering how I was feeling at the time of their release. Each could easily be the title of a chapter in my life. When I hear the original version of Like a Prayer, I remember walking home from one of my first jobs in the dark, listening to it on my new personal stereo. As a teenager, the controversy surrounding the video was exciting and I lapped up every bit, since it felt as though she and I were growing up together. I used to take the record round to my friends, Jenni and Phay, and we'd sit there, dreaming of our futures, with Madonna and her church choir helping to raise the level of our excitement. A few years later, I saw her in concert for the first time. I think I lived off of the buzz of that for many weeks after.

But now, I feel as though I have outgrown this self-appointed queen. You realise that for someone who is known for changing herself so much over the years, she never really seems to change at all. It's all just the same old shit, but unfortunately, the music isn't as good as it once was. One of the aspects of last night's show that made me cringe the most was her rudeness. Two guys had lovingly made a collection of dolls, highlighting her different looks. One of which, they had packaged in a box for her to keep. After ungraciously turning her nose up at the details on the majority, she then went on to criticise the gift, saying that the sunglasses were the wrong shape. It was embarrassing to watch. I don't catch the Graham Norton show particularly often, but I am pretty sure I saw someone gift Lady Gaga with the same kind of thing some time ago. Her response was quite different, asking the artist to come down to the stage so that she could thank them with a kiss. Despite what her outfits might tell us, it looks as though Gaga is still a resident of planet Earth, with both feet firmly on the ground.

Today's card is Faith. Here is another from The Legacy of the Divine Tarot which I am not so keen on visually. Apparently, the creator received such a welcome response from the tarot community to his retitling of the fifth trump in his second deck, that he decided to rename this one too. This 'testing the water' approach to creation doesn't sit so well with me, which is maybe why the deck was hard for me to digest at first. Having said all of this, in reading what Marchetti says about this particular card, I quite like the concept. The idea is that the pillar of light represents the divine; a source which all of the figures in this card look to for guidance and inspiration. I guess you could plonk Madonna in there somewhere, since she is a divine leader for many. With her in mind, this card could very well describe my lack of faith in her and lapse of worship.

My boyfriend is still in bed. Since he is helping me to try and finish my room today, I am giving him these extra hours before I attack him with dust sheets, paintbrushes, and rollers. Most of my books are piled high in the hallway, so I want to try and do as much of it as we can today so that everything can be straightened up before we go out this evening. We are going to his brother's house for a drink to celebrate his birthday and everyone is ordering a curry in. At first, this horrified me, thinking of my diet, but with Madonna and Faith's traditional view of conformity and community in mind, I think I will relax a little and try my best to be human .. if only for a couple of hours. What is it they say about disliking the traits in others that you subconsciously dislike in yourself?

Illustration from The Legacy of the Divine by Ciro Marchetti