LADY GAGA

My fingers hover over my keyboard ... I don't need to write about this rising "star." Her performance tells it better in "Romance."

Chicago Sun Times January 15, 2010
OK FOR OPRAH, BUT NOT FOR INDIANA
By Thomas Conner
"Lady Gaga canceled a concert Thursday night, claiming illness -- and yet there she was live on Oprah today, looking perfectly fine.

"Thursday night's show at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., was canceled -- after the opening acts had already performed! -- 'due to exhaustion and dehydration.' Lady Gaga tweeted an explanation later: 'An hour before the show I was feeling dizzy and having trouble breathing.' The performance has been rescheduled for January 26.

"This morning, though, she looked perfectly hydrated and spunky -- with spiky toothpick hair -- as she performed a medley of her hits on Oprah's weekly Friday show. She was even healthy enough to swing a gold, spiked ball on a chain into the windshield of a taxi on the stage.

"'I am so devastated,' she continued on Twitter, discussing the cancellation. 'I have performed with the flu, a cold, strep throat: I would never cancel a show just based on discomfort. I hope you can forgive me. I love my little monsters more than anything, you are everything to me.'"

(Em note; she calls her fans "monsters.")

The critic goes on to say sort of facetiously -- "It must be difficult to partially lip-sync for a couple of hours, like she did in Chicago."

The New York Times review about this was almost identical but it doesn't mention the lip-syncing -- I've noted a lot of lip-syncing in all of her hit songs.

I read about Lady Gaga's appearance at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics show (see my post January 18, "New Stuff"). She caused a sensation, as she hit the Polaroid stand, and announced her appointment as "creative director" and "inventor of specialty products for Polaroid."

Wearing a black see-through dress and a blonde sunhat made entirely out of her own hair, she described herself as a "Polaroid girl" and said she was "outraged" when the company filed for bankruptcy in 2001. She said her new Polaroid products would be available this year but few further details were revealed.

There are endless pictures of Lady Gaga in her wild outfits -- replete with weird, often shocking doodads, usually a potpourri of incompatible coverings.

A picture of her in a red rubber gown, greeting the Queen, was in all the papers in London as well as Time Magazine, and the Huffington Post, December 8. The reporter wrote, "Queen Elizabeth had a big grin on her face Monday night in London as she met Lady Gaga, who wore red leather and curtsied, following the Royal Variety Performance in Blackpool, England."

Lady Gaga's Website bio includes this quote from poet, Austrian art critic, Rainer Maria Rilke -- "In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?"

She described Rilke as her "favorite philosopher." (Hmm ... her lyrics don't sound like they're Rilke-inspired.)

On YouTube, her most well-known videos have been seen, by 8 to 12 million fans. To date, she has sold over 8 million albums and 35 million singles digitally worldwide.

Oh dear ... I've been writing, moaning, and complaining about the media creating false heroes and heroines, praising them, condemning them, paying attention to what's bad, stupid, harmful -- and here I am blabbing while I'm gagging over Lady Gaga.

That the untalented, not particularly beautiful Lady Gaga is making it by publicizing her body, her soul, her music, her poetry ... well, it's sad ... it's not incredible ... just sad to think she may be inspiring the next generation of young girls with big dreams.