Santa Madonna
It seemed like Santa in Fellini-land Tuesday night as child after child brought to Madonna her new kiddie book, “Lotsa de Casha,” to sign at Bergdorf’s.
Surrounded by exquisite cat-faced clowns and burly guards who held back a crowd of 250 society parents and their Mary-Jane and Buster-Brown-clad children, the recently deep diva patiently wrote her name again and again. It was ironic, considering the message of nonmaterialism she wants to get across in “Casha.”
“Just because something’s expensive doesn’t mean it’s worth it,” she wrote. (We watched to see if the Bergdorf’s staff would rip that page out of every book, the proceeds of which went to UNICEF.)
It’s all part of the transformation the No Longer Material Girl attributes to kabbala, a form of Jewish mysticism. The musical mother of two tells Ladies’ Home Journal that in the past, “I just wanted to show off. I knew I could get people to pay attention to me. Do I think I helped people? Yes, I do. Do I think I hindered people? Yes, I do. I wasn’t thinking responsibly. Then, I was glorifying the outside … letting it pump my ego. It’s about what’s on the inside.”
As her longtime publicist and mother-figure Liz Rosenberg hovered protectively, Madonna stopped everything to talk with Ingrid Casares, who patted the singer’s butt for old times’ sake. Another weird moment saw David Copperfield approach the red rope to get an autograph like the kids. The crush soon proved too much for Madonna and she made like a magician herself, disappearing into the ether.
The shocked gawkers who didn’t get their moment with Santa Madonna got an even bigger surprise when a Bergdorf’s handler said, “You know she autographed them all already, don’t you?”
Sure enough, she had already written “Love, Madonna” in a secret place in every book.
From the New York Daily News