Here are some new photos of Lady Gaga, going into Howard Stern’s show today, Monday, in NYC. Bitch got a new wig, I think. It looks pretty good, although now I can’t stop thinking about how messed up her hair clumps must be underneath all of the wig accoutrements. Will you hate me if I say that I kind of like her hooker boots/garter thing? I wouldn’t wear it, but I kind of like it on Gaga. Anyway, today’s special Gaga treat is her July column for V Magazine. It‘s been out for a few weeks, but this is the first time I‘m reading the whole thing, and I just wanted to see if you guys had seen it yet. Back in May, we read excerpts from Gaga’s first “column” for the magazine, which included Gaga’s musings on how she was a coked-up “student of glam culture.” This month’s cocaine-laced episode involves Gaga pretending to be the wig-wearing, crackhead, drag-queen version of the love child of e.e. cummings and Jack Kerouac. What am I trying to say? Bitch is hammered and tedious. The column is laid out like a memo, and before the text of the memo even begins, here’s Gaga’s list of everyone this memo should be forwarded to: “MRS. VREELAND, HAUS OF GAGA, V COLLECTIVE, LITTLE MONSTERS, THE WORLD, FASHION-SEXUALS, PHILIP TReACY, MY LIVER, MY MOLE, MY PEARLS, MY WIGS, MY TOBACCO CIGS, MY FIGS.” Seriously. Here’s the column:

Art is a lie. And every day I kill to make it true. It is my destiny to exist halfway between reality and fantasy at all times. They call me “theatrical,” but I posit profusely that I am theatre, and that theatre is me. I am a show with no intermission. It is this thing that summons me from the depths of reality and reminds me that the power of transformation is endless. That I (we) possess something magical and transformative inside —  a uniqueness and specialness waiting to be exiled from the depths of our identity. I have said before that I am a master of escapism, which many attribute to my wigs, performances, and my natural inclination to be grand, but perhaps that is also a lie. Maybe I am not escaping. Maybe I am just being. Being myself.

The arrival at this revelation revises my previous escapist philosophies, as my entire being, thus far, as wholly artist and wholly human, has been propelled by the idea that I must effortlessly vacillate between two worlds: out of the real and into the surreal. Out of the ordinary, into the extraordinary.

“I DON’T SPEAK GERMAN BUT I CAN IF YOU LIKE.”

But as I delved quite deeply into this topic for my current album, I’ve reckoned that perhaps there is no pendulum. No need to distinguish between artifice and consciousness.

The “notion” of escapism may be a lie, but for some of us this lie is our truth. You must desire the reality of fantasy so profusely that it becomes necessity, not accessory.

The lines for myself have become so blurred now, I know not the difference between a moment of performance and a moment of honesty. If you were to ask me to remove my Philip Treacy hat at a party, in truth it is the emotional and physical equivalent of requesting I remove my liver. Talk about giving “clutching her pearls” a new meaning! I know not the difference between the hair that grows from my head and the teal wigs that grow from my imagination. They are the same. They are both honest, and always have been. So maybe I know nothing of “the art of escapism.” I was just Born This Way. I revere the dream to be real. I am always, and shall forever be, private in public.

In this lies one of many books in the Bible of Fashion: in order for the FANTASY OF YOU to become the REALITY OF YOU, you must commit to the fantasy as wholeheartedly as you commit to your humanness. Wear out your vision. Proclaim your mission. Amen, Fashion! Style can transform and release your internal superstar. Whether it be one pair of shoes, some vintage sunglasses, a family heirloom, or a hair color that makes you feel as electric on the outside as you do on the inside. Acknowledge that this choice is a manifestation of an internal magic and the potential of your spirit. You are fan-tas-tic. And this fantasy is part of the real and honest you. It is a lie inside, waiting to be unlocked to become true. Scheiße. I just spoke some German.

[From Lady Gaga’s second column for V Magazine]

Her art is life and her life is art. She’s all about the image, the superficiality of the thing rather than the substance of the thing, and she thinks that by being solely about the superficiality, she lends it, and herself, substance, because she deems is ART. It makes for good photos, and increasingly bad music. But, as we now know, it’s not about the music. It’s about the ART of the music, the image of the music. It’s not enough to be a pop star. You have to be seen as being a pop star. All of this is ART.

Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News.