Simpler times: Madonna in 1984.

Even as Madonna brings her world tour to Yankee Stadium for shows on September 6 and 8, longtime fans will have a sneaking suspicion that she’s already sung her swan song.

It happened in 2001, at the opening of the Grammy Awards. Performing a recent single, the unimaginatively named “Music,” the long-reigning Queen of Pop writhed on top of a car while a screen behind her projected legitimately iconic images from her career thus far—more writhing, in a wedding gown at the Video Music Awards; aping Marilyn in the “Material Girl” video; that whole Sex period. By the time she stripped off her black leather jacket to reveal a T-shirt printed with “Material Girl,” the game was up. It was the end of history for Madonna. Having stolen from New York’s drag queens, the nation of Argentina, Björk and the infinitely patient Camille Paglia, there was no one left to rob but herself. The snake had found its own tail and wasn’t letting go. “Music” was her last number-one single in America.

The subsequent 11 years have been no kinder to a pop singer who made untold profits by scandalizing the entire population all at once. In 2003, for instance, Madonna restaged the notorious VMAs “Like a Virgin” performance in which she’d mimed masturbation; it was such a sensational act back in 1984 that a worthy callback required the additional services of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, both of whom planted kisses on Mama. The stunt got ink, but felt a little derivative, unworthy.

We haven’t even gotten to the Super Bowl performance, this year, during which the chanteuse came out in a gilded barge, like Cleopatra, to intone “Vogue,” then almost fell off a set of bleachers while performing, once again, “Music.” Madonna duetted with of-the-moment hip-hop act LMFAO, gave airtime to Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. (who stole the show with a raised middle finger—proving she had learned from the best), and ceded the entire finale to reality-show judge Cee Lo Green, who belted out “Like a Prayer” while the ostensible star sang backup. Nothing here was new—not the reliance on the energy of younger pop stars (Madonna has, in the past 10 years, collaborated with everyone from Missy Elliott to Justin Timberlake and Kanye West), not the ostensibly new song she debuted (a retread of flimsy early material like “Burning Up”), and not the dopey “political” edge (her song ended with a plea for #Worldpeace).

Madonna’s ongoing world tour, following the halftime show that most of us were inclined to view charitably, has been marred by endless grabs for attention; the well-chronicled political mishmash has featured the comparison of a French politician to Hitler, the onstage brandishing of pistols, a merited-or-not mockery of Lady Gaga, and Madonna’s own fans booing her. And then there was Elton John, who declared, “Her career is over, I can tell you that” and compared her to “a fairground stripper.”

Which isn’t to say that Mr. John is the most relevant pop star of the moment, either, but he has a point.

Past Madonna tours were controversial; recall how natural she seemed in her 1991 tour documentary Truth or Dare, still discovering her power to provoke. Back in the day, the attention felt somehow earned, if often strenuously so—the Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra said a mouthful, for instance; “Papa Don’t Preach” still carries a frisson; and the apostasy of the Catholic-baiting “Like a Prayer” made up for the relative thinness of the music. It was an equal exchange—she gave us something to talk about, we bought her albums and got up to dance (for inspiration), whenever she commanded.

By comparison, Madonna’s bids for controversy these days come off as desperate, the Newsweek cover stories of Top 40 radio.

Or was it always a little troll-y? It’s possible that no public act has ever been more calculated than Madonna’s repeated cursing on Letterman—rewatching the 1994 segment today, you can see there is no spontaneity whatsoever. Madonna dropped the f-bomb because she had determined it was time to prove that she could be naughtier than we even believed possible. Her Erotica album doesn’t really sound like the work of someone who’s actually ever had sex (much less cruised the Lower East Side in a limo, hunting for hookups, or partnered with Warren Beatty, Sean Penn, JFK Jr., et al.). The Vanity Fair spread with her newborn daughter invented the current tabloid vogue for baby photos, but the earth-mother shtick felt like as much of a pose as the Hindi-inflected look she threw on at awards ceremonies around the period, or the British accent she would soon pick up. In retrospect, the British accent was when the pose overwhelmed the artist. Until then, it was easy enough to go along with Madonna’s act. Certainly it was more interesting on a semiotic level than just marveling, yet again, at the dully marvelous vocal power of contemporaries like Mariah Carey and Toni Braxton.

And yet Madonna seemed to grow rageful at the limits of the concord she’d struck with her audience. Her mid-career albums Ray of Light (1998) and Music (2000) got the first legitimately respectful reviews of her oeuvre—and the first Grammy wins aside from a 1992 music-video prize. Having proven herself as an artist and not merely a provocateur, Madonna released, in 2003, a musically interesting, politically moronic album called American Life. A video depicted her tossing a bomb at George W. Bush. This was the album on which she rapped about how dissatisfied she was with her household staff and her “soy latte” with a “double shot-té.” Rightly or wrongly, her discovery of Jewish mysticism—remember “Esther”?—came off as yet another pose, if an expensive one.

Her 2005 album Confessions on a Dance Floor marked a retrenchment; the music was well-regarded precisely because it so closely mimed the spirit of the disco tunes that had initially made Madonna famous (with a bit of international house music mixed in). On tour in support of the album, Madonna ascended a glittering disco cross and wore a crown of thorns, to which the world replied with a mass eye-roll. What, precisely, was she even trying to say about the Catholic Church, 15 years after Like a Prayer? What was there left to communicate? The confessions weren’t forthcoming on Dance Floor, an album about having fun and waiting for boys to call and vaguely pushing oneself toward some undefined goal. (It’s worth noting that Confessions on a Dance Floor sold well, and that Madonna will always be able to count on an avid, if graying, fan base—in particular among gay men between 25 and 55 who grew up with her act.)

After a warmed-over hip-hop-ish album in 2008 came this year’s MDNA—a not-so-clever mash-up of her own name and the active ingredient in Ecstasy. One song features a rap bashing ex-husband Guy Ritchie; another bashes “some girls” who don’t have Madonna’s particular je ne sais quoi. There’s “Masterpiece,” a weak ballad from the Wallis Simpson bio-pic she directed. There’s a tune called “Gang Bang,” and a remix of the leadoff single “Give Me All Your Luvin’” produced by LMFAO. None of this has aged well, and the album came out in the spring.

Given Madonna’s undisciplined message, her buckshot approach to baiting controversy—if you throw every signifier out into the world, one is bound to hit—it’s perhaps no surprise that her lunch has been eaten by a crop of pop stars who absorbed her best moves and subtracted the air of breathless doggedness. Katy Perry has nailed the faux-naïf “Why are you paying attention to me?” quality. Rihanna captures the air of the profane. Nicki Minaj does the whole rapid-cycling-through-personae thing, albeit in fast-motion. And Lady Gaga, whose own popularity waxes and wanes in a Madonnavian manner, has adopted the sense of unashamed artifice, mixing in a bit more humor and perhaps a bit more heart, daring us, as Madonna once did, not to talk about her.

While Madonna performs old material and prematurely stale material and waves guns and twirls batons and invokes Godwin’s Law at Yankee Stadium, the world’s top pop acts will be in Los Angeles, at the MTV Video Music Awards. While the deal-makers who paid Madonna a reported $120 million over 10 years can count on strong attendance this one last go-round—she’s still Madonna, after all—the Madge business isn’t a growth industry. The last time Madonna performed at the VMAs was to reprise her past material and kiss Britney.

It turns out that Madonna’s 1987 album Who’s That Girl is the most appropriately titled of her career (certainly more so than Music). Some 30 years on, we’re no closer to finding out what makes this girl tick, what interests her beyond the glitter and flash of a camera. At this point, it may be time for her to take her own advice from one of her number-one singles, “Take a Bow.” “The show is over,” Madonna sang, back when the future seemed bright, or at least more full of possibility. “Say goodbye.”

'Pride & Prejudice,' minus zombies, plus dirty words (Clandestine Classics)

Thank you, statute of limitations on copyrighted material! Clandestine Classics, a subsidiary of Total-E-Bound publishing, has rewritten five of those stuffy British novelsyou were forced to read in English class and turned them into poorly-spelled BDSM sex stories. Unfortunately, these e-rotica e-books won't be available till July 30th (let the 12 day countdown begin!), but on the bright side, Clandestine has given readers a sneak peak to its 19th century knickers.

Let's read some excerpts (which are NSFW...as much as words can be NSFW), shall we?

Charlotte Bronte knows that it's not rape if she's sort of into it in this re-imagining of Jane Eyre:

I tried to pull away. Mr Rochester subdued me instantly. He forced me more firmly against his body. I felt the uncompromising strength of his chest against mine. To admit the truth to myself as well as others, I confess I didn’t put up much of a fight. I wanted to be mastered. My struggles were more internal than external. I should not want this, but I did...
Put your hand between your legs, rub yourself if you must, but show me the moisture gathered on your fingertips.” He kept his eyes on my face rather than looking down. In moments such as these—indeed in all moments—each act, each word, was deliberate.
It took some moments to fulfil his desire. Touching myself was still foreign to me. And touching myself while he watched was decadent; secretly, though I delighted in the act...

We know we'll all be imagining Jude Law reminiscing this randy rendition of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet:

What I saw literally stole my breath for a few moments. Although I had to squint to bring the scene into focus, I was able to discern clearly, by the light of the moon, two naked bodies. At first I thought one of the men had enticed a female to the camp somehow, a female paid to engage in the act happening before me. But the sight of two cocks dashed my initial perception.

Pride & Prejudice is a no-brainer. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of WiFi, must be in want of Mr. Darcy erotica. (The only problem being that Mr. Darcy sex stories are maybe too prevalent?) Clandestine tries its hand at Jane Austen prose:

“Tell me you want me,” he demanded. His voice was a deep rumble, husky and full of the promise of what was to come. “Tell me what you want from me.”

Elizabeth brushed aside all lingering reticence and held his gaze as she replied. “I’ve never desired anything in my entire life as I desire you now. I want you inside me. I need it more than I need air.”

A lesser known Jane Austin novel, Northanger Abbey, is best out of context:

Tilney’s expression heated as he watched her. Do you fancy the taste, then?”

Catherine nodded mutely.

Finally, Jules Vernes gets a turn at the wheel in a depraved Twenty Thousand Leagues (that is already a great title for a sex story, really):

Conseil was ever my advisor and my confidante. He was one of those rare men who seem to be completely without attraction or desire, for women or for men. Although he certainly didn’t share my proclivities, he had never condemned me for them either. “Speak, Conseil,” I said at last.

“Master, the men on board pursue their pleasures, and we’ve all seen that buggery among sailors is common. But my Master would be wise to remember that he’s not one of them. Men like Master have a larger place in society. They must be careful of their reputation.”

I nodded, although in the darkness of our cabin, it was likely he couldn’t see it. What he said was true. A common sailor had more liberties than a man of my stature. It would not do to have stories spread. “I’ll be careful.”

So wait, now any kind of erotic fan fiction can be sold as a book and possibly make millions? We have some old Angel/Spike slash-fic we need to dig up from our Buffy years...we could be sitting on a goldmine!

Within the pages of Grey are sexy descriptions of sexy bedroom BDSM (or: Bondage, Discipline, and Sadomasochism). NYC shopping blog Racked has taken note of notoriously hip Lower East Side sex shop Babeland is having a Fifty Shades of Grey workshop to learn how to have sex like they do in the book. Via Babeland's site:

Fallen under the spell of Fifty Shades of Grey? If you’re curious about how to try out some of the scenes from the book, we’ll discuss ways to make your fantasies into reality. At this cocktail party, bring your girlfriends or your lover and get inspired to try new things in the bedroom. Arrive early; the first twenty five guests will receive gift bags filled with toys that are Mr. Grey Approved.

Best of all, it's at a price even Katie Ropihe could afford: Free!

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

On Wednesday, Village Voice Media gave its sex blogger Jamie Peck notice that the racy sex-news site she'd edited for eight months, Naked City New York—the curiously unheraled existence of which was exposed in by The Observer in December—would sort of roll over and go to sleep without ever reaching the mind-blowing climax of a public launch. 

News of the sites' demise came, as all news does, in the form of a tweet—this, on Ms. Peck's feed:

Wow, just found out NakedCity is dead. If anyone's been thinking of trying to hire me to write/edit for them, now would be a good time.

Her Los Angeles counterpart, AV Flox, proprietress of Naked City Los Angeles, didn't respond to a request for comment, but her site hasn't been updated since Tuesday and may have suffered the same fate.

In a web chat, Ms. Peck, who posted 519 posts during the New York blog's lengthy test run, told us VVM's director of new media Bill Jensen broke the news to her via email. (Men.) "He said the budget had been cut again and Naked City hadn't made it," she wrote.

According to Quantcast, monthly traffic for the sites has been growing, topping out at around 7,000 page views, sparse but respectable for a pair of websites that were still slinking around on the DL.

Though disappointed, Ms. Peck said the experience had been a good one. "I'd never been the sole editor of a blog before (barring branding stuff I've done for Converse), editing other people, making an editorial schedule, etc., so that was definitely a good experience." She refused to disclose her salary—"that would be tacky"—but did mention one perk.

"It was fun to watch the review copies of pornos I got in the mail with my boyfriend," she wrote. "We both have a pretty gross sense of humor."

VVM Director of New Media Bill Jensen hasn't responded to an email seeking comment, but we will update when we hear back. 

agell [at] observer.com | @aarongell

Encircled by about 100 artists with sketch pads and drawing utensils in hand, they’d been holding the pose for almost 10 minutes, and Ms. Darling was starting to get tired. To keep herself alert, she sang a familiar tune over and over in her head: the Oscar Mayer Wiener theme song.

“It sounds ridiculous, but it keeps me occupied,” Ms. Darling told The Observer later that evening. “You have to come up with something that’s gonna keep you busy.”

Ms. Darling was one of a handful of young women who posed for as long as 25 minutes at a time over the course of Adult Drawing, an ongoing XXX-rated affair with wine and DJ’s that attracts artists and voyeurs alike, and where all eyes tend to remain fixed on a variety of racy nude scenes that unfold in the center of the room.

A few similar events have gained popularity in New York over the past several years, like the burlesque-oriented Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, and Michael Alan’s Draw-a-thon, which leans toward experimental theater. But Adult Drawing stands out in its emphasis on good old-fashioned smut.

“I felt like this clinical nude-modeling thing could use a jolt of energy,” said Alex Zoppa, 26, who created Adult Drawing a little over a year ago. “Models from a porn background are more open, so in a lot of ways, it gives some excitement to the art world, which can be a bit stodgy at times.”

Most of Adult Drawing’s models are from the Brooklyn-based porn Web site BurningAngel.com—which prefers everyday girls with tattoos to blond beauties with fake breasts—and their poses are more likely to evoke the clichés of a dirty movie than a life-drawing class.

Friday’s audience, in which a young artista might have been seated next to people old enough to be her grandparents, seemed inspired by Ms. Darling and her friends.

“They’re fabulous subjects,” said Lisa Law, 26, who was putting the finishing touches on a charcoal-drawn bosom.

Ms. Law said she particularly enjoyed the aspect of two models interacting with each other in different positions, like in the dominatrix scene. But as she watched the pair readjust themselves for another grueling 10-minute pose, this time with Dusty’s hands bound behind her back, it was unlikely she could have guessed what was going through Ms. Darling’s mind at the time:

“Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener!”