Joanne's former A rating (Twitter)

This is one bad romance.

Joanne Trattoria, an italian restaurant owned by Lady Gaga's father, Joe Germanotta, has been downgraded from an A to a B by New York City's health department.

Not one to let a thing like sanitation get in his way, Mr. Germanotta turned to Twitter to air his annoyance.

"Great story of NYC making progress, money and corruption. We had a bad potato in a bin with 40 good potatoes," Mr. Germanotta complained.

He went on to list every violation in painstaking detail and even called out the health inspector for being "corrupt" — and shared her name and phone number with his 51,000 twitter followers.

A source from the Health Department told The Observer that "any restaurant operator who feels his inspection result was unfair has the opportunity to contest it in front of an independent judge at the OATH Tribunal."

Here's a taste of Mr. Germanotta's tirade:

https://twitter.com/germanottajoe/status/345044499770253313
https://twitter.com/germanottajoe/status/345038681117184000
https://twitter.com/germanottajoe/status/345039295058432000
https://twitter.com/germanottajoe/status/345039424343646208

And here's the Health Department's official report:

1) Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan.
2) Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.
3) Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored

The health department's inspection isn't the only bad publicity that Joanne has received in its first year of operation. Steve Cuozzo of the New York Post wrote a scathing review of the restaurant after visiting on its opening night.

"Grilled calamari with bitter greens and radicchio were the worst I’ve had in a lifetime of squid-mongering, the salad unseasoned and the calamari like leather."

While Joanne might be struggling, I'm sure the Gaga clan would argue that they're right on the Edge of Glory.

Minnie Mouse in Lanvin.

There's been much to-do over the Barneys holiday windows that were unveiled this week. While last year's amazing and somewhat controversial Lady Gaga collaboration pushed the envelope, this year, for some baffling reason, the retailer decided to partner with Disney.

Luis Fernandez, senior vice president of creative for Disney Consumer Products, had said that concept behind this collaboration made total sense from a retail perspective. "We thought, ‘A huge force in fashion and a huge force in animation," he said in a recent interview. "What better than for these two companies to get together and do something for the holidays?'"

But controversy began to swirl like a wintry storm back in August, when images from the five-minute "Electric Holiday" short now playing in a constant loop in Barneys windows appeared on WWD. The pictures showed a tall, lithe Minnie Mouse wearing Lanvin, which served as an immediate call to arms from plus-size advocates and celebrities, who slammed the "Skinny Minnie." Dancer Ragen Chastain circulated a petition trying to get Barneys to "Leave Minnie Mouse Alone!"

http://youtu.be/jU01jBw9HB4

However, there were no protests, nor a drop of mouse blood thrown during the unveiling of the windows last Wednesday night. Sarah Jessica Parker, who makes a cameo in the video, presided, and all was quiet, including the windows themselves. Not a figure was stirring, not even the world's second most famous mouse.

There were no Gaga-esque light shows, nor intricately animated puppets performing a Christmas tableau. No animals riding animals, no snowflakes, no animatronics.

Instead, passersby were treated to the above video of Minnie imagining herself at France's Fashion Week-- alongside other famed fashion (real and imagined), including Suzy Menkes, Linda Evangelista, Cruella DeVille, Juergen Teller, Anna Dello Russo, Captain Hook, and the Chesire Cat.

The Disney-Barneys collaboration is a far cry from Barneys' usual holiday fare. Last year's Gaga Workshop resembled a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-by-way-of-Madonna explosion of exhibits and interactive amusements. You could purchase chocolate shoes! Disco stick lollipops! One window was just filled with hair as a tribute to the musical. Another had Gaga sitting astride a giant unicorn in a semi-digitized wonderland. The collaboration even extended to a micro-site, the 12 Days of Gaga. (The site is currently being used to house the "Electric Holiday" video.)

"You know, Barneys always does funky stuff," said a town car driver leaning against his ride, watching the display while waiting for pickup. "That Lady Gaga window last year was wild. This is ..." He paused. "This is fine."

When we passed by the following night, a guy was taking a video of the entire movie with his iPhone. A woman in Chanel glasses hung back on the sidewalk with a friend. We asked her what she thought.

"Oh, it's good," she said, shrugging. "I just don't know who that person is supposed to be." She was pointing to a shot from the runway scene, where a cartoonified version of fashion blogger BryanBoy wearing Mickey Mouse ears watched Minnie strut her stuff.

Fears that the movie would incite cases of a Minnie-related eating disorder seemed unfounded, as two European tourists attempting to interest their daughter in the video were ignored. She pulled them along, remaining uninterested in Skinny Minnie.

Ultimately, the Barneys holiday windows hardly seemed different from the video displays littering Times Square, except for the fact that the luxury store was working on a much smaller scale. It was, we surmised, as far from "high couture" as you could get.

We decided to get a reaction directly from the source. For the first time in our lives, we actually went looking for one of those overly confrontational suit-wearing characters in Times Square, and spent 20 minutes thrust in a world of life-size Woodys, and Hello Kittys, and one guy dressed as Batman.

Finally, we ran into Minnie Mouse, with Mickey trailing behind her. We stuffed two dollars into her damp, synthetic fur paw and asked her, "How do you feel about Barneys making you into an anorexic model, Minnie?"

She responded with a pose, her dead, lifeless eyes boring into our souls:

Well, if she didn't seem to mind, neither would we.

- The New Yorker Festival this weekend brought out Lena Dunham, if that was any sort of surprise.

- Good job being electrified forever, David Blaine! Does that even count as magic, or just a very good endurance test?

- Danny DeVito's divorce from Rhea Perlman was due to the actor's propensity for younger women, according to Page Six.

- Jill Zarin is going to be a star again! Well, at least in her own mind...

“I was not invited. Despite positive reviews of his early YSL and Dior collections, as well as a profile, Mr. Slimane objected bitterly to a review I wrote in 2004—not about him but Raf Simons,” wrote Ms. Horyn.

As best we can tell, the deliberate non-invitation was a result of Ms. Horyn's doubts about the origins of the skinny-silhouetted suit.

"Mr. Slimane insisted that he was the first to show the skinny suit," Ms. Horyn wrote. "It was a silly debate. Who cares?"

Mr. Slimane punched back–on Twitter, naturally--with a twitpic mock-up in faux Times font labeled "MY OWN TIMES."

Under a headline reading, "Miss Cathy, Freedom of the Press," Mr. Slimane called the critic "a schoolyard bully and also a little bit of a standup comedian."

"Insiders argue that she is an average writer and a bit provincial, but I disagree, she did some great things," wrote Mr. Slimane.

The French designer’s rant is best read in a French accent.

“In conclusion, and as far as I’m concerned, she will never get a seat at Saint Laurent, but might get 2 for 1 at Dior.” Burn!

This is not the first time that designers have questioned the notoriously harsh fashion critic. Last month, Oscar De La Renta took out an advertisement in Women’s Wear Daily to object to Ms. Horyn calling him a “hot dog” in a mostly mild review of his Spring collection. Apparently, she didn't mean "hot dog" as an insult.

Ever a fan of cured beef products, Lady Gaga inexplicably (and perhaps inevitably) jumped into the hot dog feud with a rap where she called out Ms. Horyn and her boyfriend.

The mind reels.

Photo Via Twitter

Lady Gaga, not thinking of the children. (Screengrab)

James Molinaro may know who Lady Gaga is but he probably isn't aware of her fandom, the "little monsters," and how they might react to an NY1 report that Mr. Molinaro referred to the pop star as a "slut" while launching an anti-drug campaign Monday night.

The performer's fans are fiercely loyal and may not take well to the Staten Island Borough President's characterization of their idol, whom Mr. Molinaro said was part of a celebrity culture that promotes drug use, among other things.

As reported by NY1, Mr. Molinaro said that to him, the artist formerly known as Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta is "not an actress, she is a slut in the pure--in the pure meaning of the word."

A photo published with NY1's brief account of Mr. Molinaro's remarks showed the Staten Island pol gesturing at a board with the legend, "STOP glorifying drug use in the media" and displaying what appeared to be photos of Lady Gaga toking up during a recent stage performance in Amsterdam. The performer can be seen destroying our nation's youth in the concert video below.

Lady Gaga's maternity wear (Getty Images)

— The Church of Scientology has written a strongly-worded letter to Vanity Fair about Maureen Orth's cover story on Tom Cruise and the woman auditioned to be his girlfriend, Nazanin Boniadi. It's eight pages long. In it, the church threatens, "If Vanity Fair goes forward with publication of such defamatory allegations, now that it is on notice that the story is false, the stain on its reputation will last long after any reader even remembers the article. The sting of the jury verdict will last longer still; far longer than any pleasure from racing to publish a poorly researched and sourced story."

— Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively is eating more food than she normally eats, and you know what that means ... healthier body images for women on television! Just kidding. The only explanation is that she's hiding a secret pregnancy with a shotgun wedding to Ryan Reynolds.

— Lady Gaga is also pregnant, according to reliable source Kelly Osbourne. She's going off the fact that Gaga stopped bleaching her hair and wore a burka to Fashion Week, but she totally forgot the fact that the singer smoked weed on stage in Amsterdam Tuesday. Lady Gaga says she's just fat.

— Fiona Apple is in jail in Sierra Blanca, Texas, for having hash on her tour bus.

— Amanda Bynes continues to go toe-to-toe with Lindsay Lohan for the title of world's biggest train wreck. She also happens to be the most histrionic train wreck, believing that Ms. Lohan's recent car crash was "karma" for the Mean Girl’s mean tweet about her.

Helena Christensen and Liv Tyler. (Dustin Wayne Harris/PatrickMcMullan.com)

“The clothing’s just the sprinkles on top.” So said tattoo artist Ami James, and it could have been the motto for the evening, especially when the chocolate-sprinkled cupcakes appeared later on, one last treat for a collection of self-proclaimed oddballs, from Michael Stipe to Bono’s wife, Irish business woman Ali Hewson, to a late entry looking like the boy next door, Josh Hartnett.

They were gathered last night for the launch of the “Eccentrics Issue” of Vs. Magazine, which coincided with the official opening—or, anyway, the celebrity opening—of Paul Gerard’s Exchange Alley, the two events hosted by brunette beauties Liv Tyler, whose face in close-up stares from the cover of the new Vs., and Helena Christensen, who took the photo.

Mid-Fashion Week, and celebrating a high-end fashion magazine for the fashion-forward and runway-ready, the event was still somehow an escape from the frenzy, a respite. Yes, fashionistas and models mingled with artists, designers and rock stars, but the party was low key compared with the Marc Jacobs soirée on the same night.  The atmosphere at Exchange Alley, a restaurant that already feels local and loved, was one of nonchalant chic. The décor chimed with the night’s theme, black-and-white Hollywood studio shots matching the grayscale (splashed with pink) magazine cover. Mr. Gerard’s cooking, myriad different dishes with an Ottolenghi palette, also fit. The chef confessed to a Jack Kerouac fetish and modestly described himself as a potential eccentric, “more than your average Joe.”

Pity the poor eccentric. Quirkiness advertised runs the risk of cancelling itself out—after all, what could be more commonplace than clamoring for attention? To catch a glimpse of naked oddity one had to peek from unexpected angles, the only way to register, for instance, the tattoo of a cat on the ankle of Cobra Starship’s Gabe Sapporta. Mr. Sapporta, appropriately enough, was engrossed in conversation with Ami James, arguing that to be eccentric meant “never having to think about what it means,” never having to reduce it to a “label.”

Ms. Hewson said she knew “a lot of eccentric people who look totally normal,” and that it was “harder to find a normal person than an eccentric person.”

In this crowd, certainly, a cast of characters chosen not for fame but for quirks. There was a lot of Gaga talk; think eccentric, think Lady Gaga? Not quite. The point of the issue was not staged eccentricity but rather eccentricity as badge of dedication and passion. Mitchell Feinberg—Bronx-born still-life photographer and favorite eccentric of both Jakob F. S., editor-in chief and creative director of Vs., and Vibe Dabelsteen, the magazine’s fashion director—said, “the best eccentrics are those not extravagantly but thoughtfully so.”

Mr. Feinberg’s two photo shoots for Vs. saw conceptual art deal with the disposable: In one he plastered perfume bottles with powder, in the other he drilled a Patek Phillipe with a bullet fired from a .22 caliber rifle. He said that to be eccentric meant “to look at the world in a different way to everyone else.” According to Ms. Dabelsteen, Mr. Feinberg’s way of looking involves “caring about the finest details—that’s what makes him eccentric. Eccentricity and perfection are very close.”

If there was a queen of quirk, it was Colette. This multimedia artist, pioneer of the living art performance, pre-Cindy Sherman, describes herself as a “true New York eccentric”—the fact that she was born in Tunisia and grew up in the South of France sealed the deal. She had no compunction about wearing her weirdness on her sleeve—or rather her head. Her oversized black-and-white hat matched the décor and threatened to dominate it.

And the eccentrics’ most admired eccentrics? A tricky decision; in the worlds of art and fashion, choices are limitless. There was a vote for Salvador Dalí, for Andy Warhol, for Christopher Hitchens, for Diane Pernet, and—Ms. Christensen’s favorite—a “walking piece of art,” the recently deceased Anna Piaggi. Mr. Sapporta chose his girlfriend Erin Fetherston, “because in her spare time she’s a unicorn.”

Fashion’s Night Out, across the city, information and schedule can be found at fashionsnightout.com; Dwyane Wade interview with Rick Stengel, Midtown, invitation only.

Mr. John recently referred to Madonna as "a fairground stripper," the latest salvo in a feud reignited when Madonna's song from W.E. beat Elton John's song from Gnomeo and Juliet at the Golden Globes (fun fact: those italicized things were the titles of movies!). Lady Gaga, meanwhile, alluded to Madonna's mockery of "Born This Way" in a letter of truth to her fans. Both of these criticisms seem to stick to Madonna more than they might have in past: criticism from the moral majority or from critics is nothing new for Madonna, but getting lambasted by your fellow pop stars? That's tough.

Ah, Madonna, the year began so well! But the slight misstep you took during your  Super Bowl performance--nearly falling off the bleachers on which you danced to a series of old hits as well as one new dud--seems more indicative of the state of things than your triumphant reprisal of "Like a Prayer." Here's to the right kind of provocation, and a better set of pop tunes, in your new year.