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Madonna Interview : Los Angeles Times (May 05 1991)

Madonna - Los Angeles Times / May 05 1991
A small, stylishly dressed woman stands in a narrow corridor at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, staring up in awe at a row of huge photographs of writers and artists, all persecuted or forced to flee Nazi Germany.
Eyeing the melancholy visages of Max Beckmann, Franz Werfel, Ernst Barlach and George Grosz, she says quietly, ā€œThey all look so sad, like doomed men.ā€
Stephanie Barron, the curator who assembled the museumā€™s widely praised ā€œDegenerate Artā€ exhibit, explains that the art displayed here, which includes work by Chagall, Kandinsky and Klee, was loathed by the Nazis, who vilified it as ā€œdegenerate trash.ā€
That phrase seems to strike a nerve with Barronā€™s guest, who wags her head furiously up and down. Of course, this isnā€™t any ordinary guest.
This is the pop siren whoā€™s been banned by MTV, blasted by the Vatican and nearly arrested in Toronto for simulating masturbation on stage. This is the wildly ambitious pop diva who began as a disco boy-toy and ended up as a Vanity Fair cover girl. This is the media-wise pop provocateur whoā€™s survived a stormy marriage to Sean Penn and a steamy affair with Warren Beatty, and when asked in her new movie whom sheā€™d like to meet next, coolly responds, ā€œI think Iā€™ve met everybody.ā€
This is Madonna.
ā€œDegenerate trash, huh?ā€ she snaps sarcastically. ā€œI know what you mean. Just like ā€˜A Current Affairā€™ and ā€˜Hard Copy.ā€™ ā€œ
Outfitted in a sleek black cinch-waist coat, shiny Doc Marten-style shoes and trademark Russian red lipstick, Madonna is taking a 70-minute after-hours swing through LACMA. ā€œThatā€™s the great thing about being a celebrity,ā€ she says as she glides out of her limousine. ā€œYou get to go to museums after they close.ā€
Itā€™s hard to imagine Madonna having spent much of her adolescence popping gum in museums. Yet accompanying her through the ā€œDegenerate Artā€ exhibit (she parked her wad of Bazooka in the limo), you learn sheā€™s savvy enough to see the similarities between Otto Dix and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Watching silent German films from the 1920s, she immediately spots the early works of Dreyer and Pabst. Eyeing Louise Brooks in ā€œPandoraā€™s Box,ā€ sheā€™s absolutely transfixed, murmuring, ā€œShe is so amazing looking!ā€ Still, her interests are largely visualā€“sheā€™d probably flunk a pop quiz on the politics and literature from that era.
But whatā€™s striking about Madonna is her complete self-confidence. Strolling through the exhibit, she makes absolutely no effort to hide her scholastic shortcomings. Stopping to scan an introductory essay, she says, ā€œYou canā€™t go too fastā€“Iā€™m a slow reader.ā€ As she strolled through each exhibit area, she peppered Barron with questions, freely acknowledging her lack of familiarity with a variety of obscure artists.
Madonna was especially taken by Barronā€™s account of Alma Mahler, a woman who enjoyed romantic liaisons with a host of Central European artists, including Oskar Kokoschka and Gustav Mahler. ā€œBut what did she do?ā€ Madonna wonders. ā€œWas she a painter too?ā€
Barron is at a bit of a loss. ā€œYou could say she wasā€“wellā€“a kind-of painter.ā€
Madonna flashes a knowing grin. ā€œOh, I get it,ā€ she says. ā€œShe was a muse. ā€œ
Itā€™s obvious Madonna feels an emotional bond with all this bold, sensual andā€“above allā€“subversive art. When Barron notes that the original ā€œDegenerate Artā€ exhibitions drew far more patrons than the officially sanctioned Nazi art showing nearby, Madonna clenches her hand into a fist. ā€œOf course,ā€ she says triumphantly. ā€œAs soon as you tell somebody something is bad, they all want to come see it.ā€
Question: Whatā€™s so threatening about your sexuality? Nobody seems to get particularly worked up about Kim Basinger or Debra Winger or Uma Thurman showing their breasts. But with youā€“why does all hell break loose?
Answer: Because theyā€™re not as powerful as I am. I reach more people. Kim Basinger showing her breasts isnā€™t threatening. But I think my sexualityā€™s boldness threatens people. Iā€™m assertive. Iā€™m not embarrassed or shameful or inhibited. Iā€™m not just showing a breast. Thereā€™s something defiant about what I do. Iā€™m challenging the mores and ripping open the taboos and turning up the underbelly of our societyā€“all the things American culture tries to keep hidden. When I rip open my shirt and show my breasts, itā€™s a more powerful statement.
Madonnaā€™s new film, ā€œTruth or Dare,ā€ is not really a concert filmā€“and certainly not a documentary.
Shot during Madonnaā€™s four-month Blond Ambition Tour last year, itā€™s a two-hour meditation on celebrity and its discontents, an alluring, dishy and seemingly intimate fantasy portrait of a pop star wrestling with the steely grip of fame. Madonna sees it as a mock-Warhol film. Itā€™s Madonna playing Madonnaā€“a performance within a performanceā€“with the cameras always rolling, ready to shape, inspire, distort and sometimes simply record various events.
As is the case with most big events in Madonnaā€™s career, the movie comes with its own built-in publicity campaign. As you may have read in advance press accounts, the cameras show Madonna baring her breasts, bitching at her soundmen, bickering with Warren Beatty, writhing in bed with her gay dancers andā€“yesā€“simulating oral sex with a water bottle.
But what the cameras never show is Madonna losing control. In fact, the only person who seems truly comfortable around the cameras isā€“surpriseā€“Madonna.
Todayā€™s stars are so fiercely protective of their airbrushed images that itā€™s hard to imagine anyone but Madonna showing herself screaming at her stage crew, making jokes about having sex with her father orā€“gaspā€“ridiculing an Oscar-winning Nice Guy like Kevin Costner.
But Madonna is shrewd enough to realize that itā€™s these unguarded moments that give the movie its forbidden air.
After all, ā€œTruth or Dareā€ is her fantasyā€“she bankrolled the $4-million movie. She insisted that Alek Keshishian, the filmā€™s 26-year-old director, have final cut. But why not give final cut to someone who told Vanity Fair that ā€œmy fantasy was always, ā€˜Oh God, Iā€™d love to be Madonnaā€™s best friend.ā€™ ā€
ā€œThere were plenty of scenes I felt edgy or uneasy about, but theyā€™re still in the film,ā€ Madonna explains, ordering a decaf cafe au lait as she settles into a quiet upstairs couch at a La Brea Avenue coffee bar. ā€œAlek would debate with me and I eventually saw the light. Maybe all the moments arenā€™t necessarily flattering, but theyā€™re the highs and the lows of the movie. And I realized that if I took one out, why didnā€™t I take out all of them?ā€
Question: I thought Warren Beatty offered the best critique of the film. When the doctor is treating your throat, he asks if you want to talk about anything off camera. And Beatty says tauntingly: ā€œTurn the camera off? She doesnā€™t want to live off camera, much less talk.ā€
Answer: I donā€™t think that if you let cameras follow you around for six months that youā€™re giving up your soul. The world knows about everything in my life. They know when I have an abortion. They know when I go out on a date. So why is a doctor examining my throat suddenly off limits? For some reason, Warren thought filming a visit to the doctor was verbotenā€“ this incredibly intimate thing. Meanwhile, the National Enquirer illegally purchases my medical records whenever they can. Whatā€™s to hide? I think Warrenā€™s statement that I donā€™t want to live my life off camera is really a statement about himself. Itā€™s him saying: ā€œI donā€™t want anyone to know anything about my life. I want it shrouded in mystery.ā€ And I think Warren believed that if he kept saying to the camera, ā€œThis whole thing is ridiculous!ā€ that it would keep us from using the footage.
Madonna - Los Angeles Times / May 05 1991
Question: Do you think he underestimated you?
Answer: Yes. But heā€™s always underestimated me.
Madonna says signs were posted in all her backstage areas, warning anyone who came there that he or she would be filmed. However, as an added precaution, she and Keshishian obtained signed releases from virtually all the regular members of her entourage. Except for Beatty: ā€œHah!ā€ she cackled. ā€œDo you think Warren is going to sign a release for a movie he hasnā€™t seen?ā€
The most talked-about celeb zinger involves Kevin Costner, who is filmed backstage congratulating Madonna. When he praises her show as ā€œneat,ā€ she immediately prods him, ā€ Neat? Whaddaya mean by ā€˜neatā€™?ā€ And as soon as Costner leaves, she growls, ā€œAnybody who describes my show as ā€˜neatā€™ has to go,ā€ turns to the camera and pretends to throw up. She has no regrets about treating Costner as if he were some hayseed who just fell off the turnip truck.
ā€œWell, he acted liked one,ā€ she said, sipping her coffee. ā€œTo go to my show, which I think is very disturbing and moving, and then come backstage and say it was ā€˜neat,ā€™ I felt that was a slap in the face to me. So basically, I was slapping him back.ā€
If itā€™s any consolation for Costner, Madonnaā€™s family members didnā€™t get any special considerations. The film shows Madonnaā€™s brother Martin, just out of an alcohol rehab clinic, trying to pick up one of her backup singers and failing to turn up after her show to visit her at her hotel. The footage makes him look like a forlorn, almost pathetic guy reaching for his sisterā€™s coattails. You have to wonder what it added to the movie to drag his personal problems into the spotlight.
ā€œIt was reality,ā€ Madonna says. ā€œMy brother willingly took part in the movie and in his interviews. Itā€™s obvious I was upset because I thought that heā€™d missed coming to see me because heā€™d stopped to get something to drink. And when you see footage of him, trying to explain it, itā€™s obvious that itā€™s a con job. But I also think that heā€™s very entertaining. My brother is a ham. Heā€™s an exhibitionist. And he knew full well what he was doing.ā€
Question: Did you ever have a woman in your life who offered you the kind of support your mother would have?
Answer: No. Not at all. Not even close.
Q: Do you miss that?
A: God, yes. When I see my girlfriends with their mothers even now I canā€™t even imagineā€“itā€™s unfathomable what that sort of nurturing would have done for me. Letā€™s face it. I probably wouldnā€™t be sitting on this couch here talking to you now if Iā€™d had a mother. I really miss it. My role models who nurtured me when I was growing up were all men.
Madonnaā€™s mother died when she was 6 but clearly did more to shape her life than anyone else. In what is perhaps the filmā€™s most emotionalā€“some might say over wroughtā€“scene, Madonna visits her grave, first kneeling and then sprawling on the ground beside the headstone.
She freely acknowledges that it was the presence of the camerasā€“and her notion of ā€œTruth or Dareā€ as an exploration of her lifeā€“that inspired her to make the trip. ā€œI hadnā€™t been to her grave since my father remarried,ā€ she says. ā€œBut thatā€™s what this film was about. I was on a mission to film my life. So it gave me the opportunity to deal with an issue that Iā€™d been avoiding or running away from all my life because it was so painful.ā€
The loss of her mother at such an early age fueled Madonna with an edgy, impatient desire to succeed. In the film, a member of her tour group puts it simply: ā€œSheā€™s in a race against time.ā€ Reminded of the remark, Madonna quickly nods. ā€œItā€™s true. Life is just too short and I have too many goddamn things to do, so I better hurry up. That has a lot to do with my motherā€™s deathā€“Iā€™ve felt that way since I was a child.ā€
As she sees it, her motherā€™s death freed her from accepting the typical constraints of a blue-collar, big-Catholic-family upbringing. ā€œI think the biggest reason I was able to express myself and not be intimidated was not having a mother,ā€ she says. ā€œI did not have a female role model. Women are traditionally raised to be subservient, passive, accepting. The man is supposed to be the pioneer. He makes the money, he makes the rules.
ā€œI know that some of my lack of inhibition comes from my motherā€™s death. For example, mothers teach you manners. And I absolutely did not learn any of those rules and regulations. And because I had such a large family, I realized that I would only be noticed and heard if I made the biggest noise. If I wanted my fatherā€™s attention, I would get on a table and tap-dance and lift my dress andā€“guess whatā€“heā€™d pay attention to me.ā€
In ā€œTruth or Dare,ā€ Madonna is never seen with her musicians, only with her backup singers and, most often, with her troupe of young, predominantly gay, dancers. As she puts it: ā€œThey flocked to me. They were my family.ā€ She revels in their affection, teasing them, flirting with them, playfully dragging them in bed with her. Then, just as suddenly, she stings them with a bitchy tongue-lashing, dubbing them ā€œqueens on the rag.ā€
Madonna views this complicated family affair in maternal terms, which is probably accurate if you can imagine yourself wrapped in the adoring arms of a black widow spider.
ā€œIt comes from my need to be mothered,ā€ she says, running a hand through her shoulder-length blond hair, which shows an inch of dark roots at the top of her head. ā€œI look at the dancers and say, ā€˜Theyā€™re me.ā€™ I transfer me as a little girl onto them. I view them through all of my feelings of being deserted and not being emotionally supported or loved. And I say, ā€˜Now Iā€™m going to be their mother in the way I didnā€™t have one.ā€™ ā€œ
Question: OK. Give me an analysis of your Hollywood career.
Answer: Iā€™ve been a failure so far. And the reason is that I simply havenā€™t put a lot of thought into it. I havenā€™t honored or respected a movie career the way I should have. I didnā€™t approach it the way I approached my music career. Iā€™d had a lot of success in music, and all of a sudden people were going, ā€œHereā€™s a movie.ā€ And I didnā€™t think about it. I just took it. I underestimated the power of the medium. Itā€™s been a good lesson for me.
If you took a thermometer to Madonnaā€™s stack of possible movie projects, the one that would generate the most heat is ā€œEvita.ā€ For more than a decade, everyone from Oliver Stone and Michael Cimino to Meryl Streep, Bette Midler and Liza Minnelli has been onā€“and offā€“the musical about Eva Peron. Now Madonna and director Glenn Gordon Caron are at the helm, with the Disney Studio providing the financing. But today, Madonna is gloomy about the filmā€™s prospects.
ā€œIt doesnā€™t look very bright right now,ā€ she says. ā€œEvery day I get another message from either my agent or Glenn Caron saying, ā€˜Weā€™re waiting just one more day to hear from Disney on whether theyā€™re going to give it a green light or not.ā€™ But Iā€™m not going to lie and say that my enthusiasm hasnā€™t flagged a little. Iā€™m very fickle. And if Disney doesnā€™t commit soon, Iā€™m just going to have to concentrate on other things.ā€
She contends that Disneyā€™s legendary cost-consciousness has stalled the project. ā€œItā€™s very frustrating. (Disney studio chairman) Jeffrey Katzenberg is squabbling over pennies. Weā€™re all paying for that crazy memo he wrote. If they donā€™t want to spend the money, thatā€™s fine, but I donā€™t want to be in a low-budget version of ā€˜Evita.ā€™ ā€œ
(A Disney spokeswoman says, ā€œAs far as weā€™re concerned right now, the movie is a go.ā€)
Madonna - Los Angeles Times / May 05 1991
Madonna is developing other projects, including an adaptation of the James Baldwin novel ā€œGiovanniā€™s Roomā€ and a film about the life of legendary choreographer Martha Graham. She also has been working with two different writers on a film about painter Frida Kahlo. ā€œIā€™m excited about it,ā€ she says. ā€œIt wonā€™t be your typical reverent artist-bio picture.ā€
Nor has Madonna ruled out the prospect of making ā€œLita and Swan,ā€ a female buddy picture that would co-star Demi Moore and be produced by Joel Silver. ā€œIt has more character development than most Joel Silver films,ā€ she explains. ā€œThe problem is that the timing doesnā€™t look good. They want to make it right away, but I think the script still needs some work and Demi is six months pregnant.ā€
You get the distinct impression Madonna is not the sort of woman who can sit on her hands for very long. ā€œItā€™s trueā€“Iā€™m freaking out,ā€ she says. She recently took a small role in an upcoming Woody Allen movie, in which she plays a circus performer. And sheā€™s committed to playing a part in director Gus Van Santā€™s adaptation of Tom Robbinsā€™ novel ā€œEven Cowgirls Get the Blues,ā€ which she says will shoot in June and July. Asked about her role, Madonna quipped: ā€œI get to make out with Uma Thurman. What could be more fun?ā€
Nearly a year later, Madonna still has mixed feelings about her last big film projectā€“ā€œDick Tracy.ā€ ā€œThis is going to sound really horrible, but I have to admit Iā€™ve never really seen the movie. I saw a lot of bits and pieces, and I did see an early cut, and I saw about half of it at a premiere in Washington, D.C., but then I had to leave.
ā€œYou could say I have a lot of unresolved feelings about it. I remember being very upset that all of my big music scenes were cut up the way they were. I learned a lot about filmmaking from Warren, but obviously it didnā€™t make me a big box-office star, did it?ā€
Madonnaā€™s happiest marriage has been with the media. Her critics have landed a few punches in recent months, most notably a withering broadside in Playboy that dismissed her as an emasculating pop tart. But sheā€™s generally been portrayed with a mix of unabashed curiosity and outright adulation. She posed as Marilyn Monroe II in Vanity Fair. ā€œNightlineā€ treated her like a presidential candidate. Even Spy magazine, which eagerly attacks everybody, has handled her with kid gloves, even putting her on its cover last month (albeit with Madonnaā€™s head plastered on another womanā€™s body).
Madonna has even started to pick up a few highbrow accolades, most notably from hotshot feminist academic Camille Paglia. Writing in the New York Times last fall, she lauded Madonna as the ā€œfuture of feminism.ā€ Praising her ā€œprofound visionā€ of sex, Paglia wrote: ā€œMadonna sees both the animality and the artifice of sex. Sheā€™s taught young women to be fully female and sexual while still exercising total control over their lives.ā€
These accolades donā€™t go unnoticed. In fact, the south wall of Madonnaā€™s kitchen is dominated by an immense blond-wood magazine rack, stocked with Vanity Fair, Mirabella, Vogue, Interview, Traveler and more.
ā€œI donā€™t mind being the subject of gossip,ā€ she says. ā€œPeople who take it seriously just end up being devastated by it. I find a lot of it fairly amusing. Spy can be very funnyā€“itā€™s abstract gossip. Itā€™s more challenging than People or US. I enjoyed being on their cover. Iā€™d just like to know whose body they used instead of mine.ā€ (Spy says Nicki Gostin, its picture research editor, posed as Madonnaā€™s ā€œbody double.ā€)
Madonna handles the celebrity glare well. Her house in the Hollywood Hills is hermetically sealed, with guards, hidden cameras and an electric-eye gate. But out in public, she is relaxed, if on guard. Though she is recognized virtually everywhere she goes, she quietly slipped into her favorite coffee bar, sized up the crowded room and casually asked if she could retire to a quiet, upstairs area. Itā€™s easy to see why journalists have generally treated her with respect. She is smart, sassy and fearlessly frank, and never ducks a question.
When she realizes the barā€™s noisy sound system might be drowning out her replies, she takes the tape recorder off the couch and holds it in her hand. ā€œNo problem,ā€ she says brightly. ā€œItā€™s just like holding a microphone. Iā€™m pretty good at it.ā€
Youā€™ve raised a lot of moneyā€“and awarenessā€“for AIDS-related causes. Why hasnā€™t Hollywood, which has many gay men in positions of power, taken a more active role?
Answer: Because nobody wants to offend anybody. If you take a stand on something, then you may not get a job, or people may not go see your movie or people might be insulted by your actions. Everyone is afraid in this town. This is a town full of very self-centered, selfish people who make their entire living out of putting their best face forward.
Throughout ā€œTruth or Dare,ā€ Madonna repeatsā€“as if it were her mantraā€“that her act isnā€™t just provocative, but political too. Not everybody buys that. In fact, many critics say sheā€™s confusing political statements with shock-value narcissism. Even on ā€œNightline,ā€ when asked how she could wear a neck manacle in one of her videos and not see herself as a sex slave, she replied, not very convincingly: ā€œBut I chained myself. Iā€™m in charge!ā€
Madonna - Los Angeles Times / May 05 1991
As more than one critic has pointed out, Madonnaā€™s favorite video sexual theaterā€“whether itā€™s her leather ā€˜nā€™ lingerie poses or footage of two women kissing each otherā€“offers classic male fantasy poses. On the other hand, she has taken an active stance in various political causes. In addition to performing numerous AIDS fund-raisers, Madonna has put her mouth where her money is. Her now-celebrated (and much-faxed) interview with the Advocate was a raunchy, no-holds-barred affairā€“and more important, a rare example of a straight superstar unabashedly courting the gay press.
ā€œI think my point of view is very political,ā€ she insists. ā€œMost people in entertainment donā€™t want to present their point of view about anything. But I think presenting my point of view about life, whether itā€™s about sexual equality or anti-homophobia, is a political statement. I know it has an impact. I know that people look at me and say, ā€˜Sheā€™s someone to look up to because sheā€™s really in charge of her life. Sheā€™s doing what she believes in.ā€™ ā€œ
Is being a role model a political statement? Perhaps not. But Madonna makes a telling point. Her enemies certainly view her as a subversive cultural force.
ā€œLook at this Rev. Donald Wildmon character and all his Moral Majority people,ā€ she says. ā€œTheyā€™re obsessed with meā€“and thereā€™s a hostility to that obsession. They have a hatred for the power and fame and freedom that I have. For them to go around, banning records and books and trying to get people arrested, itā€™s a pretty clear statement about their own obsessions.
ā€œObviously Iā€™m tapping into something in their unconscious that theyā€™re very ashamed of. And since they canā€™t deal with it, they tell everyone itā€™s shameful. I was really reminded of that in the ā€˜Degenerate Artā€™ exhibit. Itā€™s like Hitlerā€“they want to purify your thoughts.ā€
Near the end of the film, we hear one of the people on your tour say of you: ā€œSheā€™s very unhappy much of the time.ā€ True?
Answer: I certainly was unhappy on tour.
Question: But why? When youā€™re out on tour, arenā€™t you doing what you love?
Answer: Iā€™m a tormented person. I have a lot of demons inside of me. My pain is as big as my joy. Itā€™s always been that way. I used to throw myself into a project to mask my pain. Now Iā€™ve learn to exorcise my painā€“and try to heal itā€“through my work. So itā€™s become more productive for me emotionally. I can act out whatever hostilities I feel onstage or write about my pain in a song.
What Warren Beatty says in ā€œTruth or Dareā€ is at least half-trueā€“Madonna doesnā€™t want to live her life off camera. But you sense itā€™s more than just a narcissistic cravingā€“perhaps she simply finds solaceā€“and inspirationā€“in the soothing warmth of the camerasā€™ attentive glow.
ā€œThe process of filming somehow set up certain interactions, especially between me and my dancers, that never would have taken place,ā€ she says, popping a Bazooka bubble in the back seat of her limo. ā€œIt brought us closer together. For example, we played ā€˜truth or dareā€™ all the time. But the one that we got the best stuff fromā€“that we used in the filmā€“wouldā€™ve never happened if we hadnā€™t have done it for the filmmakers.ā€
(ā€œTruth or dareā€ is a cheeky party game in which players either choose truth, where you must answer any query, no matter how personal, or dare, where you must perform any act requested of you. In the film, Madonna does both.)
ā€ ā€˜Truth or dareā€™ was good therapy for everybody,ā€ she says, working on her gum. ā€œOnce you got past the exhibitionist side of itā€“whoā€™ll kiss who, whoā€™s sleeping with whoā€“then you got down to the real truth. People couldnā€™t hide. It became a real therapy session.ā€
In fact, the entire movie is Madonnaā€™s therapy session. As the filmā€™s star, she gets to work out her anxieties and live out her fantasies. But what makes ā€œTruth or Dareā€ such a striking celebrity confessional is that it stars Madonna in both rolesā€“as patient and therapist.
Trying to explain the filmā€™s therapeutic value, Madonna returns to musing about her motherā€™s death. ā€œI guess the die is cast when youā€™re 5 years old. Whatever has gone on with me began as a cry out to the world. I was saying, ā€˜Iā€™m alone. I donā€™t feel loved.ā€™ ā€œ
Madonna - Los Angeles Times / May 05 1991
In ā€œTruth or Dare,ā€ when her assistant has a birthday party, Madonna gets up and reads a simple, heartfelt poem sheā€™s written for the occasion. The key line? ā€œYou canā€™t count on much in this life,ā€ she says. ā€œI should know.ā€
ā€œI really do believe that,ā€ she says softly, nodding her head, as if savoring that small piece of wisdom. ā€œThatā€™s the school I come fromā€“donā€™t assume anything. Itā€™s a way of protecting yourself from being hurt.ā€
Looking out the window, she squints into the sun. ā€œAnd itā€™s a way of allowing yourself to go on if you are hurt. If someone stabs you in the back or humiliates you, itā€™s a way of keeping yourself from being too devastated.ā€
As she slips her sunglasses back on, she displays a faint smile. ā€œAnd you know whatā€“it works.ā€
Ā© Los Angeles Times

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