In "Dardasha," icons of little bombs with burning fuses had been printed next to the kind of phrase that, even during a revolution, qualified as explosive: "Your son is really smart, Madame Fathiya".
"I really like Madame Lasiren because [Ferner] is just an old-fashioned Haitian spiritual voodooist," says Gordon, who believes that for many of its participants, carnival isn't just the highlight of their year, it's the source of their social status.
His work is realistic without being literal: I can really imagine what Madame Hessel is thinking.
"My mother was very apologetic, and the doctor said, 'Madame Bourgeois, really you are ruining my festivity.' I was a pain in the derrière when I was born".
The acts are all diamente dames and pouty Petes, suspender-belting their way through comic turns and leaving you to wonder "can that really be a bloke?" Madame JoJo's packs in the crowds, many of them on hen or stag nights.
Kugelmass really can transport himself into Madame Bovary in his short story The Kugelmass Episode; characters really can come down from the screen in The Purple Rose of Cairo; Leonard Zelig really does transform, chameleon-like, to become like the people he's talking to.
Nowadays, it can seem a bit Madame Tussauds: wax bodies, really?
The night before at Madame Jojo's I was really comfortable in my safety zone.
Fortunately, this compliment-bomb was promptly disarmed: "This is what God has willed, Madame Fathiya, your son is really smart".
Reznor appears on just one song, providing "additional textures", Robertson explained, to an instrumental called Madame X. "It's a really cinematic piece of music.
