Madonna

Not that I have anything against Socrates. I agree with the wise Greek who said that the unexamined life is not worth living. But he came up with that one-liner before the invention of film and videotape, all the paraphernalia of electronic recording.Now I wonder if it's the over-examined life that isn't worth living. Or the inner life that is suffering from overexposure.This highly un-Socratic notion first occurred to me at ''Eating,'' a kind of docu-drama about female eating disorders in which some L.A. women endlessly obsess about food at a birthday party.

If all you know about Madonna's current efforts is what you've read in the gossip columns, odds are that you're expecting her new album to be the raciest thing to hit records stores since 2 Live Crew -- a sort of "Nastier Than Any Wanna-Be."It's no wonder you'd get that idea, either, what with all these stories about Madonna's shocking-this and scandalous-that. Starting with the rumors of kinky couplings in "Sex," her book of impure thoughts and naughty pictures, Madonna was painted as a lady with but one thing on her mind: S-E-X.

ATLANTA -- Thank heaven for Oprah. Last week, the queen of TV talk had the common sense to applaud Madonna's charitable works in the desperately poor African nation of Malawi. Interviewing the beleaguered pop culture icon via satellite, Oprah Winfrey made clear that she and her studio audience supported Madonna's efforts, including her provisional adoption of a small boy. It's about time that an influential voice stepped forward to state the obvious: No matter what Madonna's motives are, she is doing the right thing.

The networks are trying almost anything tonight to get you to tune in. CBS has a bionic reunion telemovie, ABC has a double dose of Abandandos, and Fox has a faux Madonna.* "Wings" (8-8:30 p.m., Channel 2) -- Robert Culp guest-stars as a former astronaut being considered as a spokesman for the airline -- until his cockpit behavior is revealed to include some startlingly unprofessional stunts. Not stunts of aerial derring-do, but of juvenile derring-don'ts, such as giving your co-pilot a "wet willie."

Q: I received this Hummel Madonna as a gift while in Germany in 1955. Two appraisers have been unable to tell me anything about her. She is ivory with a light brown glaze and the model number is 10/3 with the Full Bee mark.A: This Flower Madonna was made in several colors, including the light brown you describe. It would sell for about $650 -- twice the price of the white version.Q: The attached mark is on the bottom of a china pitcher. It is decorated with two male figures and bunches of grapes with leaves.

NEW YORK -- Madonna routinely ate out of garbage cans while she clawed for a show-business break in her early New York days.Madonna was unhappily seeing a shrink just weeks after her 1985 marriage to wild-man actor Sean Penn.Madonna went on an out-of-control drunk earlier this year after a fortune teller told her she would never have children.Madonna was once dumped by an artist boyfriend who complained she wasn't sexually "inventive" enough.Madonna used to dream of being a nun, but she always insisted on wearing pants to church anyway.

Once upon a time, there was a pop goddess named Madonna who ruled the radio airwaves and Billboard charts with her beyond-the-curve music. She often thrilled and sometimes shocked millions with a sound and image that drastically morphed with each album release. But the inevitable happened: Madonna grew older. She became a mother, got married, acquired a British accent and wrote children's books. Meanwhile, younger, edgier pop tarts (Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Beyonce) rose triumphant in Madonna's wake.

HOLLYWOOD -- Kurtwood Smith joins Madonna in Mainline Productions' "Boxing Helena," a psychological thriller about obsessive love to be directed by Jennifer Lynch.Roy Scheider, Julian Sands and Michael Zelniker join Judy Davis and Peter Weller in David Cronenberg's film of William Burroughs' novel "Naked Lunch." Shooting begins in January in Toronto and Morocco. Jeremy Thomas and Gabriella Martinelli will produce for the Recorded Picture Co.

If Columbia Pictures has its way, Madonna will play Debra Winger's younger sister in Penny Marshall's "A League of Their Own," the story of an all-women's baseball team set in the 1940s. And if talks with Tom Hanks continue to go well, he'll reunite with Marshall with whom he collaborated on "Big" to play the team's coach.Whether Madonna and Columbia can come to terms is a matter of speculation. "The studio is offering $1," quips one person privy to the negotiations. "She's asking $1 billion."

New York -- She's said to be a master of media manipulation, the sort of star who knows instinctively how to make reporters sit up, beg and roll over. So catching Madonna in a news conference ought to be like watching a virtuoso at work -- a combination of grace, style and supreme confidence.Or so goes the theory. Real life, though, is a little different, and the Madonna who found herself facing a roomful of reporters in New York's Rhiga Royal hotel recently was hardly the cunning image-orchestrator we've heard so much about.