Making Fashion Out of Unfashion

Vivienne once attended a Most Fashionable Party at the Most Fashionable New York Apartment of the parents of her Most Fashionable Friend.  The topic of conversation for most of the evening was, however, somewhat less than fashionable.  The topic of conversation for most of the evening was, in fact, Johnathan Franzen, about whom the glitterati present practically glittered.  Johnathan Franzen is brilliant! they exclaimed.  Johnathan Franzen writes in his attic whilst wearing a blindfold and ear plugs!  Surely this means he is the next Shakespeare!  Surely this means he is the creator of the Great American Novel, which could only be written whilst wearing a blindfold and ear plugs! And Vivienne, thinking that the glittering glitterati could not be entirely wrong, hastened her way outside and purchased a copy of The Corrections.

Here, however, Vivienne will adopt Zelda’s tact, and her tactic of restraint.  Vivienne will remember all of the things her kindergarten teacher taught her about words and stones and hurts and bones.  Vivienne will lock her lips and throw away the key.

But not before telling this story: Vivienne’s parents sold the house that Vivienne spent most of her childhood in, and when they did so, an inspector came around to perform an inspection.  And when said inspector inspected Vivienne’s bedroom, he found a book-spine-shaped dent in one wall, which was stained slightly red, as if some of the color of a book cover had come off from the pure force of its contact with the wall.  And said inspector asked Vivienne’s parents, What happened?  It looks like someone threw a book or something. And Vivienne’s parents shrugged and said, Our daughter is passionate about literature. And that is all that Vivienne shall say as a preface to this, which turns the entirety of J-Fran’s The Corrections into an haiku.  Please enjoy.

Corrections

Creosote and cold.
Smell night’s approach. She was sick
of her capacity for love.

Burning in water, drowning.

[Zelda regrets that she did not post on Friday. Zelda knows that she is getting behind, and she is going to remedy this quite soon, she promises. She is disgusted with the fact that she is quite unfashionable.]

Zelda has spent this weekend entertaining, and though she has had — and will still have — great and fashionable fun, she has missed Vivienne and TheHyacinthGirls.com and you, Dearest and Most Fashionable Readers, and fashion in general.

Whilst entertaining, Zelda and her Fashionable Friend spent this afternoon frolicking in the ocean, and Zelda must say that she looked quite stunning and fashionable in her Joan Crawford-esque one-piece swimsuit (the careful Reader of Fashion will know that this is the swimsuit Zelda purchased just last week).

Onward! To the FaOuLiPoWriMoFa poem of the day!

Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader: for some reason, I cannot get Charles Bukowski out of my head. Or, more specifically, I cannot get Charles Bukowski’s Burning in Water Drowning in Flame out of my head, for, ever since the beginning of FaOuLiPoWriMoFa (Fashionable Oulipo Writing Month of Fashion), I have had aforementioned book out on my table, and, since the book’s cover has all the subtlety of a traffic cone, my eye is naturally drawn to it. So. For this poem, I have taken Dearest, Most Fashionable Vivienne’s lead and have constructed an antonymnic translation of Bukowski’s “warm asses.”

cold asses

this Monday morning
the Canadian boys at the Protestant funeral
look especially bad
their wives are in the churches
and the Canadian boys look old
ostrich-nosed with kind weak eyes,
asses cold in loose trousers
they have been given somehow,
their wives are tired of those cold asses
and the old Canadian boys walk with their parents,
there is imagined happiness in their kind weak eyes
as they forget mornings when their homely women —
not now any longer homely —
said such ugly things to them,
ugly things they will always hear again,
and on top of the sun and in the dull of the funeral’s darkness
I see nothing and I sit loudly and rejoice for them
they do not see me looking —
the young nanny is not looking at us
she’s not looking at our eyes;
they frown at each other, talk, run off alone,
cry, do not look at me over their shoulders.
I run over to a booth
put a dime on number eleven and lose a vanilla cookie
with 13 monotone suckers stuck in the bottom
that’s unfair enough for a Protestant
and a naysayer of cold and old and used
joyful Canadian asses.