Strategy is getting in the way.

Most Fashionable Reader! Since Zelda shamefully admitted to being Shamefully and Highly Unfashionable as of late, Zelda has discovered that it is quite therapeutic to reveal secrets of shame and great sorrow. So. Today, Most Fashionable Reader / Reader of Fashion, Zelda will reveal, for the first time publicly, one of her secrets that she deems Incredibly Shameful.

But first! A preface to the Secret of Shame! Let Zelda tell you, Most Fashionable Reader, that she has no problems talking about most anything that has to deal with her personal issues. Now, don’t get Zel wrong — she is NOT the type of person who goes up to strangers and says, “Well hello! My name is Zelda, and I am a sober alcoholic who has battled depression and anxiety all of her life! How are you doing this most fashionable evening?” Zelda does, however, have no qualms with discussing her issues when she deems such a discussion necessary.

But! There is one thing that Our Dearest, Most Fashionable Zelda has revealed to less than a handful of people. Here goes, Dear Reader. Are you ready? Zelda cannot believe she is actually writing this down, but oh well: Zelda has Attention Deficit Disorder. That’s right. Zelda has ADD. Now Zelda knows, Zelda knows: it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Why? Well, because, as every book on Attention Deficit Disorder tells you, most people with ADD are incredibly creative! Hooray! Wow! Awesome!!!

But here’s the thing, Dearest Reader: Zelda doesn’t want to be known as a creative woman. When Zelda thinks of creativity, she thinks of windchimes made from thriftstore silverware, potholders made from bottlecaps, wreaths made from dried apple cores, etc., etc. Zelda doesn’t want to be a creative person who happens to have ADD. She wants to be a successful person who happens to have ADD. She wants a baker’s dozen of personal assistants, she wants to dictate confidential memos to her secretary, she wants a Range Rover the color of gunmetal, she wants an executive chair covered with Italian leather at the head of a boardroom table, etc., etc. This is why she found Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder so fabulous — because it gives profiles of highly successful businesspeople that include how ADD has helped their careers as well as the pitfalls of ADD.

Oh yeah! The FaOuLiPoWriMoFa [Fashionable OuLiPo Writing Month of Fashion] poem! Zelda has used a section of Judith Greenbaum and Geraldine Markel‘s Finding Your Focus: Practical Strategies for the Everyday Challenges Facing Adults with ADD entitled “How to Use Self-Talk as a Memory Aid” as her source text, and she curtailed each line.

Stop! Am I —

A quieter place. Too noisy in here.
Did I hear this time? Am I too
tired? Think. Before saying anything,

get angry, tense. What
is here? This.

Stop.

Stop!

Down the choices slowly and carefully.

I feel. I think.

Only concentrate. I’m finished.
We can go. I can —

Failing doesn’t mean. What
can I try again? Give up to keep trying.

Maybe I need this. Should I go?

The problem: the things
I need. If I go
slowly, solutions happen. Strategy

is getting in the way.

Kirk Cameron, eat your heart out.

Zelda has a confession to make, Most Fashionable Reader. Zelda has many Secret Obsessions. One of Zelda’s Secret Obsessions, Most Fashionable Reader, is the Apocalypse — the horsemen trampling down the skies of fire Apocalypse, the holding in her hand a cup full of abominations Apocalypse, the foul spirits spewing forth from the gaping maw of the dragon Apocalypse. Zelda collects fashionable apocalyptic literature-in-fashionable-quotation-marks, and she is quite fond of her collection. Zelda views this collection as a reclamation of her childhood, as most of her early years were spent poring over tracts and pamphlets not unlike the ones she collects now, then squeezing her eyes shut as tightly as she could and praying please please please Jesus I have to be Raptured please please please Jesus don’t leave me down here with the Beast; memorizing the Book of Revelation, then furtively scanning the bodies of everyone she encountered for anything that could be interpreted as a Mark of the Most Unfashionable Beast, be it heart-shaped birthmark or bar-code tattoo; and waking up in cold sweats in the middle of the night, then screaming PLEASE PLEASE O PLEASE JESUS PLEASE LET MY NAME BE WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF LIFE.

Needless to say, Dear Reader, Zelda’s childhood was fraught with paralyzing fear. Each time she cursed (and in those days, Most Fashionable Reader, cursing to Zelda was saying the word “butt”), each time she told a little white lie, each time she spoke out of turn in class, each time she told her older brother to just shut up and leave her alone, she envisioned a dreadfully stern and unsympathetic heavenly envoy dipping his hand-cut phoenix quill into an inkwell filled with the blackest of inks made from the burnt bones of the damned and using this inkstained quill to, with a solemnly dramatic flourish, strike her name from the Book of Life.

Zelda finally began to distance herself from her paralyzing fears when she was a freshman in college. A film was mentioned in passing in one of her religion classes, and Zelda, on a whim, rented it. She persuaded a Most Fashionable Friend of Fashion to watch it with her, so they sat on the carpet remnant on the floor of Zelda’s dorm room, surrounded by an Ansel Adams poster (belonging to Zelda’s Unfashionable Roommate), two pairs of Doc Martens (one belonging to Zelda, the other to her Most Fashionable Friend of Fashion), a Pulp Fiction poster (Zelda’s), a vase full of iridescent rocks (Unfashionable Roommate’s), a half-empty carton of Camel Lights (smoked surreptitiously by the window, as Zelda’s Roommate of Unfashion disliked it when Zelda smoked in the room), sorority sweatersets (Unfashionable Roommate’s), and a hunter green JCPenney twin comforter (unfortunately Zelda’s), and they began to watch the film. And their mouths dropped open in disbelief as soon as the film began. And their mouths stayed that way for the film’s entirety. The film? A Thief in the Night.

Kirk Cameron, eat your heart out. Left Behind’s got nothing on this:

Oh yeah! The poem!

The most recent addition to Zelda’s Fashionable Collection of Apocalyptic Literature-in-Quotation-Marks, a booklet entitled The Atomic Bomb and the End of the World by Hyman J. Appelman, was given to her a few months ago by a Most Fashionable Friend. Zelda has taken this booklet and created a cento, or a patchwork verse, from it. Zelda has taken liberties with punctuation, but no words have been changed.

All Things Shall Be Dissolved

I. The Failure of Science

Science has failed in trying to build a world.
It taught us if the world could only be,
all of the fearful evils would come to an end.
I am not decrying God. Here is the proof:
the leading scholars of the world
towered head and shoulders above the rest.
Synthetics, plastics, guided missiles, war.
Educated demons wrote a page.
An educated devil is terrible.
The houses of our land were so equipped.
War broke out. The generals: tried.
Science failed in trying to build a world.

II. The Faithfulness of Scripture

The atomic bomb is a revelation. It took
up the sword once. God got tired of it.
Where is the boasting that shook its fist to shout
around the world that it was peace? God got
tired of it. It took up the sword once too often.
The devastation in the moving pictures.
The wreckage and ruin is still terrible.
For miles there was nothing but ruin, corpses found.
Torn apart, the sword left its scabbard.
An ignoble end! The wages of sin!
The earth transformed by the last visitation.

III. The Future of the Saint and the Sinner

The rest of the lesson: prayers about the bombs.
Out to lunch: appetizers, bombs
for the salad, bombs for the main course,
mention of the bombs, tired despair.
The future of the saint: deliverance.
Deliverance from past, present, future.
There is also a word, but one word for you.
The bomb spells, preaches, proclaims DOOM.
The bleakness of DOOM! The blackness of DOOM!
The frightful curse, the terrible eternity of DOOM!

So to my bed. So to my grave.

Zelda is going to make quite a few associative leaps in the poemlogue that follows, Most Fashionable Reader, so please bear with her.

So.

Let’s say Zelda likens herself to Alice, the Most Fashionable Heroine of the Most Fashionable Resident Evil Trilogy. Zelda enjoys likening herself to Alice (played by the Most Fashionable of All Fashionable B-Movie Queens, Milla Jovovich), for, in Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Alice must fight the Wretched and Vile Nemesis, whose face is too vile and too hideous to be posted on such a fashionable blog, and this Wretched and Vile Nemesis reminds Zelda of her own wretched and vile nemesis, who would tell Zelda that the subjects of her poems were not interesting enough to be written about, who would reply to Zelda’s fashionable and insightful comments with nothing but A BLACK HOLE OF SILENCE, who would, after Zelda’s fashionable and insightful comments and the unfashionable silences that would follow them, abruptly turn to another student and say, “Well, what did YOU think?”

Ahem. Onward!

So if Zelda likens herself to Alice, played by the Fashionable Milla Jovovich, Zelda must absolutely liken the Most Fashionable Vivienne to Diva Plavalaguna from The Fifth Element (which also stars the Most Fashionable Milla Jovovich). Why? Because Diva Plavalaguna KICKS ASS almost as much as Our Most Fashionable Vivienne of Fashion does. In addition to kicking ass, the Most Fashionable Diva holds within herself the Four Stones of Fashion, the very keys to humanity’s existence. Vivienne proved her Most Fashionable Diva-ness for the BILLIONTH time earlier this week when she correctly interpreted an event Zelda witnessed not as a mere event, but as a SIGN and a VISION from the Benevolent and Graceful and Forever Fashionable Anne Carson. Below, Zelda shall condense this vision as much as she can, because she does not want it to seem like an essay one would read in a creative nonfiction workshop, or a daily devotion one would read in The Upper Room, or Daily Guideposts. Here goes:

After work one day this week, Zelda joined a Friend of Most Fashionable Fashion (FoMFF) at the beach because, at this point, Zelda would rather be called Leatherface than Wednesday Fucking Addams, so she is working on her tan as much as she possibly can. “Look at that sailboat in the water,” FoMFF said as she pointed to a small sailboat-sized speck on the horizon. “I see it,” Zelda said. “They’re tourists,” FoMFF said. “They have no idea what they’re doing. They tried to go out earlier, and they flipped the boat before they got out very far.” It turns out, Most Fashionable Reader, that Water Rescue had to be called to bring the sailors back to the shore. “So why are they out there now?” Zelda said. “I have no idea,” FoMFF said. “As soon as Water Rescue left, they put the boat back in the water.” So Zelda and her FoMFF watched the small sailboat-sized speck on the horizon move back and forth for a while. Then Zelda and her FoMFF watched the small sailboat-sized speck on the horizon attempt to turn and come back to shore. Then Zelda and her Friend of Most Fashionable Fashion watched the sailboat flip. Again. Zelda and her FoMFF watched as the sailors tried in vain to right the sailboat. Then Zelda and her FoMFF watched as the sailboat completely sank. Then Zelda and her FoMFF watched as the Water Rescue Dinghy AND the Big Coast Guard Boat rescued aforementioned sailors.

After hearing this, Vivienne of Most Fashionable Fashion cries out, “This is a Vision, Zelda! A Vision of Benevolence and Grace sent to you by the Benevolent and Wise Anne Carson!” “What does it mean, Vivienne,” Zelda said. “What does it mean?” “It means, Most Fashionable Zelda, that the Wise and Benevolent Anne Carson is SENDING YOU A MESSAGE. And the message is to NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE. DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE, ZELDA. YOU MUSTN’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE.” “Vivienne!” Zelda said. “You are so wise! You are so benevolent! You are a vessel of wisdom and benevolence for the wise and benevolent Anne Carson! THANK YOU! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CHANGING MY LIFE!!!”

Thank you, Most Fashionable Vivienne of the Utmost Fashion. Thank you.

Oh yeah! The poem!

For this poem, I have used a constraint that Vivienne and I recently devised. It is called Altered Punctuosity. When one applies Altered Punctuosity to an existing poem, one does not change any of the poem’s words. Instead, one changes the punctuation. I attempted to apply Altered Punctuousity to the entirety of Randall Jarrell’s “The Woman at the Washington Zoo,” but it didn’t work too well for the poem as a whole. I keep telling myself that it’s Jarrell’s fault, not mine. Ha! So I leave you, Most Fashionable Reader of Fashion, with a poem I created by applying Altered Punctuosity to the beginning of Randall Jarrell’s “The Woman at the Washington Zoo.”

The Woman

At the Washington Zoo, the saris go by me.
From the embassies: cloth from the moon,
cloth from another planet they look back at.

The leopard like the leopard.
And I, this print of mine that has kept its color
alive through so many cleanings.

This dull null.

Navy I wear to work, and wear.
From work and so to my bed.
So to my grave.

I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I love you. I hate you!

Ladies and Gentlemen of Fashion: Zelda is going to tell you about a friend that both she and Vivienne know. Every time this friend — who shall, from now on, be referred to as The Walking Talking Breathing Non Sequitur — randomly writes either Vivienne or Zelda, these communications consist of exquisitely random sentences and sentence fragments interspersed with exquisitely random self-centered sentences. Zelda would go into more detail and list a plethora of examples, but she feels very guilty and full of shame for even discussing The Walking Talking Breathing Non Sequitur because, as she and Vivienne say from time to time, “Yes, I know she tries. I know she’s reaching out. But Jesus!!!” Zelda will, however, make public an example that spawned the Most Fashionable Non-Profane Exclamatory Interjection in the History of Non-Profane Exclamatory Interjections — an interjection that she and Vivienne use quite frequently when no other word will suffice, an interjection that — when either Vivienne or Zelda has just recounted an extremely unfashionable event or happening to the other, who is then, for a few moments, rendered speechless by aforementioned unfashionable event — will rise forth unprompted from the other’s throat as a prayer, as a whisper, as regret.

Long ago, right in the middle of a Time of Great Stress and Great Sorrow in Zelda’s life, Zelda received an e-mail from The Walking Talking Breathing Non Sequitur. In between the exquisitely random sentences and sentence fragments interspersed with exquisitely random self-centered sentences, there was this: “I like your new profile photo. You look happy. Did you go to Vegas?”

Now, Dearest Readers of Fashion, the profile photo of which The Walking Talking Breathing Non Sequitur spoke was not new — it was, in fact, a few months old. And, Most Fashionable Readers, since Zelda is neither emo nor goth — even though she was called Wednesday Addams by a complete stranger at a local speakeasy recently because of, Zelda can only assume, her delicate porcelain skin — Zelda finds no reason to post a profile photo of her scowling, crying, or even looking morbidly pensive. And, Fashionable Readers of Fashion, though she finds the City of Sin quite intriguing and fashionable and dreams of living there for a season, or even a year, Zelda has never once — in the entirety of her life — equated Las Vegas with happiness.

So, Most Fashionable Readers, Zelda will now reveal the Most Fashionable Non-Profane Exclamatory Interjection in the History of Non-Profane Exclamatory Interjections: VEGAS!!!

Example:

Zelda of Fashion: Vivienne, do you remember the treatment we sent to Bravo? The one for a reality show that pitted poet against poet?

Vivienne of Fashion: Zelda, do you mean the one with the extremely fashionable challenges, like having all the poets write sonnets about Versace or YSL (may he rest in peace) dresses while sitting in the front row at Fashion Week, or having all the poets write sestinas in calligraphy on parchment paper while having exquisitely delectable soups spoon fed to them by Tom Collichio himself? Did you hear from Bravo, Zelda? Did you?

Zelda of Fashion: Yes, Vivienne, that’s the one. And yes, I heard from Bravo.

Vivienne of Fashion: Well, what did the network execs have to say?

Zelda of Fashion: They weren’t interested.

Vivienne of Fashion: [. . .] [. . .] [. . .]VEGAS!!!

[. . .] [. . .] [. . .]

Oh yeah! The poem!

I chose to create a Sponge Osmosity poem this FaOuLiPoWriMoFa (Fashionable OuLiPo Writing Month of Fashion) exercise. A Sponge Osmosity poem, as Vivienne described in an earlier, most fashionable post, is written by “culling phrases overheard from non-written media — television, a film, a conversation, etc.” For my Sponge Osmosity poem, I culled dialogue from the Fashionable Film of Great Fashion, Strait-Jacket.

Sculptress

You look lovely — very much a woman, and very much aware
of the fact. You see, that’s why I had to tell you. We girls have

to look our best. It’ll be just like meeting a stranger.
It must be lonely around here, ready to meet strangers.

Everyone’s a stranger. Maybe you should put through
a long distance call. How do you spend your time knitting?

Ever feel lonely? You have no idea how different you look.
I’m talking about the flowers. The good ones. They made one

mistake. She was just here. She’s coming home. Something’s upset.
There was something, all unraveled. There is nothing. It’s coming

apart. There is nothing wrong. I’m the one who suggested
the clothes and the wig. It was like a dream. It must have been

a nightmare. I wanted to test her reactions under stress. At last,
she had what she wanted. I know she’s dying to see you.

I just hate to see anything caged.

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.

Fashionable Poetry Alert! Alert of Fashionable Poetry!

The Most Fabulous and Always Fashionable Vivienne and I interrupt the Fashionable Oulipo Writings because we have news, Readers of Fashion!

News of Fashion!
Vivienne and I, the Most Fashionable Hyacinth Girls, now have our Very Own Most Fashionable URL, TheHyacinthGirls.com. Our WordPress URL will still work, of course, but now Vivienne and I are the Utmost of Fashion, the Fashionable Utmost.

Fashionable News!
The Most Fashionable Vivienne and I have created a 9 Fashionable Must-Haves page for you, Most Fashionable Reader. It will eventually include 10 Fashionable Must-Haves, or perhaps 10 Thousand. One cannot place numerical limits on fashion! As an added Bonus of Fashion, each Fashionable Must-Have includes a Fashionable Poem Tip of Fashion.

Old Man Take a Look at My Life — and Please Do Not Ask Me to Dinner.

Tanning, children, is dangerous.

And not just for the reasons your mother and Oprah and the various dermatologists on The Today Show have told you. No, kids, tanning — especially tanning at your apartment complex pool — is dangerous because it makes you vulnerable to The Dirty Old Man.

Here my tale of woe, children, and shudder, and slather yourselves in sunscreen and drape your bodies in caftans and most of all, most of most of all, hide your faces in the shadows cast by a wide-brimmed hat, so that you shall not too suffer this anguish, this agony, this woe.

Vivienne is writing this most unfashionable poemalogue because while she was tanning poolside this afternoon, quietly and calmly reading Euripides’ description of Polyxena’s blood sacrifice, just as she was thinking about how this provided a sense of unity to the Troy story, as the war began with the virgin sacrifice of Iphigenia (though some claim that she was replaced by a deer at the last second, of course, but still) and ended with the virgin sacrifice as Polyxena, The Dirty Old Man appeared, carrying a cooler full of Miller Chill and Captain Morgan’s Margarita Coolers, apparently summoned by the very thought of the term “virgin sacrifice,” apparently wooed by Captain Morgan’s commercials into thinking that Captain Morgan’s Margarita Coolers will actually get him laid. The Dirty Old Man, who is fully ten years older than my father, pulled a chair up beside my chair, and the following discussion ensued:

TDOM: You married?

VHW: No.

TDOM: You got a boyfriend?

VHW: No.

TDOM: Oh, so you’re a lesbian, then.

VHW: No, no, I’m not a lesbian, I’m just sick of men right now.

TDOM: Oh. Okay. You wanna have dinner with me?

Vivienne, at this point, feels no further comment is necessary, other than this: gentlemen. Really. If you wish to woo Vivienne, tell her you enjoy the striking asymmetry of her bikini top. Tell her that her voice is mellifluous as a nightingale’s. Tell her you were just thinking about the bookend virgin sacrifices of Iphigenia and Polyxena. Tell her, for Christ’s sake, that you fucking love Bel Biv Devoe, no matter what anyone says. Just don’t, seriously, Viv-wooing-gentlemen, seriously, do NOT verbalize your assumption that she is a lesbian because she is single, and especially do not ever, ever, EVER follow a verbalization of this kind with a dinner invitation.

Oh, yeah. The poem.

Today’s poem comes from a restriction that Zelda and I invented on the phone last night, called Sponge Osmosity, which we feel has a great deal of potential for the literature. A Sponge Osmosity poem is written by culling phrases overheard from non-written media — television, a film, a conversation, etc. In this case, I Sponge Osmositized my viewing of The Trojan Women, specifically, Hecuba’s first speech. Sadly, I could find no way to incorporate Andromache’s nonverbal wails.

This Marriage Needs No Songs but Only Tears

Which is a beautiful quote, no?