Chapter 9 - Reinventing Fashion

A word of warning: Although I'm fairly sure my sister and cousin are the only people who read this, the following chapter contains some rather crude language. Pardon me if I bring offense, I am not a vulgar man but, I assure you, my work is.

Current U.S. Poet Laureate, Donald Hall

Langley Chelmsford held a press conference when he was chosen to design the costumes for Persephone. “I am honored to have been chosen for this most difficult task. In fact, this is the most difficult costuming assignment ever: to create clothes for the inventor of fashion. Persephone’s clothing must be absolutely free of all influences. There can be no Japanese style embroidery or turtleneck collars. Even the very notions of “shirt” or “dress” have to be abandoned."

This choice was extremely controversial, especially in the world of fashion, as Langley Chelmsford was not a fashion designer at all, but a rather infamous poet.

"Only a poet would be able to unlearn enough of history--to ignore enough of influence--to be able to understand what must take place in order to create Persephone's clothes. And only a buffoonish hothead with no regard at all for human decency would be able to do the job correctly," was Oliver Fagin Thomas’s official (and only) statement on the matter.

Langley had first become famous when he read his poem "Heil To The Chief" at a presidential inauguration. He had not been invited to read this poem on this particular occasion. He had not been invited at all, although a man by the name of Boggs Henry had. Boggs Henry was the Poet Laureate of the United States that year and, like most Poets Laureate, no one knew what he looked like.

What really happened that morning will probably never be known. That Langley Chelmsford actually kidnapped Mr. Henry has not been proven, although irrefutable evidence exists that he knew of the Poet Laureate's little known weakness for gin and large-breasted women.

When the master of ceremonies introduced Boggs Henry, and Langley Chelmsford approached the microphone no one suspected a thing. Although some have said they remember thinking he seemed handsome for a poet, no one seemed to think it odd that a member of the ceremonies would chain smoke on stage either. It was not until he actually began to speak that world realized something was amiss:

Heil to the Chief

Let us tear the stars and stripes
And bend the stripes into a swastika
And pin the stars
to those tightwad kikes
those diseased fags
those brainless niggers
those lazy wetbacks
the sluts who kill their babies
and the welfare sluts who don't
and the evil a-rabs
don't forget the retards and the poor
and the kids who can't do chin-ups

Let us shred the constitution
And spread it out on the floor
To soak up the piss and shit
Of the fat southern pigs
Who use the Lord's name in vain.
And while were at it
Let us elect as our Chief a
Syphilitic with one testicle
Who rapes his sister and eats the fetus
Who keeps little boys in a wading pool
And make sure he fiddles.
Who would notice another horse in this senate?

To punctuate the ending, he drop-kicked the microphone into the crowd and thumped off stage. Although the incident was the focus almost the entire world's attention for the rest of the day, the news did not break until the next morning that the author and performer of Heil to the Chief was not Boggs Henry at all and another three days went by before the real poet was located and identified.

Chelmsford made his next public appearance on a television talk show where spoke passionately about the country needing to be exposed to poetry again, and how the president was coddled prince who didn't know anything about the real world except how to spend money and destroy things. He refused to read any more poetry saying the world wasn't done digesting the first one yet, but he didn't seem to mind when three weeks later his first collection of poems, The Maiden with the Golden Cunt Hair became the top selling book of poetry that century.

Like most things having to do with Langley Chelmsford there are a lot of theories about how he became connected to Oliver Fagin Thomas, and eventually Persephone. It is widely assumed Thomas, like the rest of the world, first heard of Chelmsford the night of "Heil to the Chief" and was so impressed that he had to have the poet in his staff. Anyone who does even the smallest amount of research into the subject, however, will find a large number of coincidences, including that the two were in the same third grade class, and that Chelmsford spent at least two summers in Moscow while Oliver was living there.

A book, Secret Friendship: Langley Chelmsford and Oliver Fagin Thomas was published around the time the two men were turning sixty. The book has a lot of interesting anecdotes, such as Thomas spent considerable energies trying to cheer Chelmsford out of a severe childhood depression, and that Oliver had shown his friend early drafts of the Persephone. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the book also puts forth the preposterous notion that a connection of a sexual nature existed between the two, and now no one even remembers who wrote it.

Chapter 8 - Flight

How many attention spans do you have?

Oliver was on a plane for the first time in his life. He was disappointed in the way all of the passengers and airline employees seemed to take flying for granted. He wanted to stand up on his seat and shout to everyone: “Put down your magazines. Put down your cheap thrillers. Turn off your computers. We are flying. We, who seemed bound to the Earth, are flying. Gravity has no power,” but Oliver had not yet gained the courage to shout at strangers.

When the stewardess asked that everyone close the shutters on their windows, Oliver left his open a few centimeters. He pressed his eye to the crack, covering his head with his blanket so as not to disturb the movie. He used both of his attention spans as he imagined Persephone, a giantess, marching along the clouds, winning back the rights of women.

Chapter 7 - Selling In

Fresh out of college, Cassandra decided to do a favor for a friend and star in a commercial. She sat up late the night before studying the roll of toilet paper she was going to advertise until she felt she could describe every sheet.

The commercial’s director, who was only doing the job for the opportunity to make a music video, was a little impatient when Cassandra asked for a moment of silence before the camera rolled, but other than that the commercial shoot was boring as usual.

Two months later the commercial aired and everyone watching that particular channel at that particular time, stopped what they were doing and just stared for the thirty second duration. The next morning, “that girl on TV” was the number one office and schoolyard conversation topic. At first the toilet paper company was ecstatic, planning an entire series of Cassandra ads, but when the focus group surveys were turned in, not a single person had noticed what brand of toilet paper was being advertised. More than half of the respondents believed the commercial was for hair dye. At this point none of these statistics even mattered, for Cassandra was way beyond the possibility of ever doing a commercial again.

Finding the right vehicle to launch her career was a difficult task. Most people involved in the film industry were afraid that she would take the focus away from everything but her presence. One ambitious producer even tried to get Cassandra to tour the country just appearing in theatres and holding toilet paper. Actually meeting her changed his mind. “People don't want to see me,” she said. “Not the physical presence of just normal Cassandra Calo but her stage persona. That's not something I can just turn on and sell. That would be immoral.” She didn’t have that ability to do that anyway.

Chapter 6 - Conversationalism

Jean Piaget, Developmental Psychologist

John C. Calhoun Elementary School had adopted the philosophy that social skills were equally, if not more, important in a child’s education and, as a consequence, Oliver Fagin Thomas was cause for concern. Oliver’s teachers could not help but feel there was something wrong although his behaviors did not fit any of the “social learning disorders” defined by Dr. Partee’s influential book, The Adolescent Socialite. He excelled at sports, especially those that required gymnastics or rope climbing. He was good looking for his age, neither to thin nor too fat. He dressed well and was never seen picking his nose.
Perhaps if Dr. Partee had met Oliver at age eleven or twelve he would have added a new chapter to his book entitled “nobody likes a ten year old cultural elitist” but the famous Brooklyn child psychologist was too busy peddling his system to American school districts to do much actual field research these days.

This is not to say that Oliver was a snob, for one of his distinguishing characteristics, even at this developmental stage, was the ability to see great social significance in even the most common forms of entertainment. Oliver was notorious for giving reports to the class on the myth-basis and morality of the current fad cartoon or explaining the exact reasons for the current Top 40 single’s seemingly unparalleled catchiness. Had his classmates actually been willing to enjoy the things that were popular instead of just acquiring them, then perhaps Oliver would have been of use to them, but alas, this was not so.

During the forced random pairings of “conversationalism lessons,” Oliver was often reported to be doing nothing to encourage his conversation partner to speak. In reality the other children had made a pact never to actually listen to anything he said, ever.

Six months of teacher's worries led to a conference with Oliver, his father and the school psychologist. Oliver sat in a red leather chair in the corner. The two adults looked silly to him, neither saying what they meant, trying to find etiquette-approved routes to their desired destinations.

“I think that he may be acting out in an effort to replace his absent mother,” said the Psychologist.

“I don’t think I would quite call that acting out, seems to me more like he’s not doing anything.”

“Yes, yes, I see your point. Still, when was the last time he saw his mother?”

Oliver remembered last seeing her on television the week before. She was marching in the May Day parade. Oliver always looked for news from Russia; he had a notebook in his bedroom where every night before bed he recorded the average daily temperatures for New York, Moscow, and (just for comparison) Athens, Georgia. If on a particular day, New York and Moscow had the same temperature, he was happy to know that he could share something with his mother even on the other side of the Earth. He brought in the notebook one day when the class was learning about graphs. Oliver had gone home one night and charted all of his weather data. He showed the notebook to the teacher, who praised his neatness but explained that he should not show the book to the whole class because complicated line graphs like Oliver’s weren’t taught until at least the sixth grade.

Oliver’s spare attention span had been so taken up by this memory that he had stopped listening to the conversation in front of him. He was still reliving the teacher’s rejection when he felt his Father tap him on the shoulder. Oliver stood up and looked at his Dad. His Dad smiled down at him and said, “Well, what do you think? I’m sure you’ll enjoy the trip, and maybe you’ll make some new friends.” Oliver smiled back and nodded. Three weeks later, alone and on a plane to Moscow, Oliver vowed that he would never let himself get caught up in reliving a memory again.

Chapter 5 - Ally Ally Sauerkraut

a playbill

Allison Sauer, or Ally Ally Sauerkraut, as she was sometimes known, was famous for being the biggest Persephone fan at Jimmy Carter Elementary. Allison's father, Peter Sauer, had served in the navy with some of the sailors who served as stage hands in Because it is There and because of that connection, Allison was taken to see Persephone at an age that caused several other parents on the block to gossip.

Allison had heard that the show was for adults and the idea of seeing it made her slightly nervous. She had once seen an R rated movie in which a young woman died of cancer and it had made her cry for hours. She also remembered, when she was very young, going to see a cartoon about a mouse that gets separated from its parents. The movie had made most of the children in the packed theatre cry but not Ally, she just thought that they were stupid. That is what she was afraid would happen to her. She was afraid that she would cry and everyone in the theatre would think she was stupid. The fears of course were groundless. Although there are parts of Persephone that are undeniably sad, Oliver Fagin Thomas would never abide by members of the audience actually crying. It was just a play after all.

Though, perhaps to Ally, Persephone was a bit more than just a play. Perhaps, the experience was more of a transformation, although a transformation that took some time. The day after she saw the play, she brought the program into school, ostensibly so she could read it over during lunch. She carried the playbill around the building in such a way that everyone could see, without looking like she was doing so on purpose.

The first person to notice, noticed on the bus. Simone Jefferson, with whom Ally shared an assigned seat, said that her Mother had seen the play and had said she might take Simone for her birthday. "You'll love it," Ally said and letting her hold the program. The situation was repeated throughout the day; someone would recognize the logo on the front of the program and would ask her if she had seen the play. She would tell them yes, and that it was wonderful--the first time she had given a standing ovation.

The last period of the day, her Science teacher, Mr. Braundy, saw the program on her desk. He told her that once he had been to see the Royal Scottish Tattoo and that it was quite a spectacle. She told him she was sure it must have been, and kept the program in her bag until she got home.

After that, Allison's obsession with Persephone grew more subtly. After a few days, the initial excitement wore down and a true appreciation of the play developed. She would be performing a task that had once seemed mundane, and suddenly see how the task related to Persephone. Soon she was mentioning these connections in class, perhaps sometimes too often, but by the second semester everyone had grown used to Allison's zeal.

As a sixth grader and therefore an important role model, Allison had established a following of younger girls who tried to impress her with their knowledge of obscure Persephonia. And Allison, being both easily influenced and a girl of some integrity practiced the moral tenets of the play in all her life, and therefore, accepted even the most pathetic wannabe into her circle.

Convincing an elementary school to adopt the first of the prostitutes into the pantheon of acceptable subjects was not an easy task, but Allison fought strongly while still in fourth grade for the permission to wear Persephone’s fashion wardrobe in the classroom. The principal, having recently returned from a conference stressing the importance of conditioning young children to persuasive writing was himself persuaded to allow the children to present their arguments on Persephone’s educational merit with a mandatory three-page essay.

Allison’s essay was so convincing that she was asked to give a reading at a school-wide assembly. Her oration resulted in subsequent sightings of teachers in Persephone gear and of the dubbing of the aforementioned sauerkraut name by some of the boys who had trouble understanding their true feelings.