April 6, 2013

"What would Madonna say?"

Asked Irene at the Hydrangea Café last night.

Yes, why, exactly, did Madonna say she absolutely loathes hydrangeas?
“Hydrangeas are very romantic, feminine and maybe a little demur[e],” suggested Eddie Zaratsian of tick-tock Couture Flowers based in Los Angeles, Calif., who has worked with corporate clients like Chanel, as well as an undisclosed list of celebrities. “Madonna is known for her strength and confidence and so it’s only natural she would gravitate towards a bolder flower.” The elephant in the room: hydrangeas are working-class flowers, aren’t they? Somehow partially responsible for current economic crisis? Make your pee smell bad?...

To Zaratsian, who believes every flower to be a “gift from God”... it is the overall experience of receiving flowers that helps one formulate a memory, and thus create an opinion or preference to hold over time. “What [do] they take from that connotation of that flower? What is that memory of that flower for them?” he explained. Perhaps the larger question is: what did these innocent flowers ever do to you, Madonna? 
Have you ever been wronged by a flower?  What flower is on your shit pee list?

ADDED: If you're wondering about the pee, I'd elided the part about tea. Don't you know about hydrangea tea?

17 comments:

Meade said...

If I were a cow, I would absolutely loathe Cicuta virosa.

Ann Althouse said...

It would be the bane of your existence.

Paco Wové said...

Hydrangeas are old lady flowers. Especially the blue ones.

Materfamilias said...

"What is charm? It is what the violet has, and the camellia has not."

edutcher said...

Though Madge would love us all to forget it, she's still about as blue collar as they come.

Maybe that's why. I think they're rather pretty.

Phil 314 said...

I don't like poodles

but I love irises.

Irene said...

I loathe mums. I love my mum.

I love (most) poodles.

Irene said...

And we have a poodle named "Poppy."

She's the sweetest flower of all.

edutcher said...

BTW, who gives a flying f*** what Madge likes?

Next to Barney, she's probably the most annoying thing to come out of the 80s.

PS Mama Irene will be glad you made the distinction.

John Burgess said...

Hydrangeas are inoffensive, but for me carry a bit of Victorian flavor. Not "old lady," but "old house".

They'd be much nicer if they had a scent... maybe like Freesia?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Madonna is such an a-hole.

Seeing Red said...

Love the pink hydrangea. Hate carnations.

I finally had hummingbirds on my back porch because I bought a lantana tree.

Basta! said...

Well, Zaratsian sells flowers, so he would theorize that making a gift of them has the power to influence preferences.

Someone up the street has a mass of blue hydrangea bushes. They're SO blue it's a shock to look at them. Blue is a color that rarely occurs naturally.

Anonymous said...

Carnations.

Basta! said...

I am reminded of the Language of Flowers, a Victorian practice of using meanings traditionally associated with flowers to send a hidden message along with a bouquet.

The message of mums, carnations, and violets depends on their particular color. An iris means "good news", a camellia "unpretending excellence", a hydrangea "gratitude at being understood". You might, however, be castigating someone by sending hydrangeas, since they also bear the negative meaning of "heartlessness". I imagine the recipient would know which sense you intended. Cowbane, alas, does not seem to have been used in bouquets, so its "meaning" isn't given. Perhaps Meade could assign it one?

The 19th century illustrator Kate Greenaway published a nice Language of Flowers booklet, which I see is now available on Kindle for free.

Ann Althouse said...

"A White Sport Coat (and a Pink Carnation)."

Ann Althouse said...

I suspect Madonna just didn't want to have to touch any object handed to her. It seems icky and diseased.