The composing of Zelda’s poemlogue was interrupted this evening by a most fashionable phone call. This phone call of fashion, however, did not begin as such. In fact, it began as a phone call of despair. My most fashionable friend D, on location for a Most Fashionable Wedding, called me late this evening to say that he was lost, that he was near a bridge, that he had no idea how to get to the airport to pick up his friend who had just flown in from Japan, that he had no idea how to get from the airport back to his hotel. Being as I was sitting in front of my computer with Walt Whitman in one hand and a ginger ale in the other (as I am most Friday nights, but this does not cause me sorrow, does not cause me sorrow at all), I was able to help D find his way. Hooray for D! Hooray! Hooray!
But! Dearest Reader. The story does not end there. If you remember, D was near a bridge when he first called. Yes, yes. And, Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader, this was not any bridge. No, no, no. It was the bridge. It was the Cooper River Bridge, the bridge Tom Wingo drives across at the end of The Prince of Tides, the bridge on which he says two words in a whisper, as a prayer, as regret, as praise, the bridge on which Tom Wingo says these two words: Lowenstein. Lowenstein.
[Let us pause for a moment while Zelda wipes a tear from her eye.]
Lowenstein, of course, being Barbara Streisand’s most fashionable character in the movie adaptation of The Prince of Tides.
Now, careful followers of bridge demolitions around the United States will know that the bridge D was near when he called me (and the bridge he and his friend from the airport crossed later, the bridge from which D and his friend cried out two special words in whispers and prayers while still on the phone with me as per my request) is not the actual bridge Tom Wingo crossed, being as Tom Wingo’s bridge was demolished a few years ago. The bridge pictured above is the present-day Cooper River Bridge.
I have posted a video below of the demolition of Tom Wingo’s bridge. This has a Very Special Meaning to me. For the bridge in the video below is not only Tom Wingo’s bridge — it is also the bridge which instilled in me a Great Fear of Bridges. The bridge below is the reason I still, to this day, roll down all my windows when crossing any bridge. The bridge below is the reason I keep a Very Special Tool within arm’s length in my car at all times, a Very Special tool that will shatter a car window quite easily if aforementioned car happens to become completely submerged in water. Not only is Tom Wingo’s bridge Tom Wingo’s bridge, but it is also the Bridge of Great Fear.
Oh yeah! The poem! For tonight’s OuLiPo Poem of Fashion, I have created a Chimera. My primary text was an exerpt from The Badass Girl’s Guide to Poker by Toby Leah Bochan. I removed its nouns, verbs, adjectives, and proper names. I replaced the nouns with nouns from Chapter Eight of the 1997 edition of Contemporary Business by Louis E. Boone and David L. Kurtz. I replaced the primary text’s verbs with verbs from Recipe for Murder: The Nancy Drew Files Case 21 by Carolyn Keene. I inserted adjectives from Whitman’s “Song of Myself” into the primary text, and I used biblical proper names.
Irretrievable
[yeah, the pome is irretrievable, betches!]
hyacinthgirls.wordpress.com 
LOWENSTEIN! LOWENSTEIN!
(Vivienne pauses to wipe the tear from her eye as well)
Zel, have we even discussed the Very Special Tool before? How I have desired said Very Special Tool since I first saw an episode of 20/20 at the age of ten during which John Stossel so fashionably showed one how to survive a plunge from a bridge (and, driving the old Tom Wingo Bridge, I followed all of John Stossel’s tips, to keep from plunging to a watery watery death during which my power windows would cease their operation)? Does this coincidence mean that the Very Special Tool is, in fact, a Tool of Fashion?
I am beyond fascinated with your Chimera. It is most extraordinary, especially the first lines!
I’m from a family of 8, and every other summer we would drive to Georgia, where my mum’s from, to visit family. We traveled by van of course with a clan the size of ours. And every time we drove over a bridge, I laid flat against the floor until we had passed to the other side.
It is very hot, even way up here in the western hills of Mass.–how dost thou find the energy for such a complicated exercise?? You are a fount of inspiration. Esp here:
Move all the futures to mutter
Viv — I can’t remember if we’ve discussed the Very Special Tool of Fashion before! But I am so glad it has been discussed now! And YES! I saw John Stossel discuss how one can survive after plunging from a bridge! How odd that my parents would not let me watch Dirty Dancing when it first came out but would let me watch John Stossel discuss various horrors that could happen to one if one wasn’t prepared.
Marie! Bridges are horrible! Especially now, since Bridge Studies of Horror have been done to many of the bridges across the United States, and so now we, the American Public, now know how unsafe all of our bridges are. Gah!
And it is very hot here, too, in the Southeast. I try and stay cool by moving as infrequently as possible, which is — sadly — not very difficult for me. Creating a Chimera IS quite time-consuming. And they can be quite frustrating, too, like when you realize halfway through the poem (as I did for this one) that you didn’t choose a good text for one of the parts of speech. Argh!
Cool complicatedness! I think the language of business needs to be mined more frequently for artistic effect (I did a powerpoint-based performance piece, though, so may be biased). And people who say poems shouldn’t have abstractions in them are dumb.
Thanks, Sunny! And I wholeheartedly concur with your thoughts. This, however, comes from a woman whose most recent book purchases include The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Robert Frank and Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution by Tom Peters, so I, too, may be a bit biased.
Your performance piece sounds fabulously interesting! I’d love to hear more — like where you pulled the business language from, etc., etc.