I Heart Walt Whitman |

I say it in a whisper, I say it as a prayer. LOWENSTEIN! LOWENSTEIN!

June 7, 2008

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!

Lowenstein 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.