Oulipost #16: Chimera. The chimera of Homeric legend – lion’s head, goat’s body, treacherous serpent’s tail – has a less forbidding Oulipian counterpart. It is engendered as follows. Having chosen a newspaper article or other text for treatment, remove its nouns, verbs and adjectives. Replace the nouns with those taken in order from a different work, the verbs with those from a second work, the adjectives with those from a third.

Shrimp Boy Rag

Sweeping dreams and fresh fans, strike a not guilty night

Bases left and other influences related to the compositions

Parking lot crooner loaded the jazz,

Music is the fame of a regional set

“Avalon” went to print with local Memory Lane of money laundering,

Main showcase of conspiracy was tied to agricultural acts,

and nearby impact of trafficking in another career

The band says rock is a weekly medical punk wrongly ruled out

in a politically charged investigation.

“We’ve got to load the disco and take hip-hop out of it,” Ferry said. “Because genres just simply popped up, money just simply corrupts.”

Sourced from The Contra Costa Times, Bay Area News Group, April 16, 2014

(‘Shrimp Boy’ pleads not guilty to money laundering, Paul Elias; Ferry gives fans a dream night, Jim Harrington; Starter harkens back to better times vs. Dodgers, Alex Pavlovic; Farmers market closes in Antioch, Paul Burgarino)