I'm totally obsessed with how poetic spam is getting. I've been a fan for awhile now of the stilted, tragic, formal language in those Nigerian money scam emails. Some of the stories are novel-like in their complexity if you bother to read them. Then I started getting emails typical of spam in their subject lines (eg "cheap v.i.a.g.r.a is here vqoncgf wkx" and "chicks taking a wiz on thier friends" -- really) but coming from a sender with a funny name like Mumford H. Theocracy or Dissolutely R. Afterlife or Wrongheaded C. Mimicry or Waxy B. Monarch. I love names so I started listing the best ones I could find. I started looking forward to them.
Things got even weirder when spam started showing up with chilling little subject lines like "Re: sound of footsteps," "Re: Germanicus succeeded," and "rotgut cartographer compulsive gumbo." I couldn't resist opening the emails, and inside were seemingly random strings of words. One after another of words too interesting to have been thought up by some Viagra-hawking lowlife in Boca Raton, supposedly the spam capital of the world, and yet too beautiful and odd to be the product of random word-generating software... I think.
Something like:
fishpond anonymity beadle gerbil oakwood subterfuge bluebird vicky benedict droop sandusky madame constructor pluton damsel everything die laudanum euthanasia bonneville documentation crystallite phon governor fringe crust electric bursitis laudatory encyclopedic dahl groupoid offertory ova curfew airflow conservatory minsky abscissae ashame herr fickle bryn chop otto raft slapstick sunflower avis psyche earthenware syria vasquez dolores ex brooklyn bisexual sparling whelp lesion runabout penrose applaud greenwood crass stereo sammy billie bedtime cockleshell abandon careworn enigma kibbutzim aristocratic creamy slavery faraday sidle specific wrongdo paraffin chinaman impertinent rendition innards axe oust incontrovertible alcoholism arty ulster neuromuscular caesar inane chassis aeolus showmen merit cake standish permeate dearth diffuse dreary bumblebee remnant duckling chromatograph writeup beaux heterodyne plush bloodstone northumberland astonish blot din blackstone luminosity axisymmetric lint halcyon carbondale buff ilona awaken
It's like the Finnegans Wake of spam! What the hell is going on???
I don't care what they're selling but where are they getting those amazing words?
"bedtime cockleshell"?
"groupoid offertory"?
"remnant duckling"?
"ex brooklyn bisexual"???
On an unrelated note, I saw Sarah Jessica Parker today in front of Bergdorf's filming Sex & the City. A friend of mine thought she looked too gaunt and too tan. But I really believe this is the way female celebrities should look. I thought she looked incredible in an unreal sort of way. From a block away one could see that her highlights cost more than one of my paychecks. She was wearing a giant fur coat and sort of giggling at the sidewalk. She wasn't looking at the crowd at all. A woman from the crew was literally running down the street with a megaphone, yelling, "Keep moving! Get out! Go to the other side of the street! If you are looking this way, go away!" People standing around and staring, tourist-fashion, were hustled away, but busy Manhattanites with a sense of purpose were whisked thru a clearing in the sidewalk almost grandly. Still, this busy New Yorker secretly wanted to get out her cellphone & call her best friend in Chicago with the news. Instead I pushed past the crowds with my nose in the air... without missing a detail of the outfit!
