Sunday, April 01, 2007

Spam Dada Poetry

I think we have a new generation of Dadaist poets. I just got this as part of the camouflage text in a spam email. It is strangely beautiful. Works at least as well as Finnigan's Wake anyway.

Listar, version, sun xmailer microsoft, outlook express bat?
United states senate of political parties democratic?
Exposs and nation digital new republic york, web!
Meet press nando times news now index review.
Th tags no comments tuefebtags agency graphic.
Replyto seen nbc cbs cnn even oprah.
Design nick nyc oswego, vandal, pmtags tagged.
Prevthread nextdate indexfwd youngerto spamfilter jim.
Kanardo graphics, trust, latest registered rarz nickel stepaola owenns.
Listar, version, sun xmailer microsoft, outlook express bat?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm... looks and reads like something put together by a random word generator. I guess you have to be receptive to that kind of thing to appreciate it. Either that or I'm just tired of getting that stuff in my inbox. ;o)

Anonymous said...

You noticed too, Eolake? ;-)
Was the punctuation already there, too?

Even the successful writers cannot escape that brain-washing influence:
"Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I woud like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - (J.K. Rowling, 1997)

Gandalfe, it wouldn't be the first time that random computer generated stuff gives birth to a strange form of beauty.
I remember a very short program, on Sinclair's ZX Spectrum, that randomly placed colour squares on the screen. Except the RND function was only PSEUDO-RANDOM, which in this particular case caused a very interesting rainbowy mosaic pattern. And forever changing as long as the program was left running. Kewl.

Not to mention the marriage of computers and mathematics. Fractals? Strange chaotic attractors? Very intriguing stuff!

Some day, artists will make very interesting stuff by blending their own creativity with random computer effects. I'm sure it's already being done.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"Was the punctuation already there, too?"

I haven't edited a single character.