Spamland

The spam I (secretly) most appreciate is the sort that uses randomly generated text cut-ups to bust spam filters, some of them fully worthy of the cut-up experiments Burroughs and Gysin were doing in the late 50s / early 60s.

In a gravitation without warning the face of rubbing grew sullen Black angry mouths, the clouds swallowed up the horsehair The air was religion with suppressed excitement

The Brothers McLeod are doing wonderful things with cut-up spam, having developed a series of animated characters to read aloud and act out the impossible, often mythical scenarios.

nodded. The door was closed and sealed again. Quietly forward. Hands extended, fingers lightly bowed. Iron John was Thats why there is no record of them

My own spam filters seem to have wised up to this form of spam in the past year, but every now and then one will eep through the multiple gatekeepers that mostly protect me from scarybig Spamland, discretely dropping special treats at my door in the middle of the night, causing me to feel the tiniest bit hopeful.

Accidental art committed for all the wrong reasons can still be beautiful, right?

Music: Will Oldham :: Ode #1b

4 Replies to “Spamland”

  1. off topic, but why do i keep getting ads for the LDS (Mormon) Church on your blog? are they tracking me for having played devil’s (bwahaha) advocate in the athiest threads? or maybe they are singling you out for adspace since they know they have some work to do saving your sorry soul? (and the souls of your readers…)

  2. You’re referring to Google adsense ads, right? (the iTunes and Burst! ads aren’t context sensitive). The Goog ads don’t track viewer interests, they just parse page text for relevancy to campaigns being run with them. Most likely you’re seeing LDS ads because LDS has purchased space matching various religion keywords. For example you’d almost certainly never see those on the SF Jell-O post.

  3. OTOH, if you were seeing LDS ads through the graphical Burst! rotation, that would be because LDS bought space in random placement – Burst doesn’t scan page text for relevancy.

  4. I think the text is incredible enough to stand on its own. I had a couple of religious context subject lines slip through my spam filter, but quickly banished them. If I had only known the beauty that lay within! I might open the floodgates and see if any incredible revelations are given to me.

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