Ever read the more or less random text that appears in those spam emails, which usually precedes an ad for cheap Viagra or something? Sometimes, you could be forgiven for taking it to be a species of avant-garde poetry. This one showed up in my inbox this morning:
it the had as word down in down
motor me person has had in others ten
and in great the after later tact later porter later in down it and and needed person and motor alone clothes very after me slipped as clothes going much as top the motor the dollars also much very on in in ten dollars as and he word school much and great ten top me great the others alone great main on going others the bought in great had dollars in bought the and main much needed and me He needed bought as it purse paid purse great has
You know, I'm pretty sure I've heard very similar stuff at poetry readings. And I know I read stuff like that in my modernist lit class back at York. For example, from Gertrude Stein's poem "If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso":
Exactly as as kings.
Feeling full for it.
Exactitude as kings.
So to beseech you as full as for it.
Exactly or as kings.
Shutters shut and open so do queens. Shutters shut and shutters and so shutters shut and shutters and so and so shutters and so shutters shut
and so shutters shut and shutters and so. And so shutters shut and so and also. And also and so and so and also.
Now, I'm not saying that Gertrude Stein lives on in the digital afterlife and is sending me cryptic messages by email. I'm not saying that at all.
Except that I have a deep suspicion that Gertrude Stein is sending me messages from the digital afterlife. The evidence here is almost ironclad.
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