To spam or not to spam?

If you’re a WordPress blogger, you likely use Akismet. My blog gets a lot of spam and Akismet kindly gathers it all in one place where I can review it to make sure real comments haven’t been tagged as spam. 

So, I scan a lot of spam and I’ve noticed that comment spam seems different from email spam.

For one thing, it’s a lot longer. And it’s bursting with links. And it contains some (okay, a lot of) inappropriate language. But other parts of these messages remind me of something else … improvised text. 

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We singers have a huge bonus (or albatross, depending on your perspective *wink*) in our improv toolbox — language. That’s right, we get to use words. This excites some of us and terrifies others. From where, after all, are these words supposed to come? (Read on, dear Reader, read on.)

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One of the things I practice in improvising is working with language. At Songtaneous sessions, we play word games with the goal of detaching language from a sequential or consequential, literal context to explore its more poetic, playful and percussive qualities. (I find I do language work best with other people. It helps me circumvent all the rules I make up for myself.)

Long story short(ish), I realized in scanning through the many spam comments I receive each day, that there’s a kind of computerized poetry here.

As an exercise, I took one of today’s spam comments and imagined I was going to use it to create an improvised piece.

My guidelines were pretty simple; I could leave out words and use phrasing (punctuate), but I couldn’t reorder the words. And I didn’t spend a lot of time reviewing the spam first. I tried to let my eye jump to a phrase and flow (albeit totally tangentially in some cases) to the next phrase that grabbed me. Below are my creations.

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Spam-provised Text
[created by deleting words and adding punctuation to today’s spam comment]

i

Nice people nest again catching the drug

them liked will marry

her? spotted horses, him? amoxycillin for trees 

and because only them fixes the hostage

agreed direction

…

ii

the grapefruit stallion had false lead

few trees came with human family and better progress

fifty-year-old started crying sloppily

intended back together

another opening back inside

still betrothed had suffered the planet 

maybe this straight back would reverse our sufficient experience

“wait here”

the jaws could make him hush

…

iii

physically far back

long-term memory loss

her straw our pain fading out

seldom good ordinary talent

unsettling way

delightful place

would play over quite pretty

…

iv

not merely the simplest brass girl

illie works with that awful burden

concerned about more goblins seen outside

they, the mists

wing onto the smoky sigh

land when close

More Bloggity Goodness

• Working with the Broken Pieces