The poetics of spam

I love found poetry.  Love it.  Found poetry reminds me of the time my friend Erin and I discovered John Wesley’s directions for singing in the back of a Methodist hymnal and she sat in the wooden pew furiously scribbling them all down on a spare church bulletin. Number two, for example, commands, “Sing [these tunes] exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can.”  There are seven in total.  

I love how Wesley’s language is purposeful, direct and alarmingly un-ironic.  On the other hand, sometimes you find poetry in an unexpected metaphor, a euphemism that is hilariously endearing.  And that is what I bring you today.  Most of us probably don’t often think of e-mail spammers as endearing, but I present the following list with hopes you’ll reconsider.  

After four weeks out of town, I arrived home to over six hundred (!) messages in my g-mail spam folder.  Of course there was lots of “Hot sale: Generic Medecines and Vi@gr!@”, but some folks took the time to charm me with their subject lines.  Here is a brief review of the top titles:

 

• Your drillo needs support
• Your battleship won’t sink
• Vulcanizer for your hot-stick!
• Best doping for night monster
• Your shuttle needs better fuel
• Energy for your dude piston
• The best software for your joystick
• Charge your love generator

 

and, my personal favorite:

 

• The magic melody for your flute

 

I mean, if I were in the market for some generic Viagra, I’d hands-down buy it from that guy.  In my book, a well-written metaphor goes a long way.  And admit it, you’ve already started thinking of your own.*

 

*Tentacle, love gun, and tasty cake have already been taken.

The six word memoir: I’m enamored.

I am obsessed.  

Hemingway famously wrote “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” And I have to admit, his shortest story is pretty compelling.  In only six words we feel desire, lust, expectation, disappointment, and defeat.  It has all the rising action, conflict, and resolution of that little upside-down check mark plot diagram we learned in middle school.  Or, if it’s not all on the page, the six words enable us to imagine it.  It’s good, really good.  It’s a life in six words.

And it was this idea, I guess, that inspired Smith magazine to create their super popular six word memoir.  I suppose there’s something inherently appealing about a six-word story, particularly to the text message generation.  Though I’ve yet to embrace txt msg convention (I still spell out every word from “tonight” to “you” in all its standard English glory, even though my own parents write things like “luv u. call 2morro”), I have gone from a minor crush on the six-word memoir to full-blown unadulterated infatuation.  Because it’s a genre where every word matters to every author.  Because, when it’s good, it’s so good; it’s the rest of the iceberg under the surface of the murky water–to use Hemingway’s metaphor–the desires, motivations and disappointments that the six words imply, that make our chests flutter as we read.  Of course writing short comes naturally to us, what with our away messages, twitter updates, and continual status notifications.  But the six word memoir is successful not for what it tells us, but for what it doesn’t, for the hints it plants in our voyeuristic minds.  Unlike tabloid news and reality TV, six word memoirs don’t give us the slow-motion, close-up “accidental” crotch shot.  They celebrate subtlety and possibility.

Here are a few of my favorites, taken from Smith:

Ex-wife and contractor now have house.

Mistakenly kills kitten.  Fears anything delicate.

Wealthy woman escapes with handsome mailman. 

I still make coffee for two.

Doesn’t that last one pull, just a little, at your grinchy little heart?  And maybe you’re thinking, just like I was, I could do that.  But I’ve been trying for days now, and what I’ve learned is this: 1-the best ones don’t skimp too much on the syntax; they aim for narrative over comprehensiveness.  2-the colon is wildly overused in mediocre six-word memoir-ry, but should not be off limits.  3-unfortunately, most come out sounding like dull newspaper headlines.  

There are even some by famous folks, which are often good, but usually successful because we have the context of knowing who they are: 

Fifteen years since last professional haircut–Dave Eggers

Well, I thought it was funny–Stephen Colbert

Some just make me smile:

A sake mom, not soccer mom.

Catholic school backfired. Sin is in!

After Harvard, had baby with crackhead.

Now you’re thinking, okay, Mandy, enough chit chat, show us yours.  Rather than tell people I’m writing a memoir, which I sort of am, Justin tells people I’m writing my memoirs.  Then he throws himself on the couch and holds an imaginary tape recorder to his lips in an impersonation of John Malkovitch from Burn After Reading: “We were young and naive…” he begins in a dramatic tone.  So, in my own defense, I’ll sum up for you in six words the first chapter of what I hope will one day become a book, written by me:

Cheerleader marries football coach, conceives me.

In addition to the six-word memoir, I’m obsessed with my own creation myth.  So here it is in brief form.  And I promise you that one day, if all goes according to plan, I’ll link you to the whole chapter, in print.  Maybe, even, in some kind of real publication.  In the meantime, though, consider that your appetizer, the two of you who plan to read my book, that is (ahem, Erin… Casey…).

So, if you leave a comment, and I hope you will, make it six words!

We’ve done four already, but now we’re steady

Today was a crummy day.  Today was the kind of day people who are afraid to move to the Pacific Northwest cite as their primary excuse: gray, gloomy, slow.  Today feels unsorted, as if it’s been wearing mismatched socks and just ran out of coffee.  Today stubbed its big toe on the kitchen stool, then forgot to pack a cookie in its lunchbox.  Today accidentally ran into and practically knocked over an old lady on the crosswalk.  I’m not the type of girl to use the word crummy, mainly because I don’t live in the Andy Griffith Show, but today was totally, totally crummy.

It wasn’t supposed to be crummy.  Today I was meant to have coffee with one friend, dinner with another.  Today I was meant to wear pajamas all morning, to play with a baby, to eat a homemade chocolate chip cookie for breakfast.  Well, I did do those things, but today didn’t right itself until an old friend showed up unexpectedly.  I was in the Capers, buying produce with Matti when I heard him in the store.  Crooning, or was it cawing, but still, so distinct, and it was, the way things are only in movies, perfectly timed.  The voice went like this,

Singing in the sunshine, laughing in the rain
Hitting on the moonshine, rocking in the grain

I know what you’re thinking, Robert Plant is not your old friend, Mandy.  You do not know him personally, nor do you really have any intimate connection with him, artistically or otherwise. And sure, you have a point.  But in that moment, standing there beside the overpriced organic swiss chard, it was just right.

Singing to an ocean, I can hear the ocean’s roar
Play for free, play for me and play a whole lot more, more!

Don’t you hear it?  His voice scratching against the back of his throat, his lungs, expanding, forcing the lyrics out, nearly raw?  Roaring like the ocean before a storm?  I know a warm cup of chamomile and a good book are supposed to turn a bad Sunday right side up but I am here to tell you that sometimes that just doesn’t do the trick.  Sometimes, baby Lucy’s thighs, in all their glorious chubbiness, don’t pull the heartstrings into tune. Sometimes today needs to rock; today needs big hair, skin tight stonewashed jeans, and an unbuttoned belly shirt that was perhaps borrowed from a ten year old girl.  Top that off with some chest wax and a gold chain and, well, things are starting to look up. Admit it: sometimes, you need to rock.

(link)

I like everything about this video: the roaring crowd at Madison Square Garden, Page’s bling, and Plant–the way his pants looks airbrushed on (particularly from the “front row” camera angle); the way he air guitars on the mic cord; the way he wails “so good” at the end because it really is so good; but mostly I just love the sound of his voice, like ripping a piece of silk: gauzy and immodest and totally subversive.  Forgive me, but I have to say it: Rock. On.

A note to sticklers/die hards:  I don’t intend to defame Plant by suggesting he waxed his chest, maybe it was just that way, naturally hairless, pasty, gaunt…  But, you know, you totally know, he was never able to button that shirt.