Spam & L'Eggs

Spam Poetics
by <>
a.k.a. "@%^*Spam*&*L'Eggs**#%@"

Today, before emptying my junk mail box, I actually glanced at the subject headers. Some informed me that I had been turned down for that nonexistent loan or approved for a temporary million dollar credit line; others assured me that I could stop paying for any kind of car repair, suggested that my "Outstanding Balance" might be outstanding enough to induce nightmares, but reassured me that "the news is good for the economy" and that I could enjoy "Great Rates, no gimmicks" at a motel which rents rooms by the hour. Some offered to show me the world of living and lively "lesbian sex" as an "always satisfied spectator", to introduce me to acrobatic strip-tease at "Chickago-go", or to let me cybersexually fondle the virtual, but not virtuous, "Big Red Toy 4 Adults" while watching "5 XXX DVDs For $1 - free shipping (included)"; all the women were girls and all the girls were "extremely hot", even in Siberia or in boardrooms where it's "cool" to be perpetually passionless and without perspiration. Ads offering "Dr. Approved Manhood Enlargement, results guaranteed" followed soon after one liners promising "Breast enlargement without silicon, in 1 week" through the diligent application of a cream made from Aphrodite's milk. Others cooed coquettishly "Give her something to smile about" or offered magic potions that would either "cure wrinkles and aging instantly" or turn me into a human Shar Pei too senile to complain that she had been conned; another exclaimed "Control your life!", but failed to mention that I'd better do do before the chemically tainted anti-aging cream turned my hair gray, and my brain to necrotic mush.

Other mail, designed for erudite underground geeks who hide in damp basements and whose mattresses never buckle under romping sex, offered "New technology that guarantees you'll learn a new language in 10 days!"; this would allow the geek to screech Russian arias and Swahili chants in his mold-lined shower, in a voice guaranteed to deafen the ears possessed by any wall. Others advertised spy software to "View their eMail" or "LOG EVERYONE'S PASSWORD!!!"; while one mentioned a mysterious "jm Windows 2000 Datacenter" and another the seemingly clandestine "online no-cost ops_info", none offered courses in how to hack into the computers of three-letter agencies often described with four-letter epithets. Other headers, working undercover and knowing that such suspect words as "girls", "loan", "drugs" and "sex" alert the guardians of email security, sneaked in under such code names as "jniyvumhel", "roapxxm" and "jszchn"; the false identity "kalmuk" probably belonged to a camel merchant or Klingon dictator who wanted a moniker he could pronounce, while "gorton" belonged to either a genetic mutant or the manufacturer of a tough elastic fabric.

After deleting such mundane entries, I encountered headers that ranged from inspiring to humorous to thought provoking; here's today's list of winning Spam titles:

Spiroketal Wavelets
caretaker drones
pocketbook dicks, dicks, dicks!
biopsy Ci@lis
Red Sex Game
serenity caps
Manhood enlargement for you brownian motion
hotpus sywil low
babe scumhot
ascomycetes
break the seams open
half price Works

Do some subject headers sound like possible names for music groups? A polysyllabic scientific term goes well with heavy metal and this week's number one group is "Ascomycetes", dressed in grunge which nourishes some sort of fungus. "Biopsy Ci@lis" screeches in goth angst while the rapping, foot tapping, hip-hopping, arm slapping "Babe Scumhot"s hoot and toot about crude dudes in the town as the rival group, the "HotPus-s-Low"s blow some snow and get ready to show their stuff. "The Serenity Caps" wallow through the blues and the all-female "Spiroketal Wavelets" strums guitars and drawls it's latest heart-breaker hit "Break the Seams Open":

Break the seams open
And let your whole heart show.
How can I ever know
You, if your heart's all sown up?

The listener relaxes, afloat on a pink cloud drifting through a romantic's utopia. Or, if made of hard edged metal and cynical stuff, he quickly turns the dial to listen to "The Caretaker Drones" or "The Half Price Works", brooding bands with lyrics that caustically criticize society from its pigeon-pooped spires to its roach infested basements.

Some headers transport us to a parallel science-fiction universe. "Serenity caps", the high-tech new and improved variety of Valium, are electromagnetically charged helmets that alter brain waves and thus induce tranquility. "Caretaker drones" are genetically engineered or robot drudges in that brave new world where bargain hunters shop at "Half Price Works" for a discounted artificial heart, stomach or brain that works as well as the full-priced mechanism. "Pocketbook dicks, dicks, dicks!" refers to the purse transporting a wallet-sized detective, shrunk by the same machine that shrunk the kids; in another scenario, the private dick, a.k.a. the private eye, walks right out of the TV set and, maintaining the same size as he had on screen, hides in the lady's purse to do covert surveillance.

Other titles take us to the harlequins - to the paperback romances so predictably overwrought as to verge on the comical, and perhaps to the comedians themselves. "Manhood enlargement for you(r) brownian motion" calls to mind the pre-Viagra Lothario who, unable to enjoy the orgasmic raptures of a "quivering manhood", laments that "damned Dicky down-under" is only capable of barely detectable Brownian motion and calls his urologist for a prescription of magic pills. In the "Red Sex Game", co-ed players streak onto the ball field clad only in red socks and shoes; in version two, unfolding during the Cold War, the debonair, deft and daring 007 penetrates a ring of Soviet spies by having sex with one of their own, a very red Queen of the sensuous.

Perhaps not everything in junk mail is junk; perhaps some junk, if polished or seen through distorting lenses, shines like silver. Perhaps seemingly random associations of words irk us, and we struggle to make sense out of the silliness; then we find ourselves envisioning dreamlike scenarios that are comic or profound. Next time you find yourself feeling numb or blocked, visit your Spam box for an inspiring dose of the random and nonsensical. Perhaps you'll end up writing a poem on "Brownian Motion Love", or even designing the board and rules for the "Red Sex Game". You might even, like me, find yourself following the advice of one header, which said "please write".