Thursday, May 26, 2005

Speaking of Spam

Ok, so I wasn't going to do this until tomorrow if I did it at all, but after the Thursday Threesome this week, I had to post it today.

I got another great spam e-mail today. Again, I'm assuming this was because of my reviews at Amazon. Below is the first part of the e-mail.


Now available from Amazon.com: A new book written in a new literary style. Over 3,000 easily understandable new words used. Experimental fiction and
a new, brilliant writing style sets this literary work apart from the norm, bringing to mind Joyce’s "Finnegans Wake." The theme is as old as the stars, and the fascinating plot captures the imagination as Petrarch’s Laura de Sade of Carpentras reincarnates into a 16 year old girl. From perdition to redemption, the riveting novel in ornate prose is introspective and skilled. 3,000 invented words are introduced as Laura’s soul is possessed by the German siren, the Lorelei. She captures a teacher’s heart, and when rejected he experiences insanity. Recovering, he begins a quest for Laura’s release from the underworld.
- Mindquest Review


here is an excerpt:

the lorelei! a puella of such beautèzza unparalleled, such charisma mesmairican, such gemtice symphio-marvalo. the lorelei! how many sail-ors have succumbed to buffaloverwhelming snare at the hands of her wiles! how many inattentive men have met destructo-doom at the will of her caprice!

the lorelei! heartless, cruel and knife-cunning, unable to give herself to love’s demanding reduction of the ego, its ruthless sacrifice of individuality yet pacifying her romantic instincts by engaging in only its courtship aspect, flirting, smiling, conversing with the opposite sex about life’s labyrinth, its bafflemento, its enigmatic tendency towards mishap.

the lorelei! when i recognized her as a substitute in the disguise of an honor roll, sixteen year old virga, devoted to charity, whose middle and last name were elizabeth jefferson and therefore took steps to evade her pierce blazèndo, her bosom delisho and her rocket-eyes seductèevoo, she still refused to allow me freedom from her emerald-charm intoxican, way-laid me, bound me in a stupor of opium and imprisoned me in a dream-dungeon schizosan. so again i found myself sailing down the rhine river, hearing her song, attentive to the razor-rocks. she nailed me, the lorelei cast me in a glow of hallucinogenic nightmare, my heart inextricably tan-gled in her endorphines, unable to survive lest i climbed the cliff, waited until she graduated, declared my love to her and reveled in all the psych-fervor, all the lush dominion that her magnolia bloomed of. yet even atop her cliff the lorelei had more snares, traps and death-ruses that plunged me into slashphyxiation pompeian.

thus i now stand, still tomahawked by the lorelei’s pantherizing hex, still vodooed by her bewitching aura, scheming to either obtain her yet or exact my revenge, cause her the same amount of heartache she cast upon me, myself seething in a piranha-infested bolgia. for i have recovered from my madness, have regained the ability to work, to earn an income, em-ploying my divisions, my squadrons and my dragoons. once again i am free from the delusion that paralyzed me in barbwire, cluttered my mind with senseless cacophony and distorted my perception with immaterial phantoms. once again i’ll foray into the lorelei’s domain wondering if she will viperize me with soul-venom or accomplish another criminal heartec-tomy or even more vexo-meniacle: feign admiration, allow me to taste the delecto-splurge of her kiss, only to eventually cast me in a sea of squid, my veins twisted in violence.



Seriously, now. Anyone understand that? After about two sentences, I give up. And I only have under half of the excerpt. There is no way I'd wade through a book like that. Furthermore, 3,000 new words? So are you trying to connect with the reader or just sound important? And capitalization might be helpful. Honestly, based on some of what's there, we have either a bad speller or a bad editor, either of whom is trying to cover that fact by bragging about new words.

But here's the best part. Notice what's missing? It took me a little while to notice, but we have no title or author here. Now I could assume that the e-mail came from the author, but I've received e-mails from someone telling me how great this new book is, so I might be wrong. So if this is trying to get me to buy the book, they've failed because I can't find it to buy it.

I honestly don't know whether to laugh at such stupidity or shake my head at people who think this is smart and literary when it's really stupid.

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