It may surprise no one to learn that I'm interested in reshuffling
public domain texts into new texts. But I've never actually tried my
hand at it. I see shuffled public domain texts all the time in spam
and it's pretty lousy. It constantly changes tone, lurching from
dialogue to description to exposition in one incredibly long unbroken
sentence, moving from topic to topic. The most prominent example was
the
"Master Key"
spam series, popular a couple years back, which took as its text
an L. Frank Baum book about electricity. I always thought that book
must have come preinstalled with spamming software, because the
results were only interesting until you did a little detective work
and found the source.
But today I got a shuffled spam that was actually pretty good. Here
it is, reformatted slightly as a story:
"I can excuse you, Bill, because it's your first day in the Cabinet.
That is why I do not feelbound to accept this ultimatum. If you could
see a joke, Bill, you wouldn't be the great popular orator you are."
"May we not make a historical reference to the corpse? You can see as
much of her as you like when we are married."
"Between you and that tyranny stands the throne. It was not I who
bungled the Factory Bill. That is a rather desirable extension of
their interests, in my opinion. I only mention it to shew that the
Prime Minister does not really wish to kill the veto."
"That can apply to both sides, if you like. He is settling the whole
business with the King behind our backs. If I do not stand above them
there is no longer any reason for my existence at all."
"Nothing that you can say will make any difference. It is what I am,
not what I do, that you must worship in me. I demand an explanation of
the words bungling and squabbling."
"They would hardly have ventured on that without a hint from somebody.
'It is what I am, not what I do, that you must worship in me.' And I
can keep you to the point, sir, whether it suits you or not."
"If you provoke me, Bill, I'll drive you out of your constituency
inside of two months. They sang it under the windows of his hotel next
time he came. Thank Heaven, I am not a silly giggler like some I could
mention."
"The King enters and waits on the threshold. And when the King is not
setting me off, you are. The name you pretended to invent specially
for me, the only women in the world for you. And even they can talk of
nothing but the servants and the baby."
"My civil list leaves me a poor man among multi-millionaires. Yet we
find enough to say to one another when we are alone together. It is
looked down on by our men of genius as dirty work."
What's this spam's secret? It's taken from a play, and plays are
almost all dialogue (note, though, that even the one stage direction,
"The King enters and waits on the threshold", fits in with the
dialogue here). More precisely, it's taken from a Shaw play, which
inevitably consists of dialogue about one specific topic, and in which any
line could come from any character. (More precisely still, it's taken
from The Apple
Cart.) The result is a text that's tantalizingly close to making
sense. Others
have noted the pure beauty of this Shavian spam, and I intend to apply
its lesson in the future.
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