For whatever reason, over the past few months my e-mail spam load has increased amazingly. I suspect that some of this is from registration at newspaper sites, and some of it from my naive use of my real e-mail address at some forums. Not that I think these sites sell my name, but I'm sure that there are "spiders" and such harvesting such names from sites.

Be that as it may...

Most spam includes a large chunk of text, apparently designed to foil spam blockers somehow. I don't know how. I am creating my mail filters by hand, and they exclude certain things. Extra wordage doesn't affect it.

A lot of this is just a huge list of random words, sometimes in a font so small it is barely visible.

But a lot of this wordage is interesting.

A recent spam series had a shot of a drug ad on a black screen. But highlighting the black area showed a lot of invisible quotations! A few good ones:

Happiness is good health and a bad memory. - Ingrid Bergman (1917-1982)

You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it. - Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)

If I were two-faced; would I be wearing this one? - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Some editors are failed writers; but so are most writers. - T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small. - Henry Kissinger (1923-)

When ideas fail; words come in very handy. - Goethe (1749-1832)

After I'm dead Id rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one. - Cato the Elder (234-149 BC; AKA Marcus Porcius Cato)

Research is what Im doing when I dont know what Im doing. - Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)

The cynics are right nine times out of ten. - Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

I’ll feel that horrible feeling in my stomach you get when you’ve gone over to the Dark Side. But I’ll be fine. That’s the good thing about the Dark Side. Eventually, your eyes adjust. - James Lileks, The Bleat web log, September 4, 2003

The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting. - Gloria Leonard

Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me. - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. - Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

We all agree that your theory is crazy; but is it crazy enough? - Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines. - Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)

I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart. - e e cummings (1894-1962)

Another series' text line approaches a kind of odd poetry--the sort of thing that would have fingers snapping down at the old coffeehouse.

Heublein, what have drawers, briton, had she known, knudson, and here there. quintus, astounds them with, middle, had not heard.

Benton, middleaged lady came, breccia, in a brief, expelling, moscow art theatre. Yearn, class! real class!', dedicate, hoarse voice grew.

dose, through the door, dose, through the door, dose, through the door. Dose, through the door, dose, through the door.

pont, girl came right, pont, girl came right, pont, girl came right. Pont, girl came right, pont, girl came right.

Some of them throw in a couple of jokes.

An artist asked the gallery owner if there had been any interest in his paintings on display at that time. "I have good news and bad news," the owner replied. "The good news is that a gentleman enquired about your work and wondered if it would appreciate in value after your death. When I told him it would, he bought all 15 of your paintings.""That's wonderful," the artist exclaimed. "What's the bad news?""He was your doctor."

Mr. and Mrs. Taylor had a seven-year-old boy named Pat. Now Mrs. Taylor was expecting another child.Pat had seen babies in other people's houses and had not liked them very much, so he was not delighted about the news that there was soon going to be one in his house too.One evening Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were making plans for the baby's arrival. "This house won't be big enough for use all when the baby comes," said Mr. Taylor. Pat came into the room just then and said, "What are you talking about?""We were saying that we'll have to move to another house now, because the new baby's coming," his
mother answered."It's no use," said Pat hopelessly, "He'll follow us there."