Friday, February 3, 2006

The folks who live in the mail

A few days ago I found myself fascinated by the names attached to the junk that pushes its way into my "mailbox" (that's a metaphor; I'm speaking of e-mail). My guess is that these names are randomly generated from lists of firsts and lasts (and, sometimes, middle initials). Some recall the zanier moments of, say, Bob and Ray. Some are a matter of dazzling exotica. Some are just strangely evocative. I took a small sample from one morning's spam and invented a few brief lives.

A disclaimer: The characters described below are the work of my imagination. They bear no relation to any real person, living or dead.

Coley Georgette
Entertainer, worked for many years at "The Stable," in downtown Terre Haute.

Baldwin Livingston
Pen name of Stanley Chickering, acclaimed author of more than 50 Westerns. (And a darned clever pen name too.)

Juanita Y. Langford
Director of activities at The Senior Center.

Roland Mahoney
"Your Choice for Weather," weeknights at 6 and 10.

Monte R. Reilly
Manager of local big-box store, currently reading Don't Sweat the Small Stuff.

Wesley Rosado
Shop teacher at Emmanuel Trades High School.

Bullard Tania
Former welterweight; more recently, Coley Georgette's manager; present whereabouts unknown.
[With apologies to Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, who wrote "The Folks Who Live on the Hill."]

Update, 14 February 2005: In the mail this evening -- Faustino Pendleton! I have no further information at this time.

comments: 1

Crritic! said...

For a while I was even recieving electronically generated text that was oddly like concrete poetry. Emails were recieved from Summer Pitts, Thomas Colon, Wean Diesel, and Rosetta Beard.