“If it isn’t on Google, it doesn’t exist.”–Jimmy Wales
The last thing you want to do is throw down a challenge to this blogger. Ever. But that’s exactly what Elke Stangl did when she created search term poetry on her blog, Theory and Practice of Trying to Combine Just Anything. First of all, Elke has a resume that reads like a character from The Big Bang Theory. She describes her self as a physicist turned IT security consultant turned renewable energy engineer–all this plus a stint with Microsoft. But that aside, her big mistake was suggesting that I try my hand at search term poetry. I will not be outdone. Be careful what you wish for Elke, cause here comes Search Term Haiku. The rules are simple, but the creation is anything but easy.
- Every word must come from search terms actually used to find this blog, per my WordPress stats page
- The poems must follow the accepted Anglicized format of the traditional Japanese art form: three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively.
- Each line must constitute an actual individual search term phrase, verbatim. The only change allowed is punctuation.
You asked for it, Elke. So here they are. (Note: I may have to bestow a BLAHS on Elke for inspiring this idea. But not the next one, as that has already been determined and will be posted soon.)
HAHA
Siri lacks humor.
Did Schroedinger’s Cat Blow up
Albert Einstein’s hair?
Non Sequitor
Stupid search engine:
16 Times 4 equals what?
Lawn bowling cartoons
What’s in a name?
Mahatma Gandhi
Luna Rosa Pirana
Lindsay Lohan meme
Canine Crazy
Are Dogs Chaotic?
If you roll the dice enough times
I’m part schipperke.
Quixotically Quantum
Haldane conjecture:
Many worlds are around us
so why don’t you leave.
Wow – I am stunned! I had expected that your haikus would trump all of my dabbling in search term poetry but this is more than exceeding my expectations. When you first announced on my blog you would create haikus I just expected these to be “short poems”. But you really followed the rules!! A milestone in the history of search term poetry that will be recognized by historians of art 500 years from now (and/or in a parallel universe).
You’ve learned your lesson, Elke. Don’t ever get me started! 😛
It looks like Elke and I have to up our game.
I have done a couple of poem posts as well, using search terms: http://alexanderbrown.info/2013/01/15/ode-to-search-term/ and using spam comments in German: http://alexanderbrown.info/2013/01/16/spam-goethe/ and French: http://alexanderbrown.info/2013/01/17/pourriel-ou-poesie/
Beyond haikus, the next challenge must surely be sonnets… though making things rhyme might be quite tricky.
Hmmm. Do you suppose Shakespeare could do that if he were alive today?
Alex, you were faster than me 😉 – I am actually just drafting an (extremely serious, scholarly) post on the history of Search Term Poetry that will include all milestones, your non-English poems in particular. OMG, web 2.0 becomes more stress than work…
We are constructing the stuff of a Nobel Prize in literature…….bazinga!! 😀
Here’s my follow-up: http://elkement.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/spam-poems-and-search-terms-poems-preliminary-results/
You are so entertaining
Try haiku based on the comments to your posts!
Haha. Thanks. I might just do that one of these days.
Then we will have to deal with interesting intellectual property issues 😉
This is so great! Thanks for the like, I am now following your blog! 😀
Thanks and your welcome. I’m not much of a poet, but there is a certain challenge to Haiku that sends me.
Huh. I couldn’t do it. All my search terms that were the right length had the word “Tokyo” in them. It would be tacky to write (synthesize?) a haiku with the same word in each line.
It helps to have a mind as cluttered as mine. A cluttered mind makes for cluttered Google search terms. 😀
Just thinking about how pingbacks could be turned into poetry …
Hell, if a million monkeys with a million typewriters could produce the works of Shakespeare…the net is like a billion monkeys with typewriters…
… and I am going to pingback your article once more in a minute – as a would-be historian of art I have no choice as I need to correct myself with respect to ownership and ‘copyright’.
Thanks for your continued support of sciencesprings.
You are most welcome. Thank you for your continued great content. 🙂
Thanks for following sciencesprings. I appreciate it very much.
You are most welcome. My wife and I fight over who gets first shot at the new issue of New Scientist when it arrives every week. I don’t have to fight her for reading blogs. 😉
Wow, I’m impressed!
You’re impressed. I just need a life. 😦 😀