It is only appropriate that my first post should be in support of my friend Lloyd’s new experiment. 50,000 Monkeys Blogging is a smart, funny, radical idea: turn the blog keys over to anyone who wants them. Open the house and let the riff-raff in. Bring on the spammers, Nigerian scammers, Propecia pushers, and anyone else who wants to get their blog on and let them have their say.
That means you, too, dear reader. You send an email to 50000monkeys@thecoolkids.us, wait a few minutes, and the contents of your email will show up as a post on the blog. Send anything you like: quips, quotes, confessions, rants, raves, obsessions… anything. It’s all anonymous, totally legal, and strangely satisfying.
Those ever-industrious spammers have already found the email address (how do they do it?). What I find interesting is that, rather than being annoyed by the spam, the act of reading random (albeit intentional) human-generated posts in between random spam email makes for a completely dada artistic experience (yes, in a good way). Drawing connections between the posts is a pleasing way to engage in creating order out of chaos. It’s silly and mad and meaningful. And what else would you expect from the man who has photographed every cup of coffee he’s drunk for the past year?
Lloyd lit the fire under my bottom to get this blog project going. Lloyd inspires me. That’s his job. In 2006, we accomplish that which is hard. For me, this blog is the first step.
Postscript: Apparently, a fellow who refers to himself as “The Famous Brett Watson” has done a statistical analysis of the probability that a million monkeys banging away at a million typewriters could eventually produce the script of Hamlet, and he’s posted it online. Ain’t the internet wonderful?
