V. Internal and External Elements of Language
Language mumbles an improper reference to silent crimes. Language is the near miss that excites a tremor. The psyche’s fidgeting population percolates in language. Language experiences an epiphany in a muggy public restroom. Language leads a state-sponsored tour of the fairgrounds. Language makes a sweeping gesture that dismisses luck and spills its drink. Language dips into a stock pot of boiling grease. Language mimics the rotting integrity of sea water. Language records a book on tape justifying its wide-ranging lust. Language is a pit for the busy, a trench for the idle. Language flaunts its faculty for strategic decadence. Language carves the footprint of an episode.
VI. Graphic Representation of Language
Language wakes up sticky behind Target. Language’s left foot gets caught in a crowd, its right in crabgrass. Language constructs a convincing argument for canned meat, for a succulent lunch of paranoia. Language succumbs to the tyranny of gratitude, the future as beast. Before language left, it favored its right leg, after its return, the left. Language doesn’t know where the environment starts. Language is a pack of children gathering spark plugs and magazines in the street. Language is somebody’s cousin, some unteachable moment, some noisy clone, some dictator who tries to steal a credit card number over the phone. Language forms an emergency portrait of fruit leather. Language initiates harassment by a vapor of signals.
VII. Phonology
1. Definition
Whoever consciously deprives the penitent of their institutional path runs the risk of mouthing shapeless and unmanageable commands. Taking away the germ of doom is like depriving a president of his nuclear arsenal.
To substitute immediately what is failed for what is healed would be charitable; but this is impossible without infectious handcuffs; apart from their property value, consumers are only vague notions, and the manipulation provided by market research, though stuck in their throats, is still the voice of law.
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The first six sections of this are revisions of pieces I wrote for a collaborative project that was never finished. The title and section headings are taken from “Course in General Linguistics” by Ferdinand de Saussure.
