>On Fri, 21 Feb 1997, John Cayley wrote:
Why do our systems do this to/for us? Who? 'Wrote'?
>If everything is language, that's one thing; but not all of it is
>writeable or speakable.
But I would not confine linguistic signification to particular, albeit
privileged, media.
>How useful is a word that equals everything?
The copula is not an equal sign...
[>Is language god? (Your implication.)
I deny, in radical doubt, this implication. There is
no knowing, and I do not even know whether I know or not.]
>If language is everything,
... so I am not responsible for this algebraic transposition (language and
logic don't allow it and I didn't say it). Every thing is language, but it
may also, for example, be other things (which are, admittedly also language
and also other things and so on, and so on). I *don't know* if language is
everything, and have no way of knowing this. But I cannot conceive of any
thing that is not -- let's just say -- significant (to me as I
think/experience it) and it is therefore language, to/for/in/through/of me
(at least) and, I strongly suspect, to/for/in/through/of others and
to/for/in/through/of itself and to/for/in/through/of the world.
>I'll stop using the word and use poetry, plays, curses, boxes (first I
>wrote bixes - hell, I'll use those too), vocal cords, blah, colour,
>rhyme, dazzle, up, Miroslav, and, and also some non-words which of
>course I can't mention* here
But I thought an underlying tenor of this discussion was precisely to
authorize the use of any (possible/permissible) media, to explore and
elaborate the continuity between the art and technology of such media and
the art and technology of, say, classical,'readerly' (I mean 'lisible')
writing practice; that the openness of modern/post-modern 'writerly'
practice derives, in part, from a willingness to discover the significance
of terms/events/performances which are not normally thought of as vocal or
literate.
[/Mea culpa/, I know, but I am a little uncomfortable with the amateur
philosophizing above. I keep expecting to be interrupted by a heavy tap on
the shoulder, by a 'big gun', by ....]
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