EVER DAFTER!

Once upon a time,

...everyone woke up and moved their lips to speak but the only sound that came out was the sound of a klaxon. An alarming, blaring, enraging, fucking klaxon.

And everyone cleared their throats, but it did no good.

And everyone rinsed out their mouths, but it did no good.

And everyone sucked a lozenge, but it did no good.

And everyone was very unhappy because they thought they would never get the chance to insult each other again.

So everyone went on the internet, to type their insults into cyberspace, but when they placed their hands on their keyboards everyone saw that their fingers had turned into logs of shit. Ten logs of shit was all they had, five per hand. And everyone was startled to see their shit fingers and everyone screamed, but all they emitted was a terrible klaxon sound.

So there everyone was, honking and weeping in front of computers that were covered in shit.

But after a while, everyone adjusted because people can adjust to anything. The human race is a very adaptable species.

And in no time at all, it felt like nothing had ever changed and everyone just carried on. Instead of insulting each other they just honked at each other and instead of typing callous and cruel remarks into the internet, they just smeared shit all over their computer screens.

And they lived happily ever dafter.

ThE EnD.

SWEETHEART COME

If you look at things close up, really close up, they cease to be what they seem to be. A person stops being a person with arms and legs and a torso and a head and becomes a vast epidermal surface instead. Look even closer and even this understanding is lost. Closer up than close up, everything becomes an indivisible hubbub of subatomic particles. We might see a room but really there is no furniture, no ceiling, no floor, no window and no door. At the most micro of micro levels the room is all just trashing static but on our macro level it takes on the illusion of separate objects. It's like a Monet painting, it's an incomprehensible mess close up and only makes sense at a distance. This distance from real reality is the range we operate on. We all know it but we put the knowledge of the eternal fuzz out of our heads. We operate under a required interpretation of 'reality' that is actually an illusion. We pretend that the world is an arrangement of things with contexts. To approach existence in any other way would drive us crazy.

Are you with me? Do you understand what I'm saying? Do you agree? You kind of have to agree. You've no choice. It's the truth. It's reality, really.

The above image is an extract from a letter written by a German woman called Emma Hauck. Considered insane, Emma was committed to a mental institution where she lived out what remained of her life. Emma had lost the ability to see things on our macro range. All context had broken down for her. She was being swallowed by the subatomic hiss, the eternal fuzz of what reality really is. It must have been like sinking in quicksand and she was calling out to be rescued. She was calling out to the memory of the thing that gave her life meaning. That thing was love.

On proper examination, you can make out that Emma wrote the same two words over and over and over again; a simple phrase in her native language, 'herzensschatzi komm'. It means 'sweetheart come'. Emma's letter was to the father of her two children. Emma sat and wrote 'sweetheart come' over and over and over again. The words, the punctuation and the letters merge and end up looking like the static snow on an old television screen. Did you know that the snow on old televisions is leftover radiation from the Big Bang, the Big Bang that created all reality? It is. I'm not sure if that's relevant but I thought I'd mention it in case it is relevant. Very relevant. Anyway, Emma wrote a great many letters like the one pictured above. She sat and wrote them all day. All day, every day. None Of Emma's letters were ever sent.

Now, I want you to imagine that you're sitting and listening to static emitting from a receiver of some sort. I want you to imagine that you are listening out for the voices of those trapped in Limbo. Imagine you hear the words 'sweetheart come' repeated over and over, lost amongst the hiss. Imagine you hear this pleading from a ghost. A ghost trying to communicate to a memory, a memory of a meaning, a meaning called love.

'Sweetheart come, sweetheart come, sweetheart come, sweetheart come', over and over in the eternal fuzz. Oh my. My oh my. Tell me now about this reality. Has it broken your heart yet?

#LICHEN - or - He's a Complicated Man And No One Understands Him But His Woman

Famed post-post-postmodernist philosopher Dieter Schlemp had spent his entire career setting out to prove various things in the hopes that he would fail to prove them. He didn't like to be proven right. Dieter prided himself on his lack of pride but he did not like to be proven wrong either. Right or wrong is such a dull paradigm. What Dieter liked was if the results of his investigations presented something entirely unexpected and bewildering. What Dieter ultimately wanted to prove, although he'd loath to admit that he wanted to prove anything, was that all enquiry was folly and that reality was incomprehensible. Some may argue that without enquiry our species never would have crawled from the sea and mastered the land but Dieter reckoned that we were better off under water. Dieter believed that the human experience was the result of a profoundly boring cosmic mistake and the only thing that interested him was to prove this, or not as the case may be.

Dieter's latest thesis argued that people were more interested in talking about things happening than things actually happening. For example, imagine you witnessed a UFO landing in your garden but you could never tell anyone. Now imagine you could tell everyone a UFO landed in your garden but such a thing never happened. Which would you prefer? Dieter suspected that the vast majority of people would choose the latter because what really interested them was getting attention and being listened to and valued. Most people would not say as much but, from what Dieter had observed during his fifty five years on this planet, it was what they really thought. People liked to talk above all other things, even if it meant talking about nothing. In fact, as far as Dieter could make out, the closer to nothing the subject was the more people liked to discuss it. It was easy to have an opinion on something that barely mattered at all. Things that did matter were a lot more trouble so people tended to keep those things off the conversational menu. This, for example, is why puff pieces about shoes get more column inches than meditations on mortality.

After garnering the largest bursary ever awarded to a humanities based academic investigation, Dieter hired a large PR firm to create a commotion concerning lichen. Dieter instructed the PR company to get the media talking about lichen more than it talked about red carpet events. What Dieter wanted to do was make the spreading of lichen and the patterns made by lichen and other phenomena particular to lichen water cooler moments. #Lichen trending like a boss for at least three weeks was what Dieter wanted and that's what he got when the PR company arranged for Kanye West to pose for photographs with some lichen and share his opinions on lichen. 'Lichen just be chillin and shit' said Kanye of the lichen. Then the PR company manufactured stories about sick children whose last wish was to stroke some lichen as well as stories about how lichen stroking was being used to treat PTSD and fight the signs of aging. 'For too long we have taken lichen for granted', said an op-ed piece by a popular columnist who genuinely believed that he was writing his own thoughts. Almost everyone agreed with the columnist and even those that didn't were still talking about lichen when they expressed their opinion and therefore maintaining its 'trending' status. Pixar then made an animated film about lichen that was voiced by Kaley Cuoco and Donald Sutherland. An awareness campaign about lichen sclerosus was also launched and everyone bought anti-inflammatory ointments and smeared them on their genitals. 'I'm so glad people are finally talking about this', said one daytime TV host who did not suffer from the condition or know anyone who did.

So, Dieter's thesis was proved correct. People liked to talk, no matter what the topic and the blander the topic the more they liked to talk about it. Dieter was, of course, miserable to be proven correct and moped around the house irritating his wife, Annabelle, for weeks afterwards. Being proven wrong would have been just as bad for Dieter. 'What did you expect to happen?', Annabelle asked him. 'Something new, something different', said Dieter dolefully, 'something bloody interesting'. Annabelle knew her husband well and lifted his spirits when she posited that something interesting had indeed happened. 'Isn't it interesting that people can be interested in something so uninteresting?' she asked rhetorically. Then she delivered her stroke of mercy, 'why is that, do you think?' she asked non-rhetorically and with fake nonchalance. Annabelle then watched as the spark of enquiry once again grew in Dieter's dying eyes and she knew that he would soon be off on another folly. Dieter would never realise what Annabelle had done for him and Annabelle knew that he would never realise it but that didn't matter to Annabelle. She too prided herself on her lack of pride and, really, she was just glad to get him out of the house.

FROM THE HEART

Every day, whatever day it is, I don't know what day it is or even if it's day but that's OK, ...I live by night. Or at least, it's dark here whatever the time, all the time because there is no time. 

One day I just slipped off to this ...wherever it is. I can't find my way back and I'm not sure there is a way back. Roll me off my back. Take the tubes out. Turn me in the bed. Nurse my sores. Put the tubes back.

No one knows what happened. I simply ceased to function. They can't switch me off because they're still getting readings. The heart monitor is scratching out words. Seeming non sequiturs. Random statements from a realmless location or just word association via catatonic dissociation.

My loved ones bring fresh flowers and take away the dead ones. They never brought me flowers when I was speaking and moving. They look at the monitor to see if I've left another of what they jokingly call 'the tweets'. They peer at the screen and something is there. Something for them to puzzle over and misinterpret or maybe ignore. It was the same when I used talk. I made as little sense to them as I did to myself but words came out, nevertheless.

(Does it matter if you are understood, as long as it's understood that you are loved?)

They read aloud, slowly and clearly.

'The problem with animals is that there are people. The problem with people is that they're people.'

What could that mean? They haven't a clue. Is it a joke or an insult, maybe both? They're nonplussed and I would be too if I was in any condition to know that I had spoken. But I did say something and if it's on the monitor then it came from the heart.

SOMETHING ABOUT A BILLION EURO

We drove past the big shut down factory in the forest and my brother started talking. I couldn't hear him over the sound of the engine and with the wind coming through the broken window. As well as all that, I'm a bit deaf. I spend a lot of time faking that I know what's going on. My brother is one of the few people who knows this but he rarely takes it into consideration. I know that if I ask him to speak up I still won't be able to make out what he's saying. I also know that if I tell him I can't hear him he'll just keep talking anyway. So I just leave him keep talking. He seems to be enjoying it. He seems quite into whatever it is he's pretending I can hear. The only thing I think I hear him say is something about a billion euro. I decide that I'll ask him what he was talking about later, when it's quieter. When we've stopped for something to eat.

So, we stop for something to eat and it's quieter and I ask my brother what he was talking about.

'When?'

'As we drove by the factory.'

'What factory?'

'The factory in the forest. The shut down place.'

My brother looks puzzled and shrugs.

'You said something about a billion euro.'

'I did?'

'Yeah.'

He still looks puzzled. He shrugs again. He says he can't remember.

'Well, you seemed pretty worked up about whatever it was.'

'Well sure, who wouldn't be?'

'How do you mean who wouldn't be? You don't even remember what you were talking about.'

'Well, you said I was talking about a billion euro, who wouldn't get worked up over that?'

I nod my head. 'I suppose', I say.

We finish eating in silence and then get back in the car. Once the engine is on and the wind is white noising through the broken window, my brother starts talking again. I watch him as he emotes. He's doing a lot of emoting. He's getting whatever it is off his chest. I can't hear a word he's saying but, you know, I'm glad I can be there for him.

THE FIRST WORD EVER

It's incredible what they can figure out about the past these days isn't it? Did you hear that they've discovered the first word ever? Just think, the first word ever used by our species. They found it plastered onto the walls of various troglodyte abodes. They carbon dated it and it predates the hell out of sanskrit. This first word was depicted by a single letter of sorts that was just a simple handprint. Seriously, the 'letter' looked like a basic outline of a hand. The troglodytes just had to daub their hands in pigment, slap them on the side of a cave, and they had written the word. They reckon that this handprint word was the only word used by early man for several generations. Early man never said anything else, just this first word, over and over. They've even figured out how the word was pronounced. Apparently it sounded like a bark. Just a big fuckin 'woof!'. Mad isn't it? Of course, this first word ever was eventually joined by other words, which led to sentences and grammar and a linguistic sophistication that allowed us to say complicated things to each other and drive each other crazy.

I've no idea how they know all this about the first word ever but the evidence has been peer reviewed and it all seems scientifically sound. It did take them a long time to figure out what the word meant but even that was eventually deciphered. For a long time it was assumed that the first word ever would mean something simple like 'danger' or 'hungry' or 'me' or even, as one sentimental anthropologist optimistically postulated, 'love'. But no, interestingly it turns out that the first word ever didn't mean any of these things. The first word ever meant 'pardon?'

@SADFCE :'(

It's not about the conversation anymore but the flow. WINKY EMOTICON. In contemporary media what you say is one thing and that's fine but it's the current it gets caught up in that counts. PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! Get a quick 'like' or 'unlike' and don't waste time continuing to get things wrong. TLDR! Communication isn't about communicating anymore. It's about dynamism. SHARE THIS ON FACEBOOK OR LINKEDIN! It's not about contributing ideas but about contributing content. SMILEY FACE. Analysis is condensed into easy to digest flow portions that r so easily digestible that they r no longer analysis. #IMBECILES It no longer mattrs what you say. No evr listnd nywy. sO Just say stuff n join the cnvrsation. LOL! The idea that communication is about ideas is an outdatd idea. Communication is about promotion. FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER! It's not what is being said, it's who is saying it. SUBSCRIBE! Don't think, just click. LINK THIS! Interface your face and be a face interfacer! 53638468 FOLLOWRRS! Hey [0] frac *= [0] other frac. Face me linkbook! STEPHEN FRY! The valu in wht u say is in the links. The value in wgat yiu say is in the 'likes'. The currency of d web is the links. LINK LIKE LINK! Diversity of options in the flow. Flow the interface REDDIT and link to the faced @ like me on Twitter #RELATING Replace quality with stuff efficiently. Get a profile, get a life @INNOVATION#FKD Navigate the click flow and 'like' clear goal your synergy and void your headspace online bite size PWND. The valu ov tings a dgidm? NOW TRENDING! Jst dwnld d app and FTW! Facelink ur fcbk lnk lk! #GET KONY src= gt fllwrs + lk fcbk10100101010bt twttr. The new sensibility is the death o sense death to sense uplod new sense FACEBOOK MY LINKEDIN! Be prt of tHe clOud and DSTRY conviction + depth#join d noiz,come let us build ourselves a city, GOOGLE + 1 with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth@SoLoMo LMFAO CMFEO CMFEO CrynMFEO CrynMyFEO CrynMyFknEO CrynMyFknEyesO CrynMyFknEyesOut / @SADFCE :'(

THE TWO WORD LANGUAGE

(pictured above: Iago-good with words)

Language has gotten out of hand. The main purpose of vocabulary and grammar is to manipulate and deceive, to give the irrational the pretence of rationality, to justify questionable actions with verbose exorcisms of cognitive dissonance and to propagate ideologies and dogmas that justify the persecution of others. It’s all just spin. Language has become a nasty thing and it’s time it was reined in.

That is why I propose The Two Word Language, an international language that has only two words. One word is ‘Ooo’ and the other word is ‘Kah’. Ooo means ‘nice’, ‘like’ or ‘love’. You might say Ooo when contemplating a big bowl of custard or while getting your ears nibbled. Kah means ‘horrible’, ‘dislike’ or ‘hate’. You might say Kah when contemplating a big bowl of shite or while getting your ears nibbled by the parish priest. So, that’s it, now you can speak The Two Word Language. Two words. That is all. Ooo and Kah.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking a two word language will retard our progress as a species. You’re wrong. We will use diagrams to share complex instructions and therefore still be able to build machines and bake cakes etc. We don’t really need language for all that. ‘But Mr. Fugger, what about great works of literature and drama?’ I hear you plea. ‘Fuck em!’ is my response. What did great works of literature and drama ever give us? A heap of ‘to be or not to be’ angst and not much else. Forget all that stuff. That’s all part of the problem. Ooo and Kah are all we need. Them and the diagrams.

We may have to forget about literature and drama but we’ll still have music and images (but not films-the dialectic grammar of films is too emotive and propagandistic). We’ll even still have certain types of literature in the form of poems (but not the epic kind). Yes, there will still be poems. A love poem would go:

Ooo Ooo Ooo
Ooo
Ooo Ooo
Ooo Ooo Ooo
Ooo
Ooo Ooo

. . .and an anti-war poem or something would go:

Kah Kah
Kah Kah Kah
Kah Kah Kah Kah Kah Kah

The Two Word Language isn’t that limited at all really. Some intonation or volume variables in the annunciation of ‘Ooo’ and ‘Kah’ are also permitted, so as to express gradations in feeling (muttering Kah would not mean the same thing as roaring the word for example) or conveying uncertainty (saying Ooo with a questioning inflection at the end of the word). Actually, maybe we’ll have one more word. A phonetic word that means ‘OK’ or ‘whatever’. This word will be ‘Meh’. We already use it. You’re probably saying it to yourself right now.

So that’s it. Ooo, Kah and Meh. They are the only words we need. Anything more is just guff. We are fundamentally about likes and dislikes and that is all we need to express. We don’t have to explain ourselves to anybody, even if we did we’d just make up some bullshit anyway and others would probably only hear what they expected to hear. Language is so much wasted time. We just need to know if each other are happy or sad, pleased or displeased, and then we can get on with things. Ooo, Kah and Meh are all we need from now on. Yes, from now on, because I think we should get started right away. There’s no time like the present. THERE. IS. NO. TIME. LIKE. THE. PRESENT. That’s another good thing about The Two Word Language, it’ll stop us dragging up the past and disagreeing about the future. We’ll be forever in the present and the present is the only time that matters. The Two Word Language is a Zen tongue.

Don’t forget to return to Fugger later this week to see my next post. It should be easy enough to follow. Come to think of it, tagging posts is going to be a lot less hassle from now on too. OK, these are the last words I ever type in the old language. It’s all Ooos and Kahs from here on in. Ooo Ooo Ooo.