LETS FLOWER THE WORLD

John Cayley

Literature, according to standard definitions, is that part of writing – of, more broadly, the art of language – which we value and consider to be of “lasting artistic merit.” A Garment Literature makes a claim by setting the word in its title and also in the form it has adopted, the form, itself, of the book, an artist’s book most certainly, and also what can be read as a book of short poems. Now, moreover, its literature, as gallery exhibition and as – sculpturally? conceptually? – remodelled on new garments, highlights and features its words as themselves art, not simply as “artistic” writing. The potential “merit” of this language was originally noted by the artist in this context, Nick Rands, who collected the garment-printed words because he was both struck by their poetry and delighted by the laughter they evoked in him. 

I don’t mean to denigrate or detract from the enjoyment that this language gives us by pointing out that we need to “know English” in order to share these particular pleasures, which are, broadly, those of humour based on misapprehension – on a kind of error-ridden linguistic slapstick – most of it likely to have been unintended. While strange choices of word or turns of phrase are often simply poetic in the garment literature, it is notable that errors of spelling and grammar are the chief sources of jollity. I do not think it is a coincidence that orthography and grammar are also those aspects of language which are most subject to prescriptive regulation by certain academic experts and by, typically, conservative language users who are keen to distinguish between language that is “proper” and language that is bad, mad, and – so they may claim – dangerous to use.

The literature on the garments was collected in South America, but it is part of a global phenomenon. High-end casual wear has its logos and branding, and often its taglines and slogans, whereas more demotic, popular casual wear must make its statements without luxury-brand marketing investment. T-shirt makers want to make statements that will set them apart, and so do T-shirt wearers. They want to do this in the most striking, broadly appealing, and value laden manner possible. And so, they turn to Global English, a language that everyone wants to share (and use to “share” on social media), the still predominant linguistic spectre of global empire, the language of the internet. Of course, this is an oversimplification. Chinese speakers, ‘in the west’ and globally, are, for example, treated to a garment literature of their own, with corresponding hilarious misapprehensions. The Chinese internet is also global. But for the time being, most of garment literature will be practiced in varieties of adopted English that collectively make up what I and other linguists may think of as a global dialect. Nick Rands estimates that between eighty and ninety percent of the garment inscriptions from which he collected were composed using this English.

Quite apart from the delight it generates in us as we wryly compare the phrases of a garment literature with those of the everyday English that we “know,” I want to defend and promote this literature as one possible flowering of an exemplary, authentic practice of language, one with “artistic merit” beyond any value we may discover in its so-called mistakes. This language is composed and published with the clear intention that its reading will be appreciated. Once published in retail outlets, the proof of its quality is borne out by sales. Not only does the initial audience for this literature read and approve it at the outlet, they will inevitably reread once the garment has entered their wardrobe, and, if they go on to wear what is now their garment literature, then they also republish it, seeking a broader appreciative readership. They have most certainly become co-publishers by doing this. They have put their money where their mouth is and their hearts on their sleeves (or chests). Insofar as they share the authorial intention, or style, or voice of the original garment writer, then they also share in the original maker’s expressive act. For those garment readers among the wearer’s acquaintances, the wearer may come across as the (co-)author of the sense and sentiment underlying whatever it is that their garment literature conveys. When you factor in the acknowledged poetry which many works of this literature express, then you must surely agree that, from a literary institutional point of view, the practices of garment literature are much more generous, collaborative, and radically co-creative than those of the literary world in general. In the world of letters, we see too often that authors are treated either like gods or like beggars, with only publishers and critics able to live reasonably well or managing to enjoy what they do for their livings.

And are we right to read the supposedly anglophone misapprehensions of Global English garment literature as errors in the first place? The practices of Global English garment literature are like those of any “natural language” community. The people in this community – which intersects and overlaps with our own – have things to say, stories to tell, and they also have the media they need for their communications. Disregarding spelling and grammar, it’s difficult to find an expressive moment in this selection by Nick Rands when the reader is any doubt about what is felt or meant. The characteristics of garment media do somewhat constrain the range of topics that are, typically, addressed, but this true for any writing. An author can write anything in principle, but for the sake of being appreciated they are wise to “GO STRAIGHT TO THE POINT / ALWAYS.” This is, after all, literature intended to be worn as it is read, literary “STYLE FOR LIVE.” Is “live” an error here or is it not simply a part of the poetry, expressing indeed the ars poetica of a living literature, one of the literatures that actually live? It is a literature that allows me to have deep “SYMPONY / WITH / LOVE PEOPLE,” indeed, a symphony of sympathy with people who live well and love what they wear. It makes me want to pony up and learn this language “properly.” But if I did, my learning, like those of the grammarians, would come after its events of language. It wouldn’t be as genuinely poetic, not really playing or “HONOR [ing] TH[e] DAILY / GAME / OF MAKING IT HABPEN,” not so worthy of “TRADE MARK / MADE / IN HEAVEN.” 

The more conventional poetry that we are used to valuing as the highest form of literature is also obsessed with itself as a subject, often occupying its time with the claim that it makes life better in the playing out of its own poetic games. You can’t discount garment literature on that score. It’s just doing what poetry also does. And then there are the narratives. “FATAL CLUB / ONE MAN ENERGY / ROWING” – a more or less perfect micro-fiction, which we can contrast with the more domestic, hidden drama of “QUIET LIFE / SOUTHCIRCLE / UNDERGROUND.” We know, fundamentally, that we are all in the same fatal club, based on our mortality, making our own ways, however “cool” or even “EXTREMELY COLD” we may be, sometimes quietly, sometimes without being seen, like artists on the “SPACE TRAPELINE” of the counterculture. This literature has its commentary on our human situation, and it even has its own characteristics, for example, a tendency to be marine oriented, to deploy nautical metaphors and imagery, “THE WIDE FIELD SURVEY / SAILING ACROSS THE WORLD” “MARINE / WATER LINE / HUSKY STYLE.”

I just now found myself getting carried away in the subtly coastline world of garment literature, losing myself as I might in any other world of language made by other LOVE people, like myself. Perhaps Nick Rands is responsible for bringing this poetry to our attention by collecting, concentrating, and ordering this selection, but he did not “originally” write or print these words. They are words from a real community of language users, edited for us into a garment literature, one that is most certainly human-readable with pleasure. And some of this literature may come to be cherished, by other human garment wearers and by us. In these late days, consider the contrast with “Large Models” sporting deep fake “Language” that is output by machines, output basically to make you buy … the naked, bodiless, mindless, endless stuff they sell, described in voiceless text. Ignore the chatbots! Let’s put on a genuinely social medium, our “TRADITIONAL / EXSTACY BASIC / ORIGINAL WEAR.”  “LETS / FLOWER / THE / WORLD” with garment literature.

John Cayley, February 2023

John Cayley is a maker and theorist of language art in programmable media, and Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University.Image Generation: augmented and reconfiguredis his most recent book.programmatology.com