Less Is More

Part 2.

Mr. ON, a Chinese teacher, speaks to his English class
at Pineapple Appliance Factory #8...

Some of you clever cunning ones may use English skills to escape this dystopian existence.
Get out there.
Take risks.
Embrace uncertainty.

Daring is not fatal. Have more sex.
Wear a condom in the rain.
Make friends.
Create art.
Play with children.
Never grow old or up.

Stay 9 forever.
Erase your shadow.
Write a poem.
Draw in a creative notebook.
Take a line for a walk.

Play a cello in a cemetery.
Dig your grave and see if it fits.
Water rose thorns with tears.
Drum dirt.
Cultivate bamboo.

Release wolves into the wild blue yonder.
Dream big.
Shave your head.
Get your ears cleaned.
Weave ikat on the loom of time.

Expand your comfort zone.
Practice Zazen meditation for three centuries, three years, three months, three days and three breaths.

Lean against nothing.
Make a sandwich with baboons.

Discover a sharp utilitarian knife in an Ankara display case.

Operate The Dream Sweeper Machine in Hanoi and beyond wild.
Explore jungles with Leo the King of Cannibals.
Kill your father and marry your mother.
Fly free with Winter Hawk.

Travel a lonely planet gifting luck to strangers
as an aberration of their psychological
insecure projections

and defense mechanisms
based on their imaginary expectations
of greed garnished with kindness.

Security is an illusion.
Everything you know is a lie.
Everything is permitted.
I am an assassin in drag.

The Language Company

Chinese Pineapple Appliance Factory #8

Part 1.

Good afternoon students. My name is Mr. ON.

It rhymes with song, gong and long gone.

It is 5:59 p.m. if it was 6:00 p.m. I would say good evening, however it is still afternoon. It is late in our short sweet life.

Class meets twice a week for two hours. Show up on time, stay awake, do your assignments and bribe me. Cash only. No plastic. Nothing more. Nothing less. Less is more.

We are gathered here today in the glorious Chinese People’s Pineapple Appliance Factory #8 to begin our English lessons.

Your supervisor informs me you are here by choice and chance.

You don’t have a choice.

This is your chance.

Life gives you one chance. Am I clear?

Do you understand me? Yes no maybe.

Now. I know. You have been slaving in #8 since dawn. It is the end of another long, mind numbing grueling tedious day down on the killing floor. Work is hell for people. It’s also logical to say hell is other people.

English has brought us together. You face unique challenges to acquire English, the language of noble barbarians, running capitalist dogs, curs and canines.

Their bark is worse than their bite. You will try or don’t try is perhaps appropriate to say considering our passive cultural indoctrination and conditioning, to use said target language with meaning in context.

To maybe baby become fluent minus accuracy. It will require your undivided attention, chemical and electrical energy.

You will practice speaking, reading, listening and writing. These are the four basic language skills.

Output: Writing and speaking are active. You do it. Yeah-yeah.

Input: Reading and listening are passive. However, reading is active if a character’s internal/external emotional conflict engenders your feeling and identification with said character’s actions.

Learning is a never-ending dramatic process.

All of you will die before it’s complete.

That’s a humble unpleasant fact.

The Language Company