X-Peri is an online blog dedicated to “high experimentalism”, which means this is always a challenging and fun read. I’m very pleased to be represented again with two text pieces, “Mermaid Gold” and “Plenty Magic,” plus an abstract glitch video still. The texts are part of a series of experiments involving an attempt to recreate the language of AI computers, these specifically using a vocabulary limited to American magical thinking. You can check them out here.
An online journal for experimental arts, Avant Appal(achia) just released Is(sue) #8 yesterday. It includes a video, poems, visual poetry, art and stories. I’m pleased to be included with two short text pieces from my series inspired by AI language invention, “Let’s Do This” and “Das Processor,” and five visual poems with asemic elements. You can check it all out on this page–until the next issue when everything will be replaced and a few pieces will be archived: https://www.avantappalachia.com/
Angry Old Man is one of the best online journals out there for experimental words and images. AOM issue #5 was just released, filled with great contributions from the international avant garde poetry scene. I’m pleased that several of my works are included: three text poems from my “robot language” series–“Paradise in a Pill,” “This is What We Know,” and “Your Body Is Waiting”–plus five video stills that represent part of an alien asemic alphabet. You can view the images here, and read the poems here
The texts form part of a new series of experiments inspired by the Facebook AI units that recently developed their own language using English words with different syntax and meaning. The AI units were intended to carry out customer service transactions and negotiations, and the format of their language seems to be a powerful way to confront and manipulate the continuous stream of commercial messages invading our mental space. I’ve written more about this work here.
Each of these three pieces were initiated by phrases contained in spam emails that seemed evocative of something more mysterious or sinister…like something a robot would say when addressing an audience of meatbags.
After seeing some of my Gonch poems and images in Word for/Word journal #32, Keith Robert contacted me by Facebook with the news that “gonch” actually has a meaning in Canada! Keith writes, “‘gonch’ is a Canadian word for underwear (like tighty whiteys) it comes from the Ukrainian gatky.”
Sure enough, an Internet search for “gonch definition” immediately discovered the gonch wiktionary page, confirming this meaning and etymology. A linguistically inventive people, the Canadians also say “gotch, ginch, gitch, gonchies, gotchies, ginchies, or gitchies,” depending on which region you’re in. Other online slang dictionaries add that “gonch” often refers to threadbare undershorts.
Wiktionary helpfully supplies these usage notes for “Gonch”:
Used in British Columbia and Alberta. Gitch and gotch are variants heard east of Alberta. It is also acceptable to append -ies to any of these variants, especially when referring to the underwear of male children. The term is becoming more widespread in use as a result of the rise in popularity of Vancouver-based undergarment company GinchGonch. A gotch-pull or gonch-pull is another name for a wedgie.
Gonch-pull! I’m going to have to work that into the Gonch project somehow.
For me, “gonch” was jut a nonsense word I invented as a child. When I decided to base a poetic language from the phrase “all gonch,” I never dreamed it would have any meaning or connotation for anyone else. It was just supposed to be a Dadaistic piece of absurdity to make an oblique comment on the American regime of the 45th President and its habits of public discourse. With American English in ruins, a new language would one day arise to take its place. That language could be Gonch.
But just as the various meanings of “Dada” (“father,” “hobby horse, or “yes yes” depending on the language) added layers to the nonsense, I’m delighted to learn that “gonch” has some meaning far beyond anything I could have imagined. To make an absurd commentary on the Prez #45 era, a language based on “underwear”–especially crusty old underwear–seems even more appropriate.
In an effort to be thorough in the search for extradimensional Gonch meanings, I plugged the word into Google Translate and ran it through a wide range of the language options. Nothing came up. “Gonch” means “gonch” everywhere in the world. Except in Canadian English.
Now for a commercial message. Wiktionary refers to a Canada-based undergarment company called Ginch Gonch. Readers may be interested to know that this company still exists, and makes a wide variety of undergarments for men and women, including jockey shorts, long underwear, gogo panties, camis and more. These are issued with silly printed designs featuring monkeys, bananas, ambulance cars, and so on. The company’s website includes a photograph of Miley Cyrus wearing a Ginch Gonch sport bra on the street. The picture below is another clever marketing image, along with the phrase “Going Gananas!” Dadasopher’s everywhere, rejoice!
jeff bagato 