Engrish Poetry

There is a store in Kichijoji which sells very cheap T-shirts and sweaters which I often buy for the very reasonable price of around 500 yen. I love this store because, in addition to its other surfer and hip hop theme items, they have a fascinating range of products covered in the most bizarre English writing. It is not always grammatical errors or spelling mistakes I am talking about, just lots of very surreal and philosophical passages, bordering on a celebration of randomness. I think this has potential as a whole new genre of literature. (Note: All mistakes below are sic)

Wonderful a Machine
Continuing having simple and delicate feeling – I think that the big difference between this and other things is continuing having simple and delicate feeling. It is how original custom-made spirits budded.
As wonderful a machine as that exists only in this city all over the world.

This one is more sinister, but introduces us to the mysterious Camerd (camera?):

Everyday objects become devices to trigger confusion. These metaphorical tricksters keep mutating like viral atrocities. I work with a large format camerd and between the black hood, the camerd and subject there are demons of dreams. A visual pun, a mnemonic devices, a story by the model perhaps will bring manifestations betond any one identity. I am just a tool of a bigger force. People, objects and ideas come my way. I become a caretaker of sorts I would like for people to say that I’m taking good care. It’s based on some uncommon love I discovered with some deaths.

This one describes our Gramscian world:

Stable Mainstream Group
A history of mutual trust talks about theaccuracy of the product

This new addition to my collection begs freedom for the subject and probes some of the theories of the postmodern linguistic turn, which it surely matches in difficulty to understand (it may indeed be a modified quotation from something, does anyone recognize it?):

Keep Things From Taking Over One’s Life
Metalinguistic ontological distinctions
The general and specific object distinction
Both general and specific objects are abstract generalizations over utterances or texts. General objects represent supersets of specific sets.
The lexical and virtual object distinction
Most specific objects are lexicalised, i.e. known from some previous process of construction and stored, or non-lexicalised, i.e. virtual objects, not yet constructed in actual use and afterwards stored.

Finally, this new long-sleeve addition to my collection is a very happy celebration of hobbies and urges us to find people having the same interests. I wonder if this author’s hobby is making strange T-shirts?

Find Someone Who Likes the Same Stuff
Are there any vidoes you’d recommend?
Watching a movie I saw when I was a student brings back a lot of memories about that time.
There used to be a lot of theaters that played classic movies.
That last scene was so sad, I just couldn’t stop the tears from falling.
I turned my hobby into a career / I’ve met lots of people through this hobby.
I’m putting my hobby to practical use.
Through a hobby you can meet hundreds of (new) people a year.
This song gave me goose bumps the first time I heard it.

They say they don’t
use computer
graphics. So how did they
film that final scene?
004/8/27.taste
1975.taste
…

You sure do have a lot of hobbies.
You really have diverse tastes, don’t you?
Share Common Tastes
Pleasant Hobby

One of my favorite sweaters has been packed away in a box. It begins with the profound quote which I wish I could pin at the top of my Inbox:

Mail Comes on the Contrary