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ARTHURIAN
THE MORVELS OF ABILITY

Don't ask me. I haven't got a clue either, and it isn't the first time, as intimated by my use of this unique morsel for the title of what you are now reading. I ask you: can that be considered English? I'm beginning to suspect, rather, that we are witnessing the emergence of a new but still largely formless language that will one day be the language of the world. I remember the moment clearly: there was this lettering, this mentally disturbing roman lettering, sewn on the back of an expensive-looking jacket worn by a guy my age I saw getting off the train in Yamashina. Syntactically it reminded me of another equally confusing jacket in the new world language (forget about t-shirts) I'd seen not long before, going up the subway stairs in downtown Kyoto, an expensive dark leather jacket with lettering in lighter-colored leather sewn on the back that said "Bone In America." Then, as now, I ask you. I asked myself: if I were living in the US or Europe, would I ever pay big bucks for, then wear in public, with all those folks from all over the world walking around, an expensive jacket with a lot of kanji on the back regarding whose meaning I hadn't a clue, that many of those worldly folks might very well understand? No way! So how does it happen here, unless this is a new world language saying something profound that remains beyond the grasp of we who speak a fading language? What else would enable men of my age and intelligence to ostensibly paraphrase Bruce's most famous refrain so ludicrously unless they were in fact talking about, say, US paleontology or pornography, or offering cryptic reminders of Arthurian morvels? I've heard all the standard arguments about how romaji themselves are fashionable here in Japan, it doesn't necessarily matter what they say. Western visitors have been collecting such phrases since the black ships first elbowed in to Shimoda (I myself have a rather sizeable collection from various media); by now there must be genres and classifications for such phrases, but none of this answers my question. Why make such an expensive item without checking for linguistic coherence and potentially outrageous meanings, unless this IS the meaning, and some of us haven't a clue as to what it is? Western fashion designers often get into conventional trouble with cloth prints using other current languages they haven't fully checked out--most recently, quotes from the Koran at a sexy fashion show--but they were actual quotes, and were coherent, so they don't count. Does anyone out there have a clue (other than the writers of the phrases on the above-mentioned jackets) regarding the actual meanings and intentions of this new world language, whether or not you were bone in America, but preferably with Arthurian morvels of ability?