Hey, have you ever wondered how it is that in the real the Thing suffers the signifier?

This text by Daniil Kharms may be just for you:

One watchmaker, Comrade Badaev, could not forget a phrase he heard once long ago: "If the sky were crooked, it wouldn't make it any lower." Comrade Badaev didn't really get this saying, it irritated him, he found it unreasonable, even lacking any kind of sense, malignant even, because its claim was obviously incorrect (Comrade Badaev felt that a knowledgeable physicist could say something regarding "the height of the sky," and would question the expression "the sky is crooked." Were this phrase to get to Pearlman, Comrade Badaev was certain, Pearlman would tear its meaning to shreds the way a young pup tears up house slippers), and obviously antagonistic to the normal pattern of European thought. If indeed the claim contained in this saying were true, then it was too unimportant and worthless to speak of. And in any case, hearing this phrase just once, one ought right away to forget it. But he couldn't make that happen: Comrade Badaev constantly remembered this phrase and suffered greatly.


Daniil Kharms, from "The Blue Notebook." Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms. Trans. Matvei Yankelevich. NY, NY: Ardis Publishers, 2009. 115-6.