ai yah

If you say “ai yah” with the proper inflection, it is the commonly used Korean distress sound and can be equivalent to anything on a spectrum from “Oh dear” to “S***!”

In this case I am working on including more of myself and my voice in my thesis intro (as directed by my committee) and I’ve run across this line in Bruce Hainley’s latest article in December’s Artforum, “But the first person now catches in my throat like a fish bone.” I think he’s just referring to a section in his article that he edited out – but somehow his words have a way of jumping out and addressing me personally (in disapproval). Which reminds me, I want to check out his new book Foul Mouth.

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