Informal expressions flicker. They point to fluctuations in relationships, language, emotions, bodies, conventions, perspective, and the very possibilities of association. They mark colloquialism, camaraderie, curses, taunts, festivity, flirtation, repose, and intimate or intensely personal sensations. When recognized, their instability and evanescence signal the instability of existence itself and unsettle us. When not, they can lull us into a sense of familiarity and comfort. We face them in our daily negotiations with forms and norms, as both are shaped and reshaped in these encounters. Jostling norms, informality reminds us of the limitations and instability of norms, if not of life itself. As Marlow tells us in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902), “We live in the flicker” (106).