Coenotes

Posted on October 14, 2026 | Leave a comment

Coenotes (cee’-no-tees): Repetition of two different phrases: one at the beginning and the other at the end of successive paragraphs. Note: Composed of anaphora and epistrophe, coenotes is simply a more specific kind of symploce (the repetition of phrases, not merely words).

I know it’s going to happen again. I’m sitting in my leather upholstered recliner watching “Red Green” reruns. I’m on episode 138. Red is working on his chainsaw engine in his barn. Suddenly he is surrounded by rats—a seething horde of rodents corner him in an empty horse stall. I doze off and begin my nightly nightmare. In my nightmare Red has hired Scattie Mac Scotty. He’s the local rat catcher who seduces rats with his bagpipe stylings. I see myself joined with the rat pack, following Scattie as he plays “Don’t Fear the Reaper” loud and clear on his bagpipes. I’m following the pack, seduced by Blue Oyster Cult’s greatest hit. We are winding our way up Bluebird Hill’s dirt road, which ends in a sheer 600 foot drop onto the rock-strewn beach below. As we near the crest of the hill, I feel myself giving up my struggle to live as I near the cliff. I look down and step over the edge. I’m falling. I wake up. I’m on the floor It’s another goddamn nightmare.

I know it’s going to happen again. I dread going back to bed. But, I must get some sleep. I drink a half-bottle of Scotch to pave the way. In a drunken haze I drift off to sleep. I’m standing in line at a ticket window in a crowded London train station. I’m wearing a kilt and I’m confused. I can’t remember where I’m going. I ask the man in front of me. He says “How the bloody hell do you expect me to know?” He was right, although I found the image of “bloody hell” quite disturbing. It’s my turn at the ticket window. I ask the cashier where I’m going. She says, “From the looks of you, it’s Inverness, but I get off work in an hour and we can head for my place.” I thanked her for the invitation and bought a ticket to Inverness. I knew I could get some good Scotch, sweaters, and a new dirk to go with my wardrobe’s ensemble. I boarded my train. Suddenly it turned into a small row boat being pursued by the Loch Ness Monster. I was rowing like mad. Just as he was going to eat me, I woke up. I’m on the floor. It’s another goddamned nightmare.

This can’t go on. I join “Nightmares Anonymous (NA).” We sit in a circle and talk about our nightmares. Hearing about others’ nightmares gives me new nightmares that scare the crap out of me. But, for some reason I can’t quit NA. I think it’s the woman who is a cashier at Grand Central Station. Tomorrow, I’m going to buy a ticket from her at her window. I’ll pretend I don’t know where I’m going, and I’ll ask her.

POSTSCRIPT

He followed through on his plan at Grand Central Station and asked her where he was going. She told him “You can go to Newark, or come over to my place when I get off work at five. Here’s the address.” She handed him a slip of paper with her address written on it. To a certain extent, it was a dream come true.

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Colon

Posted on October 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

Colon (ko’-lon): Roughly equivalent to “clause” in English, except that the emphasis is on seeing this part of a sentence as needing completion, either with a second colon (or membrum) or with two others (forming a tricolon). When cola (or membra) are of equal length, they form isocolon.

I was going over there again. I was going over to her apartment. I loved her. She did not love me. So here I was. A one-man delegation looking for love. She fancied herself “the minister” of love who would eventually yield to my entreaties. She actually told me this. I thought she was crazy, but I loved her.

She saw me there as a representative of the Kingdom of Love to woo her, and eventually obtain her compliance. Specifically, I was at her apartment representing the Ministry of First Base’s interest. I was trying to kiss her.

It was impossible. When I got close enough to make a smootchie, she would abruptly stand up and walk across the room seductively. I followed her and sat alongside her again, touching shoulders. When I went in for the smootchie, she abruptly stood up and walked across the room again. I tried this six or seven times and struck out each time. I slipped out my smart phone and looked up a riddle for affection on Google. I figured that would get things moving in my direction. This is what I found:

I’m a nine-letter word and rhyme with perfection,
I am yet another name for love. What am I?

She instantly knew the answer: Affection. Maybe the riddle was too easy, but her quick answer revealed to me that she knew what affection is, or at least knew one of the many names for love.

At that, I sat by her again. I was feeling confident that my “delegation” was getting represented. I leaned over to kiss her and she didn’t move, our lips met & my duty was done. A first kiss planted firmly like a victory banner on her mouth.

Now, it was time to take on my corollary duties as the “Ambassador of Second Base.” This was a much more tricky move, but I had trained for it with Mary Sledgewhap, who I had gone all the way with last summer. She led the way. She took me around the bases so fast, I hardly had a chance to make my plays. In fact, I had hit a home run and wantonly ran the bases, reaching Home Plate like a Major League Champ.

Here I was again, this time with “Her Ladyship “ Betty Long. She slapped my hand and told me to go home. My delegation had temporarily failed. We made a date for the next night.

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Commoratio

Posted on October 12, 2026 | Leave a comment

Commoratio (kom-mor-a’-ti-o): Dwelling on or returning to one’s strongest argument. Latin equivalent for epimone.

“Where’d that boy go?” Grandma asked. Grandpa answered, “Behind the goddamn couch.” “No way,” said Grandma, “He’s in the goddamn hall closet.” “No,” said Grandpa, “He’s behind the damn couch.” Grandma said, “Gran’pa, he ain’t behind the couch. He’s in the friggin’ closet.” Grandpa: “Behind the couch.” Grandma “In the closet.” “Damn you old lady,” said Grandpa, “He’s behind the couch.” “Closet.” “Couch.” “Closet.” “Couch!” They started yelling back and forth, repeating what counted for each of them as their strongest argument—which was an assertion with no backing or proof.

They were at an impasse. Their daily game of hide and seek played itself out as usual—arguing over where I was hiding. For Grandma, I was always in the closet. For Grandpa, I was always behind the couch. They were always both wrong, just repeating their “sole arguments” over and over as if they really believed them. One time Grandpa would go so far as to assert that he saw me duck behind the couch when Grandma wasn’t looking. Grandma would do likewise, saying Grandpa wasn’t looking when I slipped into the closet. Neither of them would get out of their loungers to go and see if the other was right. But, that was it. Repitition was their dominant gambit.

They were “armchair” hide and seek players—the “seek” aspect was limited to them yelling at each other from their chairs.

As always, they were both wrong. They just liked yelling at each other from their chairs. Their marriage was a life-long shouting match, with no end in sight. It was complicated by the fact they were both hard of hearing and never wore their hearing aids, except on Thanksgiving when the whole family gathered. In the meantime, I visited for the weekly hide and seek game. I was always the designated “hider.” I always hid where I’m hiding now: under the dining room table. They both knew I was hiding there, but they pretended they didn’t to make the game “more exciting.”

They were starting to get hoarse from yelling at each other, so it was time for me to come out of hiding. My grandparents saw me crawling out from under the table. I stood up and they both acted surprised. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” Grandpa yelled, appearing to be startled. Grandma said, “We’ll, I’m flabbergasted. I never imagined that!” “You know damn well you did!” Grandpa yelled. “Shut up you drooling old coot!” “Over my dead body.” Growled Grandpa, and the yelling match was on. It’s what kept them together through all of their life’s changing scenarios.

For them, each insult was an avowal love. For them, love was a fifty-year-long yelling match, and I was privileged to play a role, hiding under the dining room table once a week.

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Comparatio

Posted on October 11, 2026 | Leave a comment

Comparatio (com-pa-ra’-ti-o): A general term for a comparison, either as a figure of speech or as an argument. More specific terms are generally employed, such as metaphor, simile, allegory, etc.

He was like a pierced ear on a dog. He was like a blank yardstick. He was like a bowling ball with no finger holes. He was like a trailer hitch on the side of a car. He was like an empty tub. He was like a cow without it moo. He was like a frog with no legs. He was like a store with empty shelves.

As hard as I tried I couldn’t make an apt comparison for Albert Loney. But that didn’t stop me. I was a comparaphilliac.

Albert Loney was like a poopless fly. He was like a shoe without a sole. He was like moldy cheese. He was like a raccoon in my garbage can. He was like the crud growing on my earlobe. He was like the wind blowing in my window. He was like rising water. He was like a dirty dove—that’s it: dirty dove!

When he talked Loney had a tone to his voice like a cooing dove—especially when he said “coooool coooool” after he saw or heard something he liked. On the surface he was unkempt—gravy stains grace his shirt front. His fingernails were filthy. His shoes were scuffed. His hair was tangled and unkept—but he was generous, kind, and loving. In short, he was a dirty dove.

People started calling him DD: (Dirty Dove), and it stuck. DD has more friends now. He has actually become a “Snow White Dove.” He wears all white. He bleached his hair all white, with a little white goatee. He looks like a holy Colonel Sanders. He looks like an elderly Frank Zappa in a tropical suit. He looks like a hospital orderly. He looks like “The Good Humor Man.” He looks like a lab technician ready to test a pile of chips.

I feel like a fatherless son. I can’t stop making comparisons. It’s like I’m in the Twilight Zone. It’s like I’m lost in a maze. Nothing is what it is. I feel like I need help. Like I’ve lost my grip. Like me is like somebody else that I don’t want to be, like me. I am a comparaphilliac.

POSTSCRIPT

The author of this piece suffered a nervous breakdown. He was placed in “Wilted Rose Sanatorium” where he lived like a worm in loam. Like writing a bestselling tome. Like polishing a dome. Like reading a gnome. Knowing he would never be cured of his comparaphillia, he said “My disease is like a prison of my own making, like my second marriage, . . .”

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Comprobatio

Posted on October 10, 2026 | Leave a comment

Comprobatio (com-pro-ba’-ti-o): Approving and commending a virtue, especially in the hearers.

It was time to celebrate our bath-rite. We gathered to hear the annual celebratory speech by the Filthy Hermit. We took a bath once a year to celebrate out cult’s ability to stand together when we all stank—from feces to cod-liver oil, which we drank by the quart to keep our vitamin D deficiency in check. We piled our clothing in a pile, took a group bath in the Big Lagoon, and burned our clothing and went naked to Salvation Army for new clothing. Our public nudity was tolerated because we lived in a a Nordic country where tolerance is a key virtue. As long as we were hasty in picking out and putting on our fresh clothing we were tolerated.

Once dressed we would parade trough the city streets, back to the field and the smoking embers of our former clothes, symbolizing our rebirth as “clean” people which would last about a month as our garments began their evolution into filth and the clean/dirty cycle would complete itself after a year’s wear.

Duly assembled we waited for Filthy Hermit’s speech from the sacred mound—a pile of refuse over 1,000 years old. Filthy Hermit never bathed. He had a ring of dirt around neck and the single rag he wore to conceal his penis was covered with lichens and saturated by some king of scum that smelled like rancid animal fat.

The Filthy Hermit spoke:

“I commend you cleanly clothed compatriots. You have bone the filth of the world to arrive here as a faithful mass—a beautiful mass of faithful suppliants seeking well-earned praise as you leave today to begin your dirty pilgrimage from here and back again next year, nobly ye shall follow the footprints of our forebears. Ye shall go forth and wallow in the filth of the world. You are deserving of my blessing. I bless thee one and all. Amen”

We all felt blessed. We all had survived another year. We rejoiced as we headed home, crawling in the dirt, rolling in dog poop, sticking our heads in trash cans, stopping for a burger and dripping grease and ketchup on our garments . . .

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Conduplicatio

Posted on October 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

Conduplicatio (con-du-pli-ca’-ti-o): The repetition of a word or words. A general term for repetition sometimes carrying the more specific meaning of repetition of words in adjacent phrases or clauses. Sometimes used to name either ploce or epizeuxis.

“Baby, baby, baby, I’ll never change you, baby.” Stung Blanchard

It was post World War Two. Baby’s were being born left and right, and down the middle. It was referred to as a “baby boom” and the babies were called the “baby boomer generation.”

Given the times it was only natural that “baby” would become a general term of endearment and desire. In 1948 Stung Blanchard was the first composer to popularize “baby” to figuratively bear the weight of affection for a loved one who would be thought of as a “baby” demanding coddling, and hugging—all the behaviors of innocent love and affection, and, referring mostly to women, the aura of helplessness demanding protection from the woes of the world, fitting perfectly with the “breadwinner syndrome” operative for men of the late 40s through the early 60s.

Blanchard’s “baby” caught on and became a standard for the emergent rock n roll music. Virtually all love songs of the time were centered on “babies,” almost as if there were no other apt images with a poetic turn that could substitute for “girl.” Girl was actually frequently used, but it was less effective and much less frequently invoked than “baby” which was more resonant with the zeitgeist.

After his smashing success with “baby,” Blanchard tried to branch out. He opened a burger franchise called “Baby Burgers.” He sold small bags of “baby burgers,” little burgers the size of a silver dollar. The business failed when the rumor spread that the burgers were made from ground up babies. Blanchard was actually arrested and investigated for buying and grinding up babies for his burgers. He was vindicated and went back to writing baby-themed love songs. He struck it rich with “Baby on my Lap” a haunting ballad about an elderly man who has trouble getting off the couch and finds love just sitting there. It won a Grammy Award and catapulted Blanchard into the land of fame and fortune as “Baby Man.” Right around then, “baby” became a catch phrase in everyday speech, as in “Go baby!”

In his twilight years in the “Slow Goin’ Nursing Home,” Blanchard carried a baby rattle and shook it whenever he needed something. For example, three shakes was a request to fill his sippy cup.

He died quietly with his rattle by his side. They played a medley of “baby “ songs at his funeral. Even though it was too late, they played “Baby Please Don’t Go,” and everybody cried.

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Congeries

Posted on October 8, 2026 | Leave a comment

Congeries (con’ger-eez): Piling up words of differing meaning but for a similar emotional effect [(akin to climax)].

“Ow! No! Wait! Damn! Help!” I was running for my life. I had made the mistake of cutting through my neighbor’s back yard on my way home school. Hopping the fence was easy, but outrunning his dog Blister was tough. I carried a hot dog just in case. He bit my hand when I fed it to him. A minor wound, A minor price to pay to get home in time for “Jerky Ed,” my favorite TV show. I never missed an episode.

I outran Blister and hopped the fence on the other side of the yard. For inspiration, I yelled “Help!” as I vaulted over. I landed in the sandbox on the other side. It had become the neighborhood kitty litter-box. I missed one big poop by an inch —I was lucky.

I still had ten minutes before The Jerky Ed Show. I had enough time to bandage my hand and mix up a Chocolate Rhumba milk drink. Chocolate Rhumba was Ed’s sponsor. It came from the mountains of Brazil, picked by hand by Aztec warriors. It was guaranteed to make you “smarter, and wiser, and strong.” I was yet to become smarter wiser and strong, but I loved the flavor and it made me full of energy, helping me do my homework, which I got done, but my English teacher Ms. Bleacher said it was strange and she wanted to meet with me and my parents..

I flipped the tube on just in time. Jerky Ed was sitting in a tree playing his accordion and singing a song about clams and goats riding in boats down by the bay. He sang this every day at the beginning and end of the show. When he finished he said “Hiney hoo boys and girls! Today, we’re going to the bank so I can try to take out a personal loan to cover my back alimony payments to that cheating bitch . . .

The screen went blank.

I was feeling antsy anyway from my Chocolate Rhumba milk drink. I went outside and ran around the house five times and then got to work on my homework. I was writing another story about my imaginary friend Chuckles, who lived in my head and made me think bad thoughts, and sometimes, do bad things. Tonight, Mr. Chuckles wanted me to pee on the bathroom floor. His wish was my command.

.

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Consonance

Posted on October 7, 2026 | Leave a comment

Consonance: The repetition of consonants in words stressed in the same place (but whose vowels differ). Also, a kind of inverted alliteration, in which final consonants, rather than initial or medial ones, repeat in nearby words. Consonance is more properly a term associated with modern poetics than with historical rhetorical terminology.

“He was as smart as a woodchuck. He waddled like a duck. His name was Buck. What else can I say? He was an idiot in nerd’s clothing. He didn’t know where he was going. He was gone.”

These lines were penned by Estes Rakraker, the mysterious 17th century poet. His patron, the Duke of Ruggles, signed him on shortly after his wife left him. She ran off with Quince Foller the coach of the local equestrian team, “The Hallowed Hoofbeats.”

Somebody told the Duke that having a poet to kick around would help cure him of his wife’s departure, as if she were a disease. He enjoyed mocking Rakraker, and it did make him feel better to taunt the struggling poet. For his part, Rakraker was only too glad to take the verbal abuse, as having the Duke of Ruggles as a patron afforded him quite a good living.

He tried to outdo his own “worseness” with each poem he wrote. He wanted to make it as easy as possible for the Duke to respond to his works with derision. However, Rakraker began to notice that the Duke had lost his downcast look and seemed to be on the mend. That wouldn’t do! So, he struggled to write better poems so the Duke would find it hard to disparage them, and he would yearn for his wife again, and Rakraker would stay on the royal payroll.

But, everything started to fall apart when the Duke’s nephew showed up for a lengthy stay. He was being pursued by bill collectors. He fancied himself a poet. He would write things like “If the ant can’t, what about the stoat in a coat?” His Uncle hurled insults left and right at him and started feeling good again. He threatened Rakraker with unemployment if he didn’t get bad again. The Duke’s nephew was so poor a poet that Rakraker knew he could never best him at being the worst.

So, Rakraker claimed the nephew had insulted his mother, and he challenged him to a duel. Little did Rakraker know that the nephew was an acclaimed marksman. Even though it was premised on a lie, the nephew accepted the challenge. At the last minute, the Duke intervened and called off the duel. Rakraker was banished and the Duke lived happily ever after, listening to his nephew’s drivel, and kicking him around. While the nephew avoided his creditors, Rakraker disappeared from the face of the earth. Some people sat he emigrated to New Fance and became a fur trapper.

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Correctio

Posted on October 6, 2026 | Leave a comment

Correctio (cor-rec’-ti-o): The amending of a term or phrase just employed; or, a further specifying of meaning, especially by indicating what something is not (which may occur either before or after the term or phrase used). A kind of redefinition, often employed as a parenthesis (an interruption) or as a climax.

It was the best time I ever had, but it wasn’t perfect. I had learned from Uncle Joe that nothing is perfect, but we say it anyway as a kind of hyperbole—a sort of exaggeration giving it’s subject a greater degree of presence, making whatever’s being said more persuasive.

And what was that best time? Uncle Joe took me to the carnival visiting our town. It was wild—there was “El Ropo” who could tie himself in knots. When we saw him, he had tied himself wrong, abd had called me out of the audience to untie him. I saw where he had mistakenly tied his hands together. I pulled his thumb and he farted loudly and came untied, much the delight of the audience.

After that, we rode the mini-roller coaster. I puked on Uncle Joe’s shoe. We grabbed napkins from the funnel cake stand and wiped off his shoe and washed it in the drinking fountain by the rest rooms.

Next up, was “African Safari” a sort of shooting gallery with BB guns. You shoot at playing cards with images of animals on them. The farther away they are from the shooter the greater the prize. The top prize was a motorcycle if you hit a card that was 30 feet away. There was a little hole, the size of a BB, in the rear of the gallery about 15 feet away. You had to shoot through the hole to hit the top prize. You got five shots for fifty cents. I hit nothing and won a booby prize. It was a little green plastic pencil sharpener.

It was already time to go home. But Uncle Joe wanted to see one more attraction that people under 18 weren’t allowed see. It was called “Exotic Melon Dancers.” I had bo idea what “melon dancers” were. I waited a half-hour for Uncle Joe. He exited the tent with a red feather scarf around his neck. He looked really happy.

He said he couldn’t wear the scarf home or there would big trouble, So, he gave it to me. When I got home, I walked into the living room with it wrapped around my neck. My father threw down his newspaper and said “I always knew you were a pansy. Go to bed! We’ll talk about this in the morning!” He pulled off my scarf as I walked past him.

The next day Dad took us to a rifle range—we fired guns for about one hour. Then, he took me fishing. We caught about 80 sunfish. They died in the boat we rented, and we threw them overboard. We ended the day watching a “Dirty Harry” movie. When we got home, my feather scarf was gone. I asked my father if he knew where it was. He said, “We gave it to your sister, and you’re not allowed to hang out with Uncle Joe any more.” I protested and my father sent me to my room.

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Deesis

Posted on October 5, 2026 | Leave a comment

Deesis (de’-e-sis): An adjuration (solemn oath) or calling to witness; or, the vehement expression of desire put in terms of “for someone’s sake” or “for God’s sake.”

“For God’s sake, put that damn harmonica away!” He was playing the new “song” he had learned: “Three Blind Mice.” The harmonica’s blow holes were numbered, and you learned to play “by the numbers.” “Three Blind Mice” was 3,2,1, 3,2,1. Pate hadn’t gotten past 3,2,1 and was blowing it over and over. It was making me crazy, but he wouldn,bubt cut it out. He thought it was funny that I was so irritated by 3,2,1.

I said “I swear I’ll jam that thing down your throat if you don’t quit it!” Pete laughed and blew another 3,2,1. I grabbed the harmonica and threw it on the floor. I crushed it under my Blundstones. Pete looked at me like he wanted to kill me. He came at me and gave me a shove. I shoved him back. We were having a good old shoving match. “You killed my harmonica you bastard!” he yelled.

Suddenly, the crushed harmonica played 3,2,1, all by itself from the floor. We stopped shoving and ran out of the house. We were both totally freaked out . We heard 3,2,1, coming out of the open living room window. Pete said, “I guess it is irritating as hell. I’m sorry for bothering you with it. We need to do something.”

We decided to “kill” it—we weren’t thinking clearly—we could’ve made millions with a “ghost harmonica,” but instead, we went in for the kill: two idiots. I lit a fire in the fireplace. We were going to burn 3,2,1. Ashes can’t play music. We figured it would be fitting to play some harmonica music while we watched him burn. We put on Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold.” I bent over to pick him up and heave him into the flames. But, when the Young’s harmonica solo began, even though he was crushed, 3.2..1 perfectly mimicked it. We both stepped away from where he was lying on the floor. We put on John Mayall’s “Room to Move.” Again, 3,2,1 mimicked the lively opening harmonica solo. Me and Pete were dancing around 3,2,1 like a couple of maniacs. I yelled, “This is too good to be true,” 3,2,1 went silent, and never mimicked anything ever again. We kept him to memorialize the amazing musical experience he had given us. Both of us never quite believed it had actually happened. Maybe it was the pot.

POSTSCRIPT

I bought Pete a new harmonica and paid for lessons. Every once in a while he’ll blow a 3,2,1 in memory of the magic harmonica that was too good to be true.

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Dehortatio

Posted on October 4, 2026 | Leave a comment

Dehortatio (de-hor-ta’-ti-o): Dissuasion.

“Put down down the gun Carlisle. I’m wearing a Kevlar vest and underpants. I’m hopping up and down. I can see by your revolver’s cylinder that your gun isn’t even loaded! Anyway, I didn’t steal your car, I borrowed it.” “Oh” he said and lowered the gun.

Sure, I took it without his permission, so technically, I stole it. But, I returned it, ipso facto, I borrowed it. Sure, I had it for six months, but that’s irrelevant to the “stealing” question.

Now that I returned his car, we could go on a road trip. Carlisle wanted to go to New Yotk City. I said, “Too crowded and filled with nutcases.” Carlisle nodded his head.”You’re right,” he said with a blank look on his face—the look he had when he was thinking. “What about Seaside Heights?” He asked. “Too crowded and filled with nutcases.” I said. He nodded his head and said “You’re right.”

He did the “Q&A” thing for about ten minutes. I shot him down with “too crowded/nutcases” argument every time. Finally, it was my turn. I said, “Let’s go to Florida and eat alligator meat.” He said “It’s really crowed and there’s a lot of nutcases there.”I said, “Show me the proof.” He couldn’t. So, I said, “It must be a good idea,” He nodded in agreement,. We headed for Florida—to the Everglades—to eat alligator meat.

We drove all night. When the sun came up, we were on alligator Alley driving 80 mph. We saw a sign: “Alligator Meat Sandwiches 1 Mile Ahead,” we slowed down, and there it was. A small shack with a picnic table outside. We went inside to order our alligator meat sandwiches. There were dried alligator parts on a shelf. They all had price tags hanging on them. My eye caught the “Magical Alligator’s Head” for $5.00. I picked it out along with ordering an alligator sandwhich to go. Carlisle got a sandwhich too. The proprietor said “That’ll be twenty dollars.” We paid and left.

The proprietor had given me written instructions on how to use the alligator head. They said to “rub it like a magic lamp and a genie will appear. You will have one wish.” I rubbed it and an old man covered in algae appeared on the hood of the car. He had red eyes and looked angry. We pulled over and got out of the car. He looked at me and yelled “”You have one wish. What the fu*k do you want?” I said, “I want ten more wishes,” He yelled “Illegal!,” and turned Carlisle into a muskrat. Then, he disappeared in a cloud of brown swamp gas.

POSTSCRIPT

I flooded my back yard and made it into a swamp where Carlisle presently lives. He has built himself a nice little muskrat lodge and answers to his name. I’ve stocked the swamp with goldfish and aquatic plants.

I’m glad none of this is my fault, we both agreed to go to Florida, and how was I to know that asking for more wishes is illegal?

There is no way I could’ve known. The instructions said nothing about illegal wishes.

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Dendrographia

Posted on October 3, 2026 | Leave a comment

Dendrographia (den-dro-graf’-ia): Creating an illusion of reality through vivid description of a tree.

We had a stand of redwoods in North-Western California They were Giant Sequoias that had been in my family for over one-hundred years. There must have been at least 200 trees scattered over 4,000 acres of forest—everything from saplings to mature trees. We just let them grow. We would harvest blowdowns or dying trees, but didn’t harvest the others. We could sell the wood for as much as $10 per linear foot.

The seed cones are about two-three inches long and are shaped like eggs. It is amazing that they produce trees 165-275 feet tall. Every time I think about this, it seems almost unbelievable—in a way it is magic, and can supply an apt metaphor or simile for stunning growth and development —from small to huge—I guess any seed can symbolize that, but the Sequoia does it on a massive scale!

The bark almost looks like a skirt, flaring out to a thickness of nearly three feet at the trunk, and supposedly protects the tree against fire. The bark is brownish with deep ridges running up and down the tree, almost like external veins. With a diameter of 25 feet, it is hard to give mature trees a hug, but the little ones are fair game.

The Sequoia has a crown of evergreen branches. The rest of the trunk is bereft of foliage. Standing by a full-grown mature Sequoia, you have to crane your neck to look up to the tree’s top. A given tree may be as old as 3,000 years. That’s old! To stand by, and touch, the huge trunk can feel like one is channeling antiquity. Standing alongside a living being that may be 3,000 years old drives home how short our sojourn is on planet earth. Compare our 80-some-year-run to a sequoia’s 3,000 years!

What would it be like to live for 3,000 years?

The factual information about Sequoias above is gathered from the internet, the rest is fictional.

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Diacope

Posted on October 2, 2026 | Leave a comment

Diacope (di-a’-co-pee): Repetition of a word with one or more between, usually to express deep feeling.

“Why? Why me? Why, why, why?”

I said this when Miss MoCorkle called on me in class. I said it in an emotional tone, the class laughed and I was sent to the Principal’s office, where I met with Mr. Dogwood, the Vice Principal. He asked how I was doing and got out the deck of cards. We would play Poker for toothpicks until classes changed. He would say “Why me?” and laugh, and send me back to class. He was a lousy poker player, and I usually beat the hell out of him.

I left his office with a toothpick hanging out of my mouth. I ran into my woodshop teacher Mr. Auger. He asked me if I had made the toothpick in shop class. I told him I had, and now I was on my way to Shop to finish my gun rack. He took a swig from his silver flask. He asked me if I wanted a swig. I took swig. God, it was straight vodka! I took two more BIG swigs and handed the flask back. I was now officially feeling no pain. Perfect for working on my gun rack. The only gun I had was a .22 auto. Dad had a grease gun, a sawed -off shotgun, and a sniper rifle. Every once-in awhile, he would have a “special job” requiring the sniper rifle. All I did with my gun was shoot tin cans and any creatures that wandered into our back yard. So far, I had two squirrels under my belt. Mom cooked them for me after I gutted and skinned them. Yum, they were delicious!

I was putting the final touches on my gun rack when I heard a crunching sound and a scream. Joey Calorino had chopped off the end of his finger in the jointer—an electric bench plane.

Joey was holding his hand up and was. bleeding all over and crying. Everybody ran to Joey and started rummaging for the tip of his finger in the collection bin under the jointer. Louie Driscoll found it and handed it to Mr. Auger who was holding a small Zip loc bag. He put it in the bag and sent Joey to see the school nurse Mrs. Helter. The Drivers Ed teacher, Mr. Vieghty, was “visiting” Mrs. Helter, and was able to drive Joey to the emergency room.

The fingertip couldn’t be saved. It was the tip of Joey’s pointer finger that he lost, so we would always say, “Joey doesn’t have a point.” We would all laugh wave our pointer fingers. Joey would wave his “pointless” finger around and laugh too.

After school we went to the local soda fountain. It was modeled after a bar, with a counter and stools and booths. It was called “The Waverly” after the street it was on near the train station. It had a pin-ball machine that we took turns playing. Willie Jackson could shake and cheat the hell out of “Buck Roger’s Revenge” without tilting. He held the record high score.

That’s where I learned that cheating pays, if you don’t get caught.

I started cheating in school. I copied from my “neighbors” whenever I could. I hired the class genius, Melvin Laird, to write my papers. I was good at two things: gym and woodshop. I was pretty good at art too. In gym class I did 500 sit-ups. In woodshop I made a miniature model of “Sam’s Appliances Store” out of toothpicks I stole from Mr. Dogwood’s office. For art, my final project was a rendition of “The Last Supper” where Superman was eating a big chunk of KRYPTONITE, while Jimmy Olsen was toasting him and Perry White and Lois Lane lifting their glasses too .

POSTSCRIPT

To make a long story short, I graduated summa cum laude, got into Harvard, cheated my way through, and now, I’m a candidate for U.S. Attorney General.

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Dialogismus

Posted on October 1, 2026 | Leave a comment

Dialogismus (di-a-lo-giz’-mus): Speaking as someone else, either to bring in others ’ points of view into one’s own speech, or to conduct a pseudo-dialog through taking up an opposing position with oneself.

“The end of the rainbow is here.” [I gestured off stage to the right] “No, the end of the rainbow is here.”:[I spoke in a higher-pitched voice and gestured off stage to the left.]

I went on to use my staged dialogue to discuss the inevitability of conflict. I was making a presentation on investment opportunities and how there can be different strategies, or ways to follow your rainbow, to the pot full of gold at its end.

I had made my billions the easy way. I came from a wealthy family. On my twenty-first birthday I inherited one-billion dollars. My pot of gold was Mom & Dad. I haven’t worked a day in my life. My primary investment strategy is to live off my interest, which is quite a bit, given that it is a percentage of one billion, I make about $30,000,000 per year, that’s a lot.

I’ve been conducting these investment seminars for the sheer hell of it. I don’t charge anything for my services. It is a sort of hobby. At the seminars, I sell my book: BIG Bucks.” The book outlines numerous high-risk investment strategies. For example: “Rolling the dice in your basement,” “Flip a coin,” “Swing the crystal pendant,” “Ask a gypsy,” “Follow your dreams, and “Go with he herd.” Also, there’s “Draw your bliss.” You write the names of investment opportunities on slips of paper. Then, you put the slips in a soup bowl. Blindfold yourself. Pick a slip from the bowl. Invest!

You can see that my strategies are all high risk and involve no time-wasting research into the targeted investment. My number one strategy, aside from collecting interest, is ”What’s in a name?” It is a strategy I perfected at the track, betting on horses. If I like name of a horse, I bet on it. Forget the odds! The odds are for wimps. I have actually won a couple of times at the track using this strategy.

So far, aside from collecting interest, I’ve lost millions on my investments. I don’t care. But, I warn my clients up front, in my book’s preface, that they may lose everything if they use my strategies. That way, they won’t feel like they have been swindled, and take all the blame for squandering their savings or other resources. I won’t have to apologize, or pay off lawsuits, and all will be well for me.

Right now, I’m putting my money on “Funions,” a fake onion snack food. With a name like that they’ve got my vote!

Most of my book’s readers are employing “Go with the herd.” They are “moooving” everything they have into AI.

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Diazeugma

Posted on September 30, 2026 | Leave a comment

Diazeugma (di-a-zoog’-ma): The figure by which a single subject governs several verbs or verbal constructions (usually arranged in parallel fashion and expressing a similar idea); the opposite of zeugma.

Like the song, I was “bewitched, bothered, and bewildered.” I was selling a pair of shoes to her in my shoe store “Bigfoot’s” where I stocked only shoes that were 15 triple-E and above. The shoes came in every conceivable style from high heels to “silver-dollar” penny loafers, to glitter-tip dress shoes.

She came clomping into the shop wearing an exquisite pair of Amsterdam Woodies. They had little windmills burned into the toes with a waving dutchman in pantaloons standing alongside of them. It was only the second pair I had ever seen. The other pair was worn by Queen Maxima at the annual Wooden Walk held in Amsterdam—competitors wore wooden shoes and walked from the Rijksmuseum to Don Square. There were two rules: walk, wear wooden shoes. Queen Maxima presided over the event. Holding a pair of wooden shoes over her hands like mittens, she clapped them together to start the Walk. The grand prize is 50 tulip bulbs and a one year supply of Verkade chocolate bars. It is a very popular event with many towns sending representative walkers, who are professional arm-pumping speed walkers. Amateurs are no match for them, but they compete anyway for the fun of it.

The woman in front of me was wearing a pair of size 18 Woodies. I was enchanted by the wood-burned images, the exquisitely smooth surface of the poplar wood they were made from—not a scratch or crack to be seen. I asked her why she would ever think of wearing anything other than her Woodies everywhere all the time. She told me to mind my own business and bring her a pair of black high heels like the ones in the window. I gasped—they would add at least four inches to her height, making her probably six-feet 4-inches tall! She noticed my consternation, and told me she needed the heels to wear to her sister’s wedding. She was “only” 5’11” tall. My customer wanted to “dominate” her sister on her wedding day. This puzzled me, but I didn’t ask for further clarification, after she had snapped at me when I commented on her Woodies.

She tried on the heels and they were a perfect fit—I had to look up to her when I told her the price.

She paid the $700 for the shoes and left my shop. I thanked her as she went out the door.

Then, a man came through the door almost immediately after her wearing scuffed, beat up gunboats—size 20s at least. The gun turrets were missing from the left gunboat, and the right gunboat had a gaping hole in the bow. He wanted a replacement pair in gray cammo, with rocket launchers. I had just the thing in a size 20–I had guessed his size correctly!

He paid the $900.00 for the gun boats and walked proudly out the door.

I always hoped that the Yeti “Bigfoot” would visit my shop. No such luck yet. Until then, I will just have to be satisfied with big- footed humans

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Dicaeologia

Posted on September 29, 2026 | Leave a comment

Dicaeologia (di-kay-o-lo’-gi-a): Admitting what’s charged against one, but excusing it by necessity.

“Sure, I shot my father. But I didn’t know the gun was loaded.” That was my excuse. Sergeant Morton laughed, “That’s the lamest excuse ever. I’ve heard it a million times, you little scum ball..”

Sergeant Morton had me dead to rights. I had emptied the Beretta’s clip into Dad’s head. The holes in his forehead belied my excuse. So, I tried self-defense. I argued that I knew Dad was going to kill me later in the week (maybe Wednesday). I told them he was going to lock me in the garage with the car running.

Sergeant Morton said “You’re full of shit kid. Give me the truth or I’ll give you something you’ll regret. Cough it up!”

It was time to tell the truth, “Dad has been taunting me about my jelly-roll hairdo, with a duck’s tail in the back. He said I looked insane, and like a big sissy. That’s when I realized I was a crazy sissy. And what do crazy sissies do? They dance and kill their fathers. It was inevitable. I was a homicidal sissy. My sissyhood pushed me over the edge. I asked my father to dance, when he refused, and taunted me, I filled his head full of holes with the Beretta. No 17 year-old boy wants to be weak and bereft of masculine traits, I wasn’t weak, and I aspired to be a manly man. Just because I dance the mashed potatoes and have a stylish hairdo, doesn’t mean I’m a solely a sissy, and shooting Dad surely proved I wasn’t just a sissy. I’m a macho sissy! End of story.”

Sergeant Morton said, “Get out the nets. We have a live one. Cuff him Driscoll and put him in the squad car. Joey, you’re a friggin’ nut case. Thanks for admitting your father’s murder.”

I murdered my Dad, but I beat the rap on a technicality. Sergeant Morton faked to Miranda me, so they had to let me go.

POSTSCRIPT

I began a professional wrestling career. I celebrated my sissyhood, and I maintained a macho edge by wrestling. My wrestling name was “Buck Pink: Mahco Sissy.” My signature move was to flit around my opponent, like an angry mosquito making a buzzing sound, making him dizzy and confused by my flitting and buzzing. Then, I moved in for the kill, giving him my “Macho Sissy” take down, and I would win again. Eventually, “macho sissy” became a normal way of being. Many men felt at home with the guise. Eventually, it became known as “mach-sis-mo.” With the jelly roll hairstyle up front, the duck tail in the back hanging over their collars, dancing the mashed potatoes, and going crazy on Saturday nights, many men found their bliss. In the words of Mohammad Ali, they could “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” The balance of bee and butterfly captured in “macho sissy” or “mach-sis-mo” made them whole and enabled them to accept the sum of interests that make a True Man.

It was confusing, but people are confusing.

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Dilemma

Posted on September 28, 2026 | Leave a comment

Dilemma (di-lem’-ma): Offering to an opponent a choice between two (equally unfavorable) alternatives.

I had hit a fork in the road of life. I had to make choice. A big choice. My boss had given me a choice: clean the office every morning before work, or file a minimum of 200 files per day. The extra duties would be in addition to my existing duties which involved cold calls to potential clients in the coal shipping business. One option afforded me physical exertion, the other offered me tedious paper shuffling. Neither option included a wage increase for the added responsibilities. I had to choose between two unpleasant options.

Cleaning the office would be difficult. Every morning the office a total mess made by the slobs who work there. Coffee containers and half eaten sandwiches littered the floor, along with crumpled-up paper balls that missed their wastebaskets. I would be exhausted by the end of the day. Cleaning the office, and cold calls too, would probably kill me.

Filing was not my forte. I would have to read each document in order to know where to file it. I would be scanning everything from lunch receipts to contracts, making an electronic filing system as I went. Packed on top of my cold calls, this would be laborious, and probably kill me.

Given that either option ended in death, as far as I could see, I should quit my job. But inflation is raging, and jobs are scarce. Maybe I wouldn’t die from my new duties. That was a risk I had to take. I had to make choice: file or clean.

POSTSCRIPT

He chose filing because it had less manual labor than cleaning the office. In addition, he could drink coffee while he filed.

Unfortunately, he got a deep paper cut on his index finger that became seriously infected. The sepsis spread to his hand. His hand had t be amputated. While he was being operated on under sedation, he died of a heart attack.

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Dirimens Copulatio

Posted on September 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

Dirimens Copulatio (di’-ri-mens ko-pu-la’-ti-o): A figure by which one balances one statement with a contrary, qualifying statement (sometimes conveyed by “not only … but also” clauses). A sort of arguing both sides of an issue.

“Time will tell.“

It was another worn out saying, but damn it, it was true. Worn out, but “true” nevertheless.

In my scattered life, so much of what is “true”depends on tradition, but tradition depends on nothing, except other traditions, or maybe the “authority” of the herd, or the authority of some human who for, whatever reason, has “authority” to wield authority ordained by their subjects’ acquiescence, or appointment by a higher authority. Whatever I don’t question, for whatever reason, for me, is true.

Time will tell.

Shared traditions create cohesion. But by virtue of their grounding in authority, they can be contested for all the reasons that anything constituted by faith can be broken—torn by schism, sacred or secular.

Time will tell.

What will time tell? “Time’s telling” engages the vicissitudes of life for better and for worse. It may be a call for patience or a prediction. But it gives ground to change.

Two people get married. When they finish ther vows, and are pronounced married, one wedding guest may may turn to another and say “Time will tell” as a sort of doubt in the marriage’s future, which may be countered by the other other guest with the same statement: “Time will tell.” They know the future is wide open, and time will tell. Tell what? Whether the bride and groom will live happily ever after or find woe together, or a little bit of each, or . . . Let’s face it, the there’s no way of telling now, but, time will tell.

We live in time. We are bound by time, only vows and promises can break time’s hold, and hold us in their embrace through time’s vexations. But, it is our existential embrace, our consent, not the promises per se that keeps us together through time for good reasons that legitimate long-term relationships and influence their trajectories. But then again, there is bad faith, and deception: adhering to the practices that may be signs of faith and “love” while bearing motives that are not faith and love. These are the ulterior motives that are told by time’s telling pressures—leaks that are formed by time’s unceasing pressure on deception, that may, in fact, induce confession.

Time will tell.

Time’s unceasing pressure on truth and sincerity amplify them and and give them presence in relationships established by mutual adherence to their call. But again, the fact that one’s relationship endures is no guarantee that its foundation is truth and love, but time will tell.

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Distinctio

Posted on September 26, 2026 | Leave a comment

Distinctio (dis-tinc’-ti-o): Eliminating ambiguity surrounding a word by explicitly specifying each of its distinct meanings.

I was fired every day, every week. I hadn’t been fired in a kiln. I would be dead. I hadn’t been fired from my job. I was still working. I wasn’t fired up. I was a dispassionate man—“Mr. Bland from the Rio Grande,” I would say. Clearly, I wasn’t coal- or gas–fired!

But, I was fired every day—fired from a canon as a part of the “Great Palmetto Bug’s Flying Man Show.”

I was the flying man. The job was a godsend. I was living under a bridge overpass when Palmetto found me. He told me: “I’m going to give you a job where you’ll be fired every day.” It was sort of a riddle, I thought, “How can I be fired every day and still have a job?” When he told me I would be a human projectile, fired from a canon every day, I almost didn’t take the job. But, I was a penniless, homeless drunk who was getting sick of begging for a living, so I took the job.

I was nicknamed “Pierce The Punctual Projectile.” Palmetto would make a big deal about my punctually—flying out of the canon right after he lit the fuse and it burned down.

I would climb up and disappear into the canon’s mouth and the crowd was prepared to see me fly out. Inevitably, the fuse burned down and nothing happened. Palmetto would feign deep concern. I would crawl to the mouth of the canon’s barrel and stick my head out and look around, and suddenly, “BLAM!” the canon would go off and I would fly out and land on the waiting net. I’d lay there for half a minute like I was unconscious. Then, I’d climb off the net, and stagger like I was in a daze over to Palmetto and he would raise my hand to applause and cheers from the audience. It was a great act.

So, that’s how I get fired every day. It was somewhat dangerous, but I was grateful for the paycheck. Being fired every day has been my salvation. I am grateful to Palmetto for all he has done for me!

I’m looking forward to being fired again today!

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Distributio

Posted on September 25, 2026 | Leave a comment

Distributio (dis-tri-bu’-ti-o): (1) Assigning roles among or specifying the duties of a list of people, sometimes accompanied by a conclusion. (2) Sometimes this term is simply a synonym for diaeresis or merismus, which are more general figures involving division.

We’ve got to win the war. Pete, you get some bombs out of storage, General Caine, you drop them. Marco, you tell a bunch of lies with words like “annihilated, “totally destroyed,” and “oblivion.” I will say things like “They’re begging to negotiate,” “The weasels want peace today,” “I have negotiated a truce,” “The Iranians are giving up.”

SEVEN MOTHS LATER

What the fu*k are we going to do? We’ve got to win the war. Pete, you get some more bombs out of storage, General Caine, you drop them. Marco, you tell a bunch of lies with words like “annihilated,” “totally destroyed,” and “oblivion.” I will say things like “They’re begging to negotiate,” “The weasels want peace today,” “I have negotiated a truce,” “The Iranians are giving up.”

ONE YEAR LATER

What the fu*k are we going to do? We’ve got to win the war. Pete, you get some more bombs out of storage, General Caine, you drop them. Marco, you tell a bunch of lies with words like “annihilated,” “totally destroyed,” and “oblivion.” I will say things like “They’re begging to negotiate,” “The weasels want peace today,” “I have negotiated a truce,” “The Iranians are giving up.”

POSTSCRIPT

Somebody said that “repetition is the soul of truth. ‘Truth’ is always everywhere the same.” Propagandists use repetition to great effect, to make lies seem true. In the case above, the repetition couldn’t possibly have the ‘seeming like the truth’ effect.

Right?

There are many conflicting messages coming from the plethora of news outlets. No matter how hard FOX New works to echo the White House, the echo is muted by multiple points of view—by multiple version of the “Truth” broadcast daily or printed on the web. Nevertheless, people have a choice about the version of the truth they view or read, if they read or view at all.

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Ecphonesis

Posted on September 24, 2026 | Leave a comment

Ecphonesis (ec-pho-nee’-sis): An emotional exclamation.

“I love you Bettina! I love you more than ice cream, butterflies, and Spam. I can’t help myself. I can’t sleep at night. I want to be by your side night and day, day and night, all of the time. I feel dead when you go away! Tell me you you love me too so I can keep on living! If you don’t love me I’ll drive my car into a bridge abutment at 80 MPH, I’ll drink Clorox and light myself on fire. I love you! I love you. I love you. I want to take you on a sea cruise. You are a magnet and so am I. You are more precious than gold, silver and platinum melted together in a friendship ring. I love you! I even want to tip-toe through the tulips with you!”

I wrote the passage above this morning. I will read it to Bettina if she answers her phone. She can’t be unavailable forever. She must be real busy to turn off her phone, or let it go dead. So far, I haven’t even been able to leave a message. Sooner or later I’ll succeed!

I’m pulling out all stops on my Wurlitzer of love. I got Bettina’s phone number when I delivered a sausage pizza to her front door. It was on the receipt taped to the box. When she held out her hands to take the pizza box it was like she wanted to hug me, but the box was in the way.

I am 49 years old and live with my parents. They will die soon and I will inherit everything. My dad sold used cars, so he’s got a lot of money squirreled away. Mom was an Avon Lady. Among her customers were Betty Ford and Merle Haggard. They’d fly her in for “catch up” sales sessions and demonstrations of new products. Unfortunately, Mom got caught embezzling, and was discharged by Avon, and spent six months in jail. I pitied her, but she deserved the punishment. After that, she worked for Dad washing and waxing cars, so technically, they shared the car lot’s wealth.

When I inherit my money, I will go to Bettina’s front door with a pizza box filled with hundred dollar bills. Surely, it will be love at first sight for the money and me. if I haven’t already, I will read my message of love to her. She will tell me she loves me too.

Woah Nelly! Woahhhh!

I am getting way ahead of myself here! Some people say I’m a dreamer and the job at Pepe’s Pizza has made me even worse. I admit, I have tried to strike up 37 romances with female costumers. Only one had results—a restraining order. All the of the rest of the women totally ignored me, and eventually, I gave up. But, like I said, I’m a dreamin’ man and Bettina’s still a big blip on my radars screen. And there’s hope: one of the women I reached out to said to me “In your dreams asshole.”

She knew.

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Effictio

Posted on September 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

Effictio (ef-fik’-ti-o): A verbal depiction of someone’s body, often from head to toe.

She was taller than me by a foot. She stood there naked in front of me spinning around and around on an old turntable set at 16RPM. She was fully inflated, made of the finest vinyl money could buy. Her pale blue eyes were open to small slits, gazing seductively at me as spun. Her bright red mouth was a gaping hole lined with flesh-like silicone, pink and soft to the touch. Her nose was was like a pink little bump poking from her face. Her hair was a printed-on blonde tangle of golden tresses. Her breasts were like swaying grapefruits, with pointed stem-like nipples awaiting my fevered kisses. Her belly-button was an inny, indented, shadowed, and perfectly round.

Her crotch was an invitation to a voyage to an exotic pleasure nest. Its pitch-black printed-on black curly public hair cried to be caressed. It’s tight pink slit, dripping lube, begged to be entered and filled with my jack-hammering hooter.

I lifted her off the turntable. It was time to fulfill my singular urges. I laid her gently on the floor. But alas, the fountain pen I had dropped on the floor earlier, and had forgotten to retrieve, poked a hole in her thin vinyl buttocks and she hissed as she was drained of air.

I immediately lost interest in her flattened body. As I rolled her up and stuffed her in my kitchen’s trashcan, I felt like a murderer disposing of the corpse of his victim. This reignited my lust. I pulled her from the trash. I got my patch-kit from the utility box by my swimming pool. I was well-versed repairing vinyl floaties. She wouldn’t be much different.

I patched her, let the patch set, reinflated her, and then, gently laid her down alongside the pool. I pulled off my shorts.

My cellphone rang. It was my boss. There was an emergency at work that only I could deal with. I looked down sadly at my waiting vinyl concubine. I had to go, but I knew she’d be there when I returned.

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Ellipsis

Posted on September 22, 2026 | Leave a comment

Ellipsis (el-lip’-sis): Omission of a word or short phrase easily understood in context.

I would never be the same again. It’s bull, , ,

“Again” was beyond me. “Again” is beyond us all. A meticulous reading of our way through life yields the insight that nothing is the same—“similar” is the word that the wise use to describe repetition, focusing on the differences between what the unenlightened call the same. At one level, “A” is “A”, at the correct level, “A” is not “A” even though the two A’s are roughly equivalent, they are not identical. “Identical” is a rule of thumb with practical consequences, awarding a common identity to similar things so they can be utilized to similar ends. For example, two slices of toast made from white bread are called “the same” when viewed as pieces of toast, but closer examination brings out their foundational difference: one is dark and one is light. For utility’s sake they can be referred to as “pieces of toast,” and “dark and light,” and be selected or rejected for eating. But at a truly ontological level, their crumbs bear a multitude of differences—real differences, not simply accidents of time and place under the aim of eating them.

Aristotle tried to deal with the identity problem by positing that every individual thing is a sum, or conglomeration, of four causes: formal, material, efficient, final. To know the four causes is to know the thing. But, for example, knowing a thing’s material cause requires “knowing” what the matter’s four causes are. This may constitute an infinite loop that may be escaped from for purely practical reasons, which forestall being stuck in an endless consideration of the causes of causes. For example, if I want to eat an apple, seeing it is an apple is good enough. A botanist would need to know more than it is red and juicy and hangs from a tree. They may resort to constructing a Linnaean taxonomy that extends for pages and pages that may encompass Aristotle’s four causes.

PSTSCRIPT

Screw it.

Let’s just say that what I have written above is an example of having too much time on my hands. As I read it over, I am struck by how little sense I make. It makes me wonder where to turn next in my quest to be a Cracker-Jack philosopher instead of a sweaty two-bit taxi cab driver, droning on at my fares in the back seat.

My destination is their destination. I never get lost. I drive here and there and everywhere. The map of London is burned into my brain. Every point “A” leads to a point “B.” .

My wife packs my lunch. Everyday, all time it is: egg salad with chopped pickle on white bread, a bag of crisps, a thermos of hot tea and homemade chocolate chip & pecan cookies.

We met in a train station on Jersey, but that’s another story. Nothing was the same after that.

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Enallage

Posted on September 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

Enallage (e-nal’-la-ge): The substitution of grammatically different but semantically equivalent constructions.

They were always at the edge of success. Years and years had slid by like a twig on a river. They were the most persistent human beings the world had ever known. What was their claim to fame? What was they after?

They wouldn’t say. They couldn’t say. Did they even know what they was looking for?

I asked them: Is it bigger than a breadbox?” They answered, “We don’t know.”

I asked them: “Does it have wheels?” They answered, “We don’t know.”

I asked the them: “Does it exist at all?” They answered, “We don’t know.”

Clearly, they were Seekers, a Utah-based cult whose members “sought” as an orientation to life. They believed that searching could be an end in itself. Searching was a standpoint governing their every conscious act from drinking a glass of fresh skimmed milk to mowing the lawn, to gazing at a sunset.

They were always conscious of the fact that everything may not be what it appears to be. No matter how certain one may be in the mundane order of being, certitude is an error thwarting the effect of the ecstasy of aimless searching. Denying that one has a goal opens the gates of wonder and joy providing a threshold upon which the semiotic abyss is glimpsed in full conscious recognition that one is making it up, and it is not what one is looking for: its presence is its absence, and the search goes on, never ending, always beginning. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, “ the end of the end is the beginning of the beginning.” (Little Gidding)

There is a sect of male Seekers called “The Wanderers” who roam around with no geographic destination in mind. Since their aim necessitates kinesis, simple sitting in contemplation is ruled out. Most of them just roam from town to town. Their “scripture” is the song “The Wanderer” sung by Dion in the early 60s:

“Oh well I’m the type of guy who will never settle down
Where pretty girls are well, you know that I’m around
I kiss ’em and I love ’em ’cause to me they’re all the same
I hug ’em and I squeeze ’em they don’t even know my name
They call me the wanderer, yeah the wanderer
I roam around around around . . .”

Since The Wanerers’ roaming/seeking has an end, it is considered heretical by the True Seekers.

In the end/beginning, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, are you actually seeking, or are you just “dancing in the dark?”

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Enantiosis

Posted on September 20, 2026 | Leave a comment

Enantiosis (e-nan-ti-o’-sis): Using opposing or contrary descriptions together, typically in a somewhat paradoxical manner.

“If the rock is hard, can it be soft too?”

Dr. Klaus Ruckfelder posed this question at the annual “Tormented Philosophers Congress.” In order to be eligible to attend and present a paper, one to have been working to no avail on solving a philosophical question for at least one year. Ruckfelder had been working for three-and-a-half years on the hard/soft question. He had done things like dipping a rock in molten rubber, and then hitting himself in the head with it when it cooled. His “experiment” was received with derision: a rubber-coated rock was no longer a simple naked rock, solely exhibiting rock-hood. The identity issue plagued Ruckfelder. He turned to Eccliastes’ reference to stones: “There is a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,”

He argued that when stones (or rocks) hit material objects stones had characteristics of softness because material objects do not experience pain. Therefore the stones could be deemed soft, even though they cause damage.

His argument did not stand: it became philosophy’s stock example of “irrational drivel.” He had clearly failed again, but tenaciously continued his research. He followed the line of renaming dirt balls “rocks” and pounding them into dust. He realized he was engaged in “wishful thinking” and gave up on the renaming gambit after he read Shakespeare’s “a rose by any other name . . .”

He was now into his sixth year of working of the rock/soft thesis. Then, one day it happened.:

He had two rocks on his desk. One was was bigger than the other. He was sitting on his swivel chair and spun to the right to pick up his cellphone. His elbow hit the big stone and it fell and landed on his foot. He yelled “Ow, you bastard,” and swiveled back in the opposite direction knocking the small rock off his desk. It landed on his foot too and did not hurt. From this he surmised that relative to each other two rocks could be hard and soft. By introducing a relativistic argument into his thought, he believed he had solved his question: Alone, a rock is hard, but relative to another rock, it could be soft, therefore, a rock can be hard and soeft.

His argument was deemed “nitwittery” by his peers, and he once again was thrown into his vexing quandary. Then, it came to him in a flash of insight. “Eureka!” He yelled “The answer is NO!”

Now, that he has solved the rock hard/soft question, he decided to spend the rest of his career studying paradoxes. He is currently working on the famous “Jersey City Liar” paradox. It goes like this:

A guy from Jersey City walks into a bar. He says, “I’m from Jersey City, and everybody from Jersey City is a liar,” The bartender says, “I could give a rat’s ass less. What’re you drinkin’ buddy?”

Dr. Ruckfelder was from Newark. He drove over to Jersey City and asked the first person he met if they were a liar. They said “Nah! What’s your problem dipshit?” and pushed him off the sidewalk.

As he drove back to Newark, he wondered what it meant to lie about being a liar.

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