Paralipsis (par-a-lip’-sis): Stating and drawing attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass it over (see also cataphasis). A kind of irony.
I saw something that was very disturbing. It was a Wooly Bully, so disturbing I can’’t talk about it. It had horns and a great big jaw. It looked like a Buffalo with some kind of genetically induced malady. There were two women I know who were there observing it—Hattie and Maddy—two girls I went to Lucky Strike High School with. They ran the school paper “Help!” It was almost totally gossip about teachers and teachers and students. Every once in awhile, they’d run an opinion piece. The last one I read was about gym uniforms. It was salacious, written luridly and explicitly about the uniforms’ crotches discomfort, and how the tops of the girls’ gym suits “chafed and flattened their soft cargo.” Then, there was the revelation that the mens coach’s brother supplied the ill-fitting gym suits at inflated prices. The op-ed created a sensation. The men’s and women’s coaches were publicly shamed—made to stand in front of assembly wearing the uniforms the students were made to wear. The men’s coach kept pulling on his gym pant’s crotch, unintentionally showing how uncomfortable they are. The students loved it, chanting “crotch, crotch, crotch.” Hattie and Maddy became celebrities, to the point of being interviewed by Erin Burnett, who was visibly envious of the girls’ op-ed/expose, asking them inane questions like their favorite colors, favorite food, pet peeves.
Clearly, Hattie and Maddy were born journalists. Hattie went to the Newhouse School of Communication at Syracuse University. Maddy went to Columbia University. Maddy’s senior project is a documentary titled “Is there Hope for Rope”? It tracks the decline of rope in Western culture, and its impact on binding, hanging and towing. She looks at the “invasion” of bungee chords, Velcro, duct tape, zip ties, and to a lesser extent, super glue. In the face of the onslaught, rope has fallen. It’s vestiges are still observable in shoelaces, kite string, macrame, lobster traps, etc.
Maddy’s senior project is a biography of Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press. It follows his successes and failures. He had 7 wives and 18 children. He was the greatest bigamist of his time, keeping his wives in the milking barn where each was assigned a cow. He got his idea for the printing press in the barn, when he stepped in a cow flop. In his next step his boot “printed” a duplicate image of its sole in fresh cow manure. Gutenberg stepped in the cow flop three or four times, printing more images of his boot sole. His first printing press was two boards like a sandwich. One board was the base, the other had text carved in it and would be smeared with ink. The text board would be set atop a sheet of paper set on the base board. Next, Gutenberg’s morbidly obese brother Hans would sit on the inked text board. The pressure from his 300 pound body would make a print. It took Gutenberg a few year to perfect the press. And once he did, business took off. He first printed a series of “bawdy” stories about Lil, a shady lady. The stories had titles like “Lil Befriends the King,” “Lil Goes to Jail,” “Lil Meets the Devil.” Finally, Gutenberg was persuaded to print Bibles, which he thought was a bad idea, but the profits would be huge, so he did it.
Both of these senior projects are admirable. Hattie and Maddy deserve to be the joint anchors that they are on MSNBC. My understanding is they’re going to do an expose of the Wooly Bully’s employment by the Republican Party to scare people away from the polls on Election Day. He is ugly and menacing looking, but I’ve heard he’s really nice with interests in gardening, origami, and knitting.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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