Climax (cli’-max): Generally, the arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of increasing importance, often in parallel structure.
Bottom, middle, top. Where do we draw the line? How do we draw the line? What does the line consist of? But, most important, why do we cross the line?
I was brainstorming topics for my PhD dissertation in geometry. I had had a vision when I was visiting Egypt. Standing in the shadow of Cheops in the late afternoon, I was chatting up a fellow tourist, to get her to go to dinner and to bed with me. I told her she was fascinating and beautiful. She said, “I’ve heard that line before.” Suddenly, the world started spinning around and when it stopped abruptly, our guide had turned into Moses and she had turned into a golden calf. Moses looked like he always does: white hair, white beard, wild eyes. The golden calf fellow tourist looked even better made out of gold. I made a fist and knocked on her and she made a beautiful thudding sound. “24kt” I thought. I decided to call Moses “Moe” to test his take on hierarchies and formailities. Did he see himself as a Big Shot because of all the favors God had done him, not to mention making the Red Sea into a freeway and giving him ten short, easy to remember commandments to keep him and the rest of world on track toward salvation.
Me: Moe, do you have any idea why my fellow tourist got turned into a golden calf?
Moses: I would appreciate it if you called me Moses. The golden calf thing crops up as a symbol of misdirected affection—either putting God in second place (Commandment 1 violated), or caring only for the way people look and not how they act. In your case, it has to do with your desire for the flesh and not the person—you cared only about getting laid in your cheap hotel room, by plying your fellow tourist with a meal and drinks. For shame!
Me: But Moses, that’s life. It’s how the world turns. it is called “courtship.”
Moses: idiot! It’s courtshit, not courtship. It’s like the diabolical game show “Dating For Satan” that’s on Channel 666 all day Saturday and Sunday, drawing people away from worship to watch displays of wantonness, lust, and debauchery that Satan slips past the FCC in the United States and other regulatory bodies around the world. Wake up! Your penis does not communicate with your soul. It is an unreliable source of motivation for nothing but urination and procreation. Men who call their penis their “tool” are living by the right metaphor.
Me: You turn my hierarchy of the good upside down. I will think about calling my penis my tool. I have in mind a “screw-driver.” Ha ha! Pretty funny, huh?
Aside: With that, his penis caught on fire—just his penis, not his garments. It turned into a smoking screwdriver. Moses held out a handful of screws and said, “here. Have fun.”
Me: Yeeeow! I get it. I get it. It’s a metaphor. It’s a tool—peeing and procreating tool, not a toy, not for fun. A tool. (Moses snapped his fingers). Ahhhh. It’s back, unscathed. That was hell! So Moses, why are you here?
Moses: To show you where to draw the line. First, you should always carry a marking device: a chisel, a hoe, a marker pen, a ballpoint pen, a pencil and even a stick—especially good for drawing a line in the sand. Now, when deciding where to draw the line your first consideration should be what’s going to be contained on the line’s other side. Then, you must consider whether your line crosses somebody else’s line. Finally, you put up “No Trespassing” signs and punish anybody who crosses your line. Follow these simple steps and everything will line up.
Me: At that point I passed out and woke up in my sleazy hotel room. There was my fellow tourist, naked and snoring loudly, shaking the drapes. I came to the sudden realization that I had crossed the line. But, recalling my vision, Moses made it seem literally a bad thing to cross the line. Then, things started to click. I knew I had crossed the line, but whose line was it? My line? Society’s line? Then I remembered a TV show I loved to watch as a kid: “What’s My Line?” There would be three panelists. Two would lie about what they did for a living, with the remaining panelist actually telling the truth. Flash: Now that my penis was a metaphoric tool, I could see that “line” was a metaphor too!
TWO MONTHS LATER
I finished my dissertation and submitted it, against the advice of the committee Chair. The title is “My Tool is a Line.” In it, I transgress the deeply cultured lines that meanings draw, taking a Mosaic turn toward the utilization of recursiveness in surveying my “tool” and the syncretic obviation of its functional flexibility obscured by its metonymic iteration as a tool, and the line it draws, masking its recreational function and the threat it poses as “other” to the dominant trope of monogamy.
I am currently writing a new dissertation.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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