Litotes

Litotes (li-to’-tees): Deliberate understatement, especially when expressing a thought by denying its opposite. The Ad Herennium author suggests litotes as a means of expressing modesty (downplaying one’s accomplishments) in order to gain the audience’s favor (establishing ethos).

Saving lives is like saving coupons to me, but I don’t expect a discount for doing so. Noble deeds are not so noble. When I saved that baby from being eaten by a lion at the zoo, I was thinking about the last episode of “The Old Man” on HULU—not for inspiration, but because my wife and I were watching the series and were speculating about the focus of the return episode. “The Old Man” is fairly complicated and filled with beautifully gross violence—close to the real things I experienced when I was a mercenary in South Africa many years ago.

The smell of the lion’s breath snapped me out of my revery. I scooped up the little baby and gave the old broken down lion a boot in the nose. He started mewing like an alley cat a laid down on his side. I felt so sorry for him that I almost fed him the baby. Instead, I scratched him behind the ears until he started purring. Then, the baby and I made our getaway. I put the baby under my arm and climbed the 30-foot fence. I couldn’t figure out how the baby got into the enclosure. Then, I saw a little opening in the bottom of the fence. It had a little shred blue terrycloth stuck on it that matched the onesie the baby was wearing. The mother said, “Thanks a lot” in an exceedingly sarcastic tone. It was clear that she tried to feed her baby to the lion. But I didn’t care. She had given me an opportunity to conduct a rescue, however minor and inconsequential. One of the other zoo-goers had ratted her out and called the police. They took her away in handcuffs. She would probably be nailed with attempted first-degree murder. Lucky for her, I had brought the crime-count down from murder- one to attempted murder by rescuing her kid. Although, I don’t think the lion was up to eating the kid. He died of natural causes two days after the incident.

So, thank-you so much for the “Hero of the Year Award.” As a bipolar man stuck on the manic side of the coin, I have always thought highly of “Kicks LLC.” It is like a door opening to the place where I want to live—a place of danger, crisis and chaos—nonstop excitement, death defying feats, and not caring about my fate. In this place, to get to the kitchen, I have to jump through a ring of fire. To get upstairs to go the bed at night, I have to be shot out of a canon to the second floor. I don’t wear a helmet or a flame retardant suit. In sum, I had heeded “Blue Oyster Cult.” I don’t fear the Reaper. I keep him nearby. I like him.

“Kicks LLC” was founded on the belief that we’re only sojourners here on earth—temporary visitors with visions of immortality. But our lives are but a drop of motor oil staining the concrete floor of time. So, we may as well make the stain a beautiful stain. Today, in addition to my award let’s remember the giant stain, the colossal stain, left by “Exploding” Mickey Nitz. As we know, he swallowed a little stick of dynamite. It got stuck in his throat, but it exploded nevertheless. The pattern he left on the parking garage wall behind him is the pattern on our club’s flag, with our motto “He Had A Lot Of Guts” in Latin. The lit dynamite stick was thrown at Mickey from a passing car. The car was followed by a bus-load of middle-aged men on their way to a DYI exposition at the convention canter adjacent to the garage. The bus stalled in front of Mickey. Without thinking twice, Mickey shoved the lit stick of dynamite down his throat, blowing off his head and reducing the dynamite’s blast radius, and saving the bus’s passengers from certain death.

So, it is with deep heartfelt gratitude, that I must go—go to the edge—the edge of human comprehension, where I’ll find a catastrophe to embrace like a lover, spinning into chaos toward Soteria—the Roman Goddess of safety, which is always temporary. Thank-you.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

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