Graecismus

Graecismus (gree-kis’-mus): Using Greek words, examples, or grammatical structures. Sometimes considered an affectation of erudition.

“Pathos is the boiling gale of what is αληθής blowing through the ψυχή. What could be better-founded in the soul—the home of truth—than the gale’s unrelenting admonition to believe. It blows away all preconceptions and teaches a new lesson on the wind—filling the ears and filling the head with a τυφώνας of experience erasing and replacing what went before. Memories are occluded. Hierarchies are dismantled and reconstructed in accord with the feelings commandeering your επιλογές and tossing you onto a new life course. You are transformed. You are a new person for better and for worse.”

I wrote this after I survived being run over by a garbage truck. I was trying to kill myself, but obviously I failed. After nearly a year in bed I was released from the hospital. My doctor told me to get a life and stop moping around like a “Boo-Hoo Bobby.” Just to get back at him, I had my name legally changed to Boo-Hoo Bobby. I had my last name changed to Dickweed. As Boo-Hoo Bobby Dickweed I expected to make my mark on the world. But it was more of a stain than a mark. In job interviews the interviewers would call me “Boo-Hoo” and start laughing. I couldn’t even get a job as a bag boy at Hannaford’s.

I learned how to play the guitar. I advertised myself as a Mississippi Delta blues singer. “Boo-Hoo” fit as a name for a blues singer—it was perfect. I covered John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, and Howlin’ Wolf. Then, given the shit my life had been, I started writing my own songs—experience taught me how to write songs with my feet firmly planted in hell. My song “Put Me Back in My Grave” was a massive worldwide hit followed by “You Drove a Spike in My Soul.”

The hits kept coming, but I was starting to lose the blues. Then, I wrote “Sunny Saturday” and it was a complete flop followed by “Sweet Smelling Flowers.” I had become optimistic. I had made millions, so I was able to retire in style. I went to Nashville looking for a wife.

I met a woman named “Puppet” in the hotel parking garage. She offered to cut my hair at her salon “Rocky Top.” I had no idea why she asked me, but she was beautiful so I agreed. She gave me a great trim and I proposed to her. She laughed at me and said no—no way. I could feel the blues coming on again!

I went up to my hotel room and wrote my biggest hit ever “You Cut My Hair and Killed My Dreams.” I was on the road again playin’ my guitar, whinin’ and tappin’ my foot; singin’ the blues.

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

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