Epicrisis (e-pi-cri’-sis): When a speaker quotes a certain passage and makes comment upon it.
“When the moon becomes a crusty chicken reflected in the arson-fire of life, it is time to get the fu*k out of there. You have lost your marbles and they have lost you. You are nothing. You are the void. You used to love her, but you hate her now.” Pellagra Millapapa.
Millapapa is one of the most obscure philosophers in the canon of Western thought. This is due partially to the fact that he never published a book. Rather, he would tear up small paper squares and dictate to his mistress Esmeralda who would write down what he wrote for “the posterior’s sake.” He would stuff his writings in toilet dispensers in public restrooms in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. His works would frequently jam the dispensers and he was wanted for vandalism.
The quotation above was found on a paper towel—Millapapa’s longest extant writing. It catalogues his struggle with mental illness and his difficult transformation from a lover to a hater. The “crusty chicken” is clearly a metonymy for his penis and his nearly life long struggles with various strains of what he called “the clap” a trope with the dual meaning of applause and gonorrhea, building a bridge between them and illustrating the complexities of human caring.
When we think of Millapapa, we must think of a man with no compass, no GPS, wandering the hills and dales of life, failing at every turn in the road, yet foolishly driving on. His writings, as they say, “stink.” The only reason we know anything about him at all is from his mistress Esmerellda’s well-publicized trial for murdering Millapapa. She claimed he made her life meaningless with his “constant bullshit. She stabbed him to death when they were planting his writings in toilet paper dispensers on the New Jersey Turnpike. She tabbed him 147 times and was going to stab herself to death too, but she slipped on Millapapa’s blood and knocked herself unconscious. She was revived by a paramedic and taken to jail.
Millapapa’s and Esmerellda’s story is tragic. It is a cliche with no redeeming qualities. It is like most of our lives, without the murder, which gives it a marginal dimension of interest. Ironically, his writings are worth 100s of dollars. Their value has lead to the vandalization of numerous public toilet toilet paper dispensers in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.
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