Monthly Archives: August 2026

Horismus

Posted on August 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

Horismus (hor-is’-mus): Providing a clear, brief definition, especially by explaining differences between associated terms.

Time quells chaos by dividing its annoying presence into increments, giving us the welcome illusion of now. Without it we would have only “hum” which would be actual now bearing no past or future. Being always, already the same, contrast would be obliterated and where we “are” would not register, as time became a singular circumstance, and meaning, contrast’s counterpart, would be reduced to “hmmm” mimicking the ever-omnipresence of the Big Blend, which what reality would be called for its lost differences and foundational similars—similars with no differences to hold them in check in an attitude of critical reasoning.

“No difference, no brainer” is the mantra of this already aways eclipsed site of possible disruption, that goes unnoticed in the Hum of Hum—the unsegmented One that can’t be divided, multiplied, added or subtracted, poised in something other than eternity that can’t even be conceptualized, but may be an eternal present, whose impossibility may be realized in a lengthening shadow moving across a wall. The motion—the movement—may pinion the mind drawing it away from the possible illusion of the eternal present in the sweeping shadow. The shadow is decorated with equidistant dots, numbers are made up and the “wall clock” is born—born of no special need other than delight in observing the shadow traversing the dots and contemplating what can happen between them. The “starting” and “stopping” and “beginning” and “ending” they may engender.

Awakened by the shadow, the world builds time as a movement between points proving a site of measure becoming ubiquitous that allows for the imputation of motive to the sum of all action—being “on time” sets an anxiety as the foundational ground of all accusation as the kairos (the timely) sets the agenda for praise and blame, heretofore impossible to conceive from the singular, unsegmented hum of the eternal present: its truth-like substance of always, all the time, being the same, without the strife of difference—tranquil.

It took me ten minutes to write this. Time well spent. Don’t you agree?

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Hypallage

Posted on August 20, 2026 | Leave a comment

Hypallage (hy-pal’-la-ge): Shifting the application of words. Mixing the order of which words should correspond with which others. Also, sometimes, a synonym for metonymy (see Quintilian).

The truck laughed, and died, and coughed. I laughed and coughed but I didn’t die. I had the truck towed to “Mel’s Magical Garage” where it was determined there was no resurrecting “Bucko the Trucko.” We had ridden by ways sideways, rounded rainy bends, and brought home the bacon together for 20 years.

It was like losing a family member, like my wife or my son—“Big Nuts Billy.” He worked for an X-rated circus sideshow act—“All things great and small.” His balls weighed in at 11 pounds apiece (more or less). In his act he draped them over a chinning bar held up by two wiry naked women. Then, he would hug his balls and spin on the bar like he was doing somersaults. He would go faster and faster and let go landing in the audience to its great delight. Then, he would sit in a chair and autograph male fans’ ball sacs and women’s’ breasts.

When he goes out in public, he wears his “sac sock.” It’s kind of like a watch cap that he pulls over his balls to cover them. He has a specially designed walker that holds his balls and keeps him from falling forward on his face.

He makes a good living and his medical insurance is covered by his employer. He travels a lot and is quite lonely most of the time. If you’re looking for a big-balled man Big Nuts will be there for you. If his heart is as big as his balls, you’ll live happily ever after. All he asks is that you wash his balls after each performance. He believes it is a wifely duty that can only bring you closer together on life’s arduous journey from Point B (birth) to Point D (death), it sounds morbid, but try walking a mile with a knit cap pulled over your balls while pushing a walker.

Imagine, after a day’s work, you’re in the mall being taunted by greasy little teens. The degradation is so thick you could cut it with a baseball bat, but you know your little lady is waiting for you at home, steaming washcloth in her hand. The teenagers fade out as you dwell in anticipation of your evening after work cleansing. You confidently roll into Best Buy, pull down some ear buds, pay, and get set to drive. You pack your walker in the trunk, and slide your balls under the custom quarter-moon shaped steering wheel. You pull into your driveway, and there she is holding the bath towel/washcloth between her outstretched arms. Her freshly painted nails glisten bright red in the waning light of the setting sun.

You are home. We are home. Home is where the heart is. Love is all that matters, no matter how big your balls may be.

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Hyperbaton

Posted on August 19, 2026 | Leave a comment

Hyperbaton (hy-per’-ba-ton): 1. An inversion of normal word order. A generic term for a variety of figures involving transposition, it is sometimes synonymous with anastrophe. 2. Adding a word or thought to a sentence that is already semantically complete, thus drawing emphasis to the addition.

I was cold—freezing. I had misplaced my mittens and gone outside anyway on a typical Antarctic afternoon. It was ironic. I was a mitten tester working for “Arctic Hand” mitten company. As their name suggests, they specialized in mittens designed to keep your hands warm in Arctic climates.

They had made millions since the “Sun-Dip Catastrophe” had significantly lowered earth’s temperature. The “Antarctic” where I was located went as far south as Kingston, Ontario. The sun’s temperature had been negatively affected by a U.S. government initiative named “Burn, Baby, Burn.”

It was NASA that killed the sun. “Burn, Baby, Burn” was designed to incinerate growing piles of garbage accumulating in land fills which were flooding with the 22nd century’s trash. It was designed to eliminate the earth’s solid wastes by launching them in garbage rockets into the sun. Sadly, there was so much garbage worldwide, that it started to smother the sun, significantly cooling the surface of the earth— bringing it below freezing, even in formerly tropical zones.

The disaster’s author, Dr. Denomiter, was found guilty of using forged data to make it look like “Burn, Baby, Burn” was a no brainer. Of course, it wasn’t. He was tried and convicted of fraud and is serving a life prison sentence, making vanity plates for SUV’s and pickup trucks, while worldwide panic is being replaced by insurrection and goose down clothed miscreants stealing petrochemicals and firewood and running wild throughout the land. Geese have been made nearly extinct by the pressure put on them as clothiers slaughter them for their feathers and supermarkets overflow with their dressed-out carcasses, disgusting.

The end was in sight, but people still need durable, comfortable, cold proof mittens. Soon my “testers” will go on sale, making it possible for people to freeze to death more comfortably as sub-zero temperatures overtake the world, and it comes to an end. I want to call my tester mittens “Armageddon Minus 200s.” I figure it’ll be about 10 years until the end. If the sun ceases to be fed garbage, surely earth will be habitable longer, and may even recover.

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Hypozeuxis

Posted on August 18, 2026 | Leave a comment

Hypozeuxis (hyp-o-zook’-sis): Opposite of zeugma. Every clause has its own verb.

I was going somewhere. I had a destination. It was my destiny. It was tied to where I was coming from. But, I didn’t know where I was coming from. Accordingly, although it was my destiny, its location was unfathomable. But, I had a muse bouncing around in my unadorned mind. My mind was a polished mirror, reflecting reality, albeit backwards, to my consciousness where I was consumed with thoughts, relished by my mind’s inscrutable presence,

Given its incoherence, it afforded me freedom of thought. I made sense of nonsense, doting on the freedom afforded by purposeless gibberish. But, was it freedom or liberty I obtained? Or, is liberty simply a kind of freedom from constraints?

Still, liberty may pave its own pathways, calling its experiences “truth” because it is unconstrained by bias, because it makes no sense.

Was I experiencing mental whiplash, or just “whipping the lash” to appear to be lost in vines of delusion, as a display of its liberating promise. The “truth” may actually be a slave master. Far from setting you free, it puts you on a course through life dictated by its apparent infallibility.

But it may be possible that the direction and purpose it provides are spokes in a wheel, conveying you to where it sets your will’s course. Accordingly, it takes control. Accordingly, it becomes you as you assent to its substance and relinquish control, you are guided by trust in its authority and trust’s aptness to determine your feeling of knowing, which taken to an extreme is madness: the abrogation of YOUR foundation as a being borne to bear opinions about the past and future, secured by persuasion and avoiding certitude.

But, what can I say? More than I think, which is less than I know and more than I believe. 

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Hysterologia

Posted on August 16, 2026 | Leave a comment

Hysterologia (his-ter-o-lo’-gi-a): A form of hyperbaton or parenthesis in which one interposes a phrase between a preposition and its object. Also, a synonym for hysteron proteron.

I was hovering, a frozen pizza pie over, without a worry, the microwave oven. I was piloting a pizza with a mission, with a deep reservoir of talents proclaimed by my role: Recon Drone Pilot First Class, US Drone Force.

We kept the peace by surveilling the law enforcement community—at home and working; patrolling cities, towns sand hamlets on the lookout for hints of insurrection. Every home throughout our little corner of dystopia was required to have one screenless window open at all times so Corps drones could enter premises unrestrained.

The pizza drone was a favorite— it was a welcome guest in most homes—a non-threatening presence related to family festivities like birthdays or anniversaries—forms of homecoming celebrating bonds of blood, friendship, and marriage,

Because our food drones were edible, they had a mana-like presence, coming from the sky and sometimes feeding whole-sports stadiums filled with cheering believers grabbing buckets of fried chicken hovering before them, while gathering information and providing tasty treats in return.

Tonight, as I hovered over the microwave I could see a big no-no resting in the living room. It looked like an innocent butterfly net, but it was actually a D-47 drone catcher issued to pathetic constituents by the opposition, whose motto was “Catch It-Do Not Eat It.” They alleged the drones were drugged, making willing dupes of supposedly free constituents who ate them.

They were right.

I inserted my pizza pie into the microwave’s specially designed pizza port. As it was zapped to life, it’s irresistible odor returned the family to normalcy, taking their pizza catcher outside and lighting it on fire, burning it to a crisp and crying, riddled with remorse for turning rogue and being conned by the opposition.

Of course, I was all for The Man. I had all the pizza I could eat, all the “truth” to digest, and solidarity with other mega-dupes glorying in the lies, injustice and the dictates of the infallible leader of the infallible regime.

All hail edible drones—mana from heaven, just desserts, like rainbows of oppression with pots full of deliciously prepared junk food beckoning at their ends.

Come and get it, boys and girls! You must try the cake!

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Hysteron Proteron

Posted on August 15, 2026 | Leave a comment

Hysteron Proteron (his’-ter-on pro’-ter-on): Disorder of time. (What should be first, isn’t.).

Everything was back-asswards. I was getting younger by the hour. My receding hairline was ceding—like a tide of black fur rising on the shores of my bald head. It wasn’t quite a tsunami but it was close. There was dandruff floating in the sea of hair bobbing on the swirling currents of restoration. My eyes were no longer foggy-looking little round smudges. Now they were bright puddles of lapis-lazuli, shining their beautiful color for all the world to see, and to comment on and love. My stomach had shrunk to its forty years back flatness. I looked like I used to be as my whole body had gone into chrono-reversal.

Where would it end? Back to the womb? A cloud a protoplasm blown into consonance with the wind and streaming away on a volatile west-gale?

The process had slowed considerably since I had switched over to a junk food diet. I figured eating convenience store snack food would slow the process, and maybe reverse it. Eating death-food, I reasoned, would balance out whatever it was making me younger. Of course, I was wrong. The improvement had become unnoticeable, as death=life in backwards logic. It started again. My death-hold kept me at about thirty years old for a week.

Now I’m going full tilt into adolescence. Pimples. squeaky voice, rude, enjoying fart jokes and video games, and more. I still don’t understand why this is happening to me. Certainly, under its logic, if I was sane before, now I’m going insane—a crazy adolescent, but jeez, I’m fading into toddlerhood. Luckily I still have my wits about me, even though, I’m insane. I’m insane.

I see a giant vagina posed in front of me with an arrow pointing in. In I go. I pass out. Unconscious, I’m conscious of laying on a pile of clocks going coo-cuck, coo-cuck, coo-cuck.

This is a disaster, but at least I’m comfortably bald again. I hear ahead a soft, yet adamant voice, urging me to take my meds NOW! It’s THAT TIME AGAIN.

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Inopinatum

Posted on August 7, 2026 | Leave a comment

Inopinatum (in-o-pi-na’-tum): The expression of one’s inability to believe or conceive of something; a type of faux wondering. As such, this kind of paradox is much like aporia and functions much like a rhetorical question or erotema. [A paradox is] a statement that is self-contradictory on the surface, yet seems to evoke a truth nonetheless [can include oxymoron].

I can’t believe you ate that rabbit’s foot. Why the hell did you eat it? I could see a chicken’s foot, but not a rabbit’s. Yech!

Vick responded, “I am the archetypal suitor of married women. I need to be fleet of foot—like a rabbit—to escape the cuckolds I create with my debauchery. When eating rabbit’s feet, I see myself as Bugs Bunny: a fast bunny who always escapes retribution for his deeds, much to the chagrin of Elmer Fudd.

As I assimilate the feet into my body’s gross adventures, I can move like a drag racer from “A”to “Z,” from bedroom to SUV in 20 seconds. I have outrun 100s of furious husbands in my quarter-mile dash to my car.”

I was fascinated with Vick’s story. I aspired to be a pianist. Following Vick’s lead, I resolved to eat piano players’ fingers—fingers that promise to make me grow into a key key player in the musical world.

I couldn’t do this alone, so I recruited Ms. Addington, my lover, my best friend and my teacher/tutor. l was on my third and final run at math. I had stayed back three times in the eighth grade due to failing math. Ms, Addington was assigned to me by the School Board. Ms.Addington was beautiful.

We were alone in the math lab, and one thing led to another. I told her she was a hot number, that she added up, and that nothing could divide us. In short, she was my number one, almost tied with my mother. Plus, she was she was a gourmet chef.

When I told her my plan and why I was doing it, she told me she wanted in. She told me eating pianists fingers would increase her speed on the white board. I told her I had made up a recipe for our first finger meal. I’ve printed its step by recipe below:

  1. Several hands from victim.
  2. Amputate fingers.
  3. Remove fingernails.
  4. Wash fingers.
  5. Roll each amputated finger in flour.
  6. Smother in canned mushrooms
  7. Heat oven to 208 degrees
  8. Bake for 45 minutes
  9. Serve with favorite vegetables and red wine.
  10. Eat with corn holders.

If all went well I should be a virtuoso pianist in one month.

The night came. Our victim was Suzy Bolinger, a total dork-nerd who had won every piano playing contest in the state of New York. I hated her. Harvesting her fingers and eating them would be the highlight of my life—my staircase to heaven—my way to prowess.

We dressed in black. I loaded my battery powered circular saw in my gym bag, along with zip ties, duct tape, and a hammer that I would beat Suzy over the head with. Ms. Addington had determined Suzy would be home alone—it was her parents night out at their book club. I rang the doorbell—it played “Flight of Bumblebee.” As soon as Suzy opened the door, lights went on and sirens filled air. A guy with a bullhorn yelled “Walk toward me with your hands in the air.”

We were busted!

Ms. Addington had informed the police of our plan. It’s true, you can’t trust anybody over thirty.

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Inter se pugnantia

Posted on August 3, 2026 | Leave a comment

Inter se pugnantia (in’-ter-say-pug-nan’-ti-a): Using direct address to reprove someone before an audience, pointing out the contradictions in that person’s character, often between what a person does and says.

I’ve assembled your friends Dolly and Doris to witness my “intervention.” They too may, counsel you later. We’ve duct-taped you to kitchen table, and gagged you, to be sure you listen and to assure the intervention works.

And what exactly is an intervention? It’s when a loved one (AKA me) intervenes in the course of your life, calls you out and gets you to admit you have a problem affecting and harming the people around you who care about you. Your friends are here to watch me call you out, since they’re afraid to do so on their own.

Basically, Marge, your nonstop anger accompanied by your swearing, is driving your friends away—everything in your life mother fu*ks, shit heads, or dipshits, or c*cksukcers, or assholes, or numnuts’s, or jerk offs, or blows’s, or shitstains, or shit eats, or dick weeds, or fart faces, or scumbags, or buttholes, or bug fu*ks, or shit-for-brains, or hum jobs, or carpet munchers, or shove it up your asses, and hundreds more. You know them all. You use them all.

Our greatest concern is for you job working as a secretary/ receptionist for Reverend Bland, The other day I heard you address a parishioner: “What the fu*k do you want asshole?.” That won’t do at all. Or, during services last Sunday, during collection, you admonished the congregation to “put some fu*kin’ paper money in the basket instead of nickel-dining Reverend fuckin’ Bland into the co*ksuckin’ poor house, while I lose my God dam job.”

That’s not all. Your parent-teacher meetings haven’t gone well. When the guidance counselor, Mr. Norknock, told you he had some “concerns” about Little Timmy, you flipped out and called him “A do nothing dipshit shit for brains who would be better off as a fu*king greeter at goddamn Wal-Mart than shoveling shit here at Chester Fu*king Arthur Middle School.”

I removed the gag. Marge said “Get outta my fu*king face you gaggle of co*k-sucking Mother fu*kers.”

That was it, our friendship ended then and there. Marge had crossed the line.the intervention failed.

POSTSCRIPT

Surprisingly, Marge did not lose her job. Even more of a surprise: Marge got a master of divinity degree. She continued her swearing by quoting miscreants’ talk in her sermons, and condemning it as the Satanic talk of sinners. She was able to keep swearing, constrained only by the obscene words she put in the mouths of evildoers. Her Sunday sermons were known far and wide for their honesty, bluntness, and avoidance of euphemism.

Her obscenity-laced Sunday sermons vituperating sinners exorcised her weekday speech as a sort of steam valve.

Ironically, Marge’s penchant for swearing was satisfied as she did the work of the Lord. When she said “Holy shit,” she meant it with all her mother fu*kin’ heart.

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Intimation

Posted on August 3, 2026 | Leave a comment

Intimation: Hinting at a meaning but not stating it explicitly.

“Your barn door is open,” I said to my friend Joe. The “barn door” thing is the universal hint that one’s fly is unzipped. Not for Joe. “Do I look like a friggin’ farmer?” He didn’t get it. Once we we were eating in a posh restaurant and he was slurping his soup. I said, “I hear a sink draining, do you?” Some guy at another table yelled “I do!” Joe looked a me like I was crazy and kept on slurping.

We were in a crowded elevator. I hard a telltale squeaking noise coming from Joe it quickly morphed into a blinding stench. I said, “Your trumpet’s broken. We better get out on the next floor before you kill somebody.” Joe said “What? Are you talking about my farts? Ok.” He got it! I would’ve hugged him, but he was ringed by the stench he had emitted.

I was optimistic that Joe was starting to understand my subtleties.

We were in a crowded subway. He blew one of his poison farts. He said, “Uh oh. My trumpet’s broken again.” He laughed and blew another one. He said, “I think it’s my tuba that’s broken.” He laughed and blew another one. Everybody got off at the next stop, and nobody got on. We had the car all to ourselves for two stops.

We went to a Yankees game. He stood up yelling when McGreevy hit a triple. He was jumping up and down yelling. I noticed his fly was unzipped. I yelled “Your bath door’s open,” he looked down and zipped up his fly.

Success! It seemed that Joe had tuned into my subtleties and was becoming a full-fledged social actor.

We were at the nYS State Fair. We were boarding the wild mouse—a roller coaster type ride. It is set up so it looks like the car you’re riding in is going off its rails and you’re about to fall to your death 200 feet below. I had never gone on the Wild Mouse before, due fear of heights. Joe made chicken sounds and quickly convinced me my fear was unfounded.

We slowly ascended to the top of ride. We could see the fair from up there. Suddenly we plummeted almost straight down, and made a turn so sharp I could feel our car coming off the rails! I was terrified and was still shaking when I got off the ride,

Joe came over to me and said softly, “Hey Eddy, you have a fudge stain on the back of your pants.” I knew instantly what he meant. Joe had given me a hint instead flat out telling me I had shit my pants on the Wild Mouse.

This gave me hope that Joe had figured things out.

I took off my sweatshirt and tied it around my waist to cover my “fudge stain” and we headed off to the dairy barn to view this year’s butter sculpture “Mayor Mamdani Hands Out Money.”

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Isocolon

Posted on August 1, 2026 | Leave a comment

Isocolon (i-so-co’-lon): A series of similarly structured elements having the same length. A kind of parallelism.

The sunshine. The trees. The birds. The butterflies.The creek. The lake. My camp. Finally, I had gotten away from it all. Off the grid, my ten acres of paradise was my refuge in all four seasons: hiking in spring, summer and fall, snow shoeing and x-country skiing in winter, swimming and fishing and canoeing in summer, and burying my victims all year-round.

I had brought the list of missing persons in Starbucks County to 15 over the course of 15 years, harvesting one victim per year. I was a disgusting excuse for a human being—the lowest of the low: insane, compulsive, uncaring, conscience-free.

I am a serial killer.

It started with gleefully crushing insects, then torturing and killing hamsters, mice, and lab rats. I did my first annual human when I was 22. She was a fellow student from the community college.,I had recently won the ten acres in a poker game. That’s where I took her. I killed her and buried her. I did this once a year for fifteen years.,

Nobody suspected me of the recurring deaths. I was a guidance counselors at the local high school. I had helped many students with their choices of college and vocations. I was loved by everybody.

Then I fell in love with Tootsie Keller. She had a small farting problem, but that that didn’t bother me. We got married, paid for by her wealthy parents. I thought my serial killing days were over, but I was wrong. One day, I woke up and wanted to kill Tootsie. I had no reason, I just had an urge. I lured her to my campsite and was about to split her skull with a hatchet when she turned to me and said, “I love you so muchChippy.”

They say love conquers all, but In this case it didn’t. I split her skull and buried her. When she went missing, the police searched my 10-acre paradise and found my cache of bodies. DNA tests and my flimsy alibis put me in prison for 125 years.

Even though I am guilty as hell, I feel no guilt.

I am a psychopath.

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