Epicrisis

Epicrisis (e-pi-cri’-sis): When a speaker quotes a certain passage and makes comment upon it.

“My foot was stuck to the pavement by dog shit and bubblegum. My life was about to change again.” Tribold Rector

This passage from Tribold Rector’s world famous tome, Sole to Soul Remonstrance, first published in 1959 by Ink Blot press, an avant garde endeavor to enlighten humanity.

In his book he follows the protagonist Saul “Shoe” Blandon who frequently “steps in it” and becomes transformed, sometimes morally, sometimes physically, sometimes both. In the passage above, shoe is transformed into a cockroach with a moral compass, refusing to sup on refuse containing meat or meat products of any kind. He skitters off into a muddy puddle, loses his moral compass and is transformed into a used car salesman standing on a car lot wearing a plaid sports coat and sporting gold front tooth. He knows he is “Shoe” but can’t help relishing the prospect of selling a clunker to the teen-aged boy approaching the lot.

He sold the boy a ‘39 Ford with a rumble seat in need of a ring job and a new oil pan. He laughed to himself as he stepped into a spot made on ground by the sold car’s leaking oil. He immediately turned into a sleeper couch with no moral compass. As he was flipped open by a man and woman “staying over” in the spare room, his front right leg landed in a spilled gin and tonic, and Shoe went through the change again, leaving the couple bereft of their little playground. They used the floor instead, while Shoe was transformed into Rev. Skidbilly, a man with a moral compass. He immediately said a prayer of thanks and went to work saving souls. He went down to skid row where there were sure to be many lost souls.

As you can see, Shoe Blandon was a tremendous genius. He used the ground we walk on as a metaphor for the “The Walk of Lie” that we are all taking, finding ourselves as we traverse this vale of things, holding in the cache of our brains the multiple indices of introspection that we glean. Sometimes there is pleasure. Sometimes there is pain, but it all adds up.