Epenthesis (e-pen’-thes-is): The addition of a letter, sound, or syllable to the middle of a word. A kind of metaplasm. Note: Epenthesis is sometimes employed in order to accommodate meter in verse; sometimes, to facilitate easier articulation of a word’s sound. It can, of course, be accidental, and a vice of speech.
“The toonder was booming. A big storm was looming. My mudder and fadder were closing the winders. I was busy blogging, with a a long reach, boggling the truth with lies and cheating. I had discovered another conspiracy. Suddenly, the power went out.” Sir Fletcher Roundnose
The quotation is the opening paragraph of Sir Fletcher Roundnose’s Blogging in the Dark. The book tells the thrilling and disturbing tales of the the conspiracy theories recounted by Plato Johnson on his deathbed in a hospice adjacent to a golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. They are the deepest, most dangerous, and potentially world-changing conspiracies of all time.
Three stand out:
The Gravitinusions
The Gravitinusions live beneath our feet. They generate a ubiquitous force that literally keeps our feet on the ground. From the beginning of time they have made the spiritual “leap of faith” extremely difficult and nearly impossible for earthly beings, most of whom are human. The most noteworthy human to successfully make the leap of faith was Jesus Christ who was executed by the Roman minions of the Gravitnusions. For nearly 2,000 years nobody but Jesus has managed to “lift off to bliss” although many have professed to doing so, duping the masses into revering them as “saintly.”
The Fashionistas
The Fasionistas compel certain clothing choices by the cultists they command. Members of the “Cult of Fashion” anguish over how they look. They create clothing trends that induce people to change style—discarding their now, hardly worn, unstylish fashion for the new styles. They donate their unstylish clothing to the Salvation Army which has Fashionista-sponsored “posts” around the United States. The used hardly-used clothing is purchased by lower- and middle-class people marking them as “untrendy” and bereft of style. The emblematic “meaning” of what is worn creates and reinforcers hierarchies of power where only the wealthy can afford to “dress for success” as the poorer classes look in the mirror and see only their mediocrity, at best
The Guiltist Spores
The Guiltists spores infiltrate peoples’ brains addicting them to an unconquerable sense of shame. Hosts become prescription-mongers to the great benefit of multi-national pharmaceutical companies who cultivate groundless anxiety and paranoia by growing Guiltist spores and releasing them in movie theaters everywhere, where they are inhaled and take root in audiences’ brains. The only way to avoid the ongoing effects of the Guiltist spores is to stay away from movie theaters.
POSTSCRIPT
The above is just a sample abstracted from Blogging in the Dark. The carefully documented theories advanced by Plato Johnson resonate with our sense of ultimate helplessness in the face of everything. Johnson’s theories will surely help us grapple more effectively, yet hopelessly, with our questions about the true, the good, and the beautiful.
The Daily Trope 