Category Archives: anacoenosis

Anacoenosis (an’-a-ko-en-os’-is): Asking the opinion or judgment of the judges or audience, usually implying their common interest with the speaker in the matter [and illustrating their communally-held ideals of truth, justice, goodness and beauty, for better and for worse].

Don’t we all love to travel? New sights. New sounds. New smells. What about this:

“I’m a travellin’ man. I’ve made a lot of stops all over the world.”

When Ricky Nelson was singing this song in my ears on my iPhone, I wanted to go onto Orbitz and book a flight somewhere. But, I could barely pay my monthly phone bill. I was dying to go somewhere. I hadn’t gone anywhere since my high school class trip to the Chicago Stockyards where we watched cows being slaughtered and butchered. Each of us got a free hamburger patty in a little plastic bag compliments of the slaughterhouse. Our teacher, Ms. Corbett had me take a picture of her with cow intestines wrapped around her neck.

She was a biology teacher, so she had license to dig into the cow parts. In addition to the intestines, she collected an udder, an eyeball, and a hoof. She told me they would be freeze-dried in her home freeze dryer and added to her “private” collection of animal parts, and whole small animals. She invited me on a “private field trip” to view her collection when we got back to town. I said “yes” and she made me promise to keep it a secret. I promised.

I got to her house at noon the next day as agreed. I was wearing rubber gloves like she told me to. I rang the doorbell and Ms. Corbet answered it. She was wearing rubber gloves and a stained apron—I think it was blood-stained.

She welcomed me inside and I saw there were three shelves on each of the living room walls. Each contained animal parts, and also, small animals. I recognized a set of lungs, a few hearts, a squirrel balancing a ping-pong ball on its nose, a duck ashtray and then OH MY GOD! It was the Zambini’s Chihuahua wearing a little sombrero! They lived down the street and had lost their dog 4 years ago. They’d been looking for it ever since. There were posters on every telephone pole for miles around. His name was Jorge and you could hear them calling for him nearly every night, to no avail.

Now I had found him on a shelf in Ms. Corbet’s living room! I had gasped when I saw him, so she knew that I knew. She pretended she was clueless and invited me into the kitchen. I complied. There was a big box with a glass door plugged in next to the toaster oven. It had a label on it: “Cleveland Freeze Dryer.” She pulled a knife out of a drawer, pointed it at me and told me to get into the freeze dryer and get on my knees and pose like a begging dog. She was going to make me into one of her specimens. I was big, so I would probably be displayed in a place of honor—probably in the middle of the living room. I was really scared.

I told her that freeze-drying Jorge was bad enough, but freeze-drying a person would earn her a life sentence in prison. She relented and stabbed herself in the eye instead. It was the most bizarre thing I will ever witness—especially seeing her running around the living room with the knife handle sticking out of her eye socket, and then, jumping out of the living room window and running off.

Her body was found the next day in the Walmart women’s dressing room. She had been trying on pajamas imprinted with penguins. The knife was still sticking in her eye.

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

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

Anacoenosis (an’-a-ko-en-os’-is): Asking the opinion or judgment of the judges or audience, usually implying their common interest with the speaker in the matter [and illustrating their communally-held ideals of truth, justice, goodness and beauty, for better and for worse].

“Haven’t we all farted at least once in our lives? Go ahead and raise you hand if you’ve never farted. There you have it. No hands up. How would you like to learn tactical farting? How would you like to fart on demand—real bad smellers? On demand! Raise your hand. All of you but one person—the priest sitting in he back row. It’s your prerogative father, but you could do some real damage in the confessional: a little sulphuric smell could motivate penitents to really open up. You could say ‘I don’t know about you, but I think I detect Satan’s smell quite nearby, maybe here in the confessional.’ Wow! Would that boost the disclosures—from the petty to the dark evil deeds? It would add to your absolutions and help you get more members of your congregation into heaven. Who would ever think a fart could perform such a noble purpose? Salvation!”

This was my fiftieth “Tactical Farting” seminar. I had learned when I was ten years old that I could fart whenever I wanted to. I discovered my skill the first time when my bad-breathed Aunty Kathleen wanted to give me a “hug and a kiss.” I visualized a fart escaping from my anus, and “blurrrrt!” I blew one . It smelled so bad that Aunty Kathleen changed her mind and rushed out of the room. There are countless examples I could cite.

I learned, if I farted, my teacher would not stop at my desk and look at an assignment I was working on. Better yet, I was never asked to speak in front class. She knew I would blow a blockbuster and clear the classroom. Or, once, I got called into the IRS for an audit. We were sitting in a small room when I blew an eye-burner. The agent started choking and waved me out of the room. Through his choking, he told me we were done.

My greatest triumph occurred when I was working behind the counter at Cliff’s. It was my first job out of high school and I was diligent. As top Employee one month, I got to meet Cliff. It was by a swimming pool in Arizona. He is seven feet tall and has the Cliff’s logo tattooed on his chest. He had a Red Bull in each hand and was smoking a Tiparillo cigar. He had an attendant who would hold his cigar when he took a sip of Red Bull or talked. He said “How’ya doin’ boy?” I told him “Great!” and he told me to get back to work before he fired me.

Anyway, some guy came into Cliff’s wearing a balaclava and brandishing a .45. He came behind the counter and told me to give him all the scratch-off lotto tickets. I visualized him as as a patient on an operating table and blew my anesthetic fart at him. He collapsed in a heap on the floor. I called 911 and the police and an ambulance came. The stick-up man was barely alive, but he survived, stood trial, and went to prison. The newspaper headline read: “Fart Foils Robbery.” For foiling the robbery, I made the Cliff’s employee of the year! I got to stay in Cliff’s mansion for two weeks. He wasn’t there, but his daughter Cliffetta was there. I asked her to marry me. She said no, and that was that.

I went back home. That’s when I thought of the idea of tactical farting. I wrote a book and set up a blog—they had the same title: “Tactical Farting: Winds of Change.” Anything you imagine, tactical farting will help you accomplish: from solitude to self-defense. The book outlines how to tactically fart—the steps, the exercises. The blog has real-time videos of tactical farting in action. One of my favorites is titled “Family Reunion.” It follows Jim to his family reunion, where all the relatives he hates are celebrating. He blows a one-minute megaton ass-buster blanket fart and chases everybody away. They get in their cars and drive recklessly, colliding with each other in the narrow driveway. What a tactical farting triumph! Kudos to Jim!

Anyway, this is my final seminar. It’s been a gas, but I’m winded.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

Anacoenosis (an’-a-ko-en-os’-is): Asking the opinion or judgment of the judges or audience, usually implying their common interest with the speaker in the matter [and illustrating their communally-held ideals of truth, justice, goodness and beauty, for better and for worse].

Mayor: Who doesn’t think homelessness is criminal? I don’t mean that metaphorically. I mean crime, like illegal—yes! I didn’t expect a standing ovation for what I just said. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! I am humbled by our shared lack of compassion for our fellow human beings. A man without a home is a crime scene just as disturbing as a bank robbery, or a murder, or a lighted bag of dog poop on your front porch.

A man without a home is desperate and desperation should be criminalized— it is crime’s front door, unlocked, and wide open. If you are hungry and living in a cardboard box, you’re going to do horrible things: you may panhandle for thousands of dollars, you may shoplift a can of beans or sardines, or both, from your local grocery store. You may have to steal a plastic spoon and a can opener too, putting a dent in the grocery store’s profits, without which, they will pack up and leave town. Maybe you grab an apple and eat it in a back corner of the grocery store, leaving the core on the floor as you slink away. Intolerable!

But then, there is an abundance of deposit cans littering our streets and highways. The homeless man can walk the roadsides, bag them, and redeem them, creating a dependency on litter to sustain his life, encouraging bleeding heart liberals to toss cans out their car windows to “feed the homeless.” These people are breaking the law. I will devote significant resources to catching them, convicting them, and fining them and to eliminating the illegal infrastructure that gives homeless people false hope.

Once we criminalize homelessness, the homeless will have a home: a jail cell, with five or six colleagues to “learn their lesson from.” It could be Bible study, learning how to play chess, or other edifying games like Candyland. It’s not our job to nanny our jails. Whatever happens, happens. We just clean up the mess and don’t pry. We respect our prisoners’ autonomy no matter how disgusting they are and deserving of incarceration in a urine-smelling roach-infested cement cell.

So, who wants to criminalize homelessness? Show me your hands. Wo! It’s unanimous. Let us have the Rev. Hal Alleujah bless our decision, making it good no matter how bad it may look to non-believing demonic sulphur-smelling whores of Satan and Judas lovers.

Rev. Hal: Oh dear lord almighty sitting on your throne in heaven looking down on this vail of corruption and sinfulness and Satan’s playground where we play with His toys when we are alone at . . .

Mayor: Ok, that’s enough Rev. Hal. We get the point, and thank you for gracing us with prayer. Our police force is standing by to round up the homeless who are now officially breaking the law. If you want to have some fun, you might want to join the roundup. You will be issued a net.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.