Category Archives: epanodos

Epanodos (e-pan’-o-dos): 1. Repeating the main terms of an argument in the course of presenting it. 2. Returning to the main theme after a digression. 3. Returning to and providing additional detail for items mentioned previously (often using parallelism).

I was lying again. Nobody cared. Truth had lost its luster. I was telling my constituents that I heard them and “felt their pain.” I used “no pain, no gain” as the premise of my key argument. “Yogi Berra said this when he squatted down to catch. If he was going to catch, and catch better and better, he had to squat and feel the pain. It made him smarter too—he said things like ‘If there’s a fork in the road, take it.’”

I did not believe a word of what I was saying. I knew for a fact that Yogi would whine like a dog whenever squatted and hated playing catcher. Also, the only quip he ever made up himself was “Me hee for Yoo-hoo.” It was a totally ridiculous attemp to sell a disgusting chocolate drink that probably killed a few kids.

Then I followed up: “You remember Lance Armstrong, don’t you? Before he went down the tubes for cheating, he rode his bicycle with cancer of the nuts. That had to be painful! Can you imagine, pumping along, pumping away, twisting your cancer-ridden balls around a hard leather seat? But he came out a winner. ‘No pain, no gain’ is the credo of all winners—from Chuck Ponzi to Pete Rose. Live it. Love it. Lift it—the heavier, the better. ‘One hernia for man. One hernia for mankind.’ There is no other route to fame and glory than pan.”

I received a standing ovation. I didn’t believe a word of what I had said, but the standing ovation was all that mattered. My motto is “The truth is a slavemaster. The lie will set you free.” I was free! I was re-elected again.

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.

Epanodos (e-pan’-o-dos): 1. Repeating the main terms of an argument in the course of presenting it. 2. Returning to the main theme after a digression. 3. Returning to and providing additional detail for items mentioned previously (often using parallelism).

I don’t know why I wanted to learn how to shuck oysters. I don’t know why I wanted to learn how to make pan flutes. Why did I want to knit caps for new-born babies? Why did I want to learn how to make a pipe bomb? Why did I want to blow up the statue of Ramble Balforth on the village green?

He was THE founder of our little village of Balforth, NY, founded in 1787. His descendants still dominate the town, from the supermarket to the hardware store, to mayor Gumby Balforth, named after the claymation action figure his father loved. He’s about as smart as a ball of clay. Since he’s been mayor, Balforth has become a cesspool: the mayor has leased Belforth’s dells to “Poopy Dipper” a septic tank pumper. Now, the village is surrounded by “lakes” of human waste. The mayor claims the village has benefitted from the poop trucks pumping out their contents around the village—surrounding it with a smelly brown soup! The mayor has purchased a beachfront condo in Florida. His plan is clear: take the poop-money and run. Gumby is a crook and a grifter!

The pipe bomb will go a long way toward getting rid of him and remedy the evil on the village green.

Rambler Balforth’s claim to fame was buying and selling orphans. Child labor laws were nonexistent and you didn’t have to pay kids much, no matter what their job was. They were employed as physicians, coal miners, vicars, used stage coach sales people, gourmet chefs, chemists and more! There were numerous orphanages back then, and that’s where Rambler got his children. He would pick them up in a mule cart and sell them at the Farmer’s Market on Thursdays. He specialized in toddlers because they were small and many could talk. In addition, he could pile them high in his mule cart without injuring them. He sold them by the pound, like cows or pigs.

His statue deserves the pipe bomb. He was a fiend.

My great grandfather five times removed, Ben Rice, was one of those children that Balforth bought and sold. He was sold to a traveling accordion player named Fitz Punky. Fitz taught him to play the accordion. They would do duets on the streets of Boston. Fitz was run over and killed by a milk wagon. After Fitz’s death, Ben went back to Balforth to seek his revenge. His plan was to assassinate Balforth at the Farmer’s Market. He was too poor to afford a decent weapon, so he secreted a knife in his accordion. He strolled around the market playing the accordion. When he got to Balfortn’s stand he started playing and singing Ben Franklin’s “Visitors and Fish.” When he got to “stink,” he lunged forward, pulled the knife, and stabbed Balforth to death.

Balforth was so universally hated, that Ben was not charged with a crime. He got married, had children, and played accordion on the Village Green. He died at the age of 103 from chronic severe rickets. One day, his bow legs collapsed, hurling him in front of a galloping horse. The horse stepped on his head, leaving a stain on the street that some people claim they can see to this day.

POSTSCRIPT

I arrived at the Village Green at 2:00 a.m. I pulled the pipe bomb out of my backpack and duct taped it to Rambler Balforth’s crotch. I lit the fuse with my Bic and ran behind a tree. BLAM! Rambler Balforth was reduced to rubble scattered everywhere. Justice had been served. I decided to leave Gumby alone. He was destined to be caught, and the dells pumped.

Two weeks after I blew it up, there was a new statue of Rambler Balforth erected on the Village Green. I don’t want to risk another bombing. I have started spray painting the statue with graffiti. The first time I showed up there was a policeman on guard. He motioned me over to the statue. He saw my spray can and asked if he could paint something on the statue.

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.

Epanodos (e-pan’-o-dos): 1. Repeating the main terms of an argument in the course of presenting it. 2. Returning to the main theme after a digression. 3. Returning to and providing additional detail for items mentioned previously (often using parallelism).

The partridge was in the pear tree. The kettle was on the boil. The farmer was in the Dell. I was in a-gadda-da-vida. I had been stuck there since 1968 when my bell bottoms got stuck in time and I was chocked to death by my peace medallion when it got tangled in the external rearview mirror of a Cadillac that almost ran me over. I chased after him and my medallion got wrapped around the mirror. He took off with me hanging from the mirror and I choked to death.

He dragged me about a mile and I was flopping like a hooked fish. I distinctly remember dying. It felt really good. No anxiety. I was untangled from the mirror and transported to the morgue. They took off all of my clothes and laid me on a metal slab and covered me with a sheet. It was quite comfortable—cool and smooth. They determined by the burn marks on my throat and my bloated face, that I had been choked to death. I heard them say that the driver of the Cadillac had been arrested. That made me happier than I had already been.

Like I said, it felt good to be dead. I was comfortable and relaxed. Not a care in the world. The only thing that puzzled me was my awareness of the world around me and the monologue rolling along in my head.

Luckily, I wasn’t cremated. I had a traditional funeral with crying people saying nice things about me. My family was cheap and put me in a cardboard coffin. I didn’t care. I was dead. I was buried near the cemetery’s parking lot and my grave was marked with a white wooden stake with my name on it in magic marker: Brad Black: 1946-1970.

Just as I was getting settled in, I was resurrected. All of a sudden, I was standing by my grave with a guy in white robes standing there. He said “Boo!” and a huge wing popped out on either side of his body. He was holding a lute and started playing “In-a-gadda-da-vida.” He handed me a karaoke microphone so I could sing along. It was great. Then he cut the playing and said “Did you hear that bell tinkling?” I told him I had. He said: “You’re an angel!” My big wings popped out, and suddenly I was wearing a white gown. I went to angel camp and was trained as a guardian angel. I wear a thing like an Apple Watch that tells me when my charges is in trouble. I manifest myself and get things straightened out. Most recently, it was a five-year-old boy hanging from a cliff. He had been knocked over the cliff by his dog which his parents had subsequently angrily thrown over the cliff. Somehow the dog was unscathed after the 300 foot fall. Hmmm. I wonder how that happened?

It felt good to be dead. Don’t get me wrong—I know there are sinners burning in hell right now. When I was in Angel Camp, we went to Hell on a field trip. They gave us ear plugs so we couldn’t hear the screaming of Satan’s victims. I was surprised to see my neighbor Mr. Gundoor. I asked our guide what Mr. Gundoor was in for. He wasn’t allowed to tell me, but Mr. Gundoor was sitting naked on a pancake griddle, sizzling like bacon and screaming.

Well, it’s time to earn my eternal paycheck: there’s a boy stuck in a bear trap, circled by wolves, with a forest fire making its way toward him.

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.

Epanodos (e-pan’-o-dos): 1. Repeating the main terms of an argument in the course of presenting it. 2. Returning to the main theme after a digression. 3. Returning to and providing additional detail for items mentioned previously (often using parallelism).

Do you ever wonder why you’re here? Do you ever wonder what God intends for you? Do you aver wonder why stock cliched answers to these questions are good enough for you, mainly because they fit on a bumper sticker you can stick on the back of your car or truck, or on your college dorm door?

We walk in the shallow trench of the shadow aimlessness carrying cellphones and I-Pads to comfort us in our total isolation from the “others” who are tightly-wound mysteries reveling in their uniqueness. The core of their beings is incomprehensible. You can know their shoe size. You can know the color of their eyes and skin, but you can never know THEM—their being the in world is an ensemble of otherness, mystery, and difference. “Similarities” between you and them as persons are illusory. As things or objects, you can know them—six feet tall, 200 lbs, $80,000 per year.

These are things I learned in college. I learned to love what I couldn’t understand about a person, because that’s who they were and that’s what I wanted to love. The closer I got, the more mysterious they became. The less I “knew” them, the more I loved them. I couldn’t predict. I couldn’t control. What I could predict and control was not them—not their humanity. That’s why I turned to bumper stickered cliches. Yes, it’s true. Let m explain.

Every Cloud has a Silver Lining. Cat got your tongue? Time flies. Fit as a fiddle.

These, and thousands more, gloriously true and compact sayings, reach into my soul like the hand of God. They anchor me in the uncertainties of life washing over my relationships and everything else in a refreshing clear stream of hope, and faith, and happiness. Plastered on the rear of my Subaru, they tell the world we are connected by the blandness of common sense and the social chasm of our foundational alienation. Cliches ground us in the garden of advice, like tomatoes or basil, they grow in the soil of providence in need of very little tending, to yield their soul-nourishing fruits and healthful herbs. Cliches help show us how to live with unwelcome pontification and arguments, grounding our lives of love and loneliness in simplistic remedies—one-liners that can fit nicely on a 3×10” strip of paper with adhesive on the back.

The next time somebody says to you, “That’s a cliche,” pull out a bumper sticker from your backpack and read its cliche to them. Read it loudly with passion and resolve. Then, stick it on their face over their eyes, and spin them around a couple of times. Then, rip off the bumper sticker and yell “Opposites attract!” Then, give them the bumper sticker to keep, along with your business card and a small bottled water. If you get arrested, just pay your fine or serve your sentence and shut up.

Once you’re out on the street again, leave people alone. That’s right, ALONE. It will be the punishment you inflict for the great lot of humanity’s failure to understand that not understanding isn’t misunderstanding, it is rather, the acknowledgement of the centrality of bumper stickers and their cliched contents to the human condition, to the citadel of moaning and laughter.

Inspired by being stuck in traffic behind somebody, and reading the bumper stickers on the back of their car or truck, I am freed from the oppression of the other, the fear of contracting myself, the hernia- inducing heavy lifting of coherence. Right now I’m “making lemonade.”

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

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