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Periergia

Posted on May 17, 2025 | Leave a comment

Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.

I bought another nik-nak. Nik-naks everywhere. A paradise of nik-naks. Nik-nak heaven. I was floating on a cloud of nik-naks, high above the world of everyday people—unwashed, unblessed, the sweat smelling masses blind to the sweet light of nik-naks

I had over 1,000 nik-naks. The walls of my apartment are lined with shelves. The nik-naks were arraigned alphabetically: from “A” for an alligator-head plant stand, to “Z” for a zebra-hoof ashtray. I probably had $60,000 sunk into my collection. I had it appraised and I was told t was worth $700.00. I was devastated. According to the appraiser, some of the items were worth nothing at all, like the partridge in a pear tree made of goldenrod run through a blender. You wouldn’t know it was a partridge in a pear tree unless I told you. The partridge looked like a rabbit poop and the pear tree was a roll of toilet paper with toothpicks sticking out of it. I thought it would be worth a least fifty cents, but the appraiser laughed and said, “If we had half-pennies, you might get something for it.”

That’s when I decided to burn the lot and start out collecting something else. I went from loving my nik-naks to hating them. Their worthlessness turned me against them. I loaded them in the back of my pickup truck and drove them around behind my house. I threw them in a pile on the ground, doused them with gasoline, and made them into a bonfire. They made a beautiful blaze. But then, the guy from the Museum of Folk Art, came yelling into the back yard. I had met him on my frequent trips to the museum to marvel at the artifacts collected in the special Nik-Nak room.

He yelled, “Put out the fire you fool! He was an imposter—he was no appraiser— he is a janitor at the flea market who wanted to humiliate nik-nak collectors who had the sense to assemble cheap oddities into valuable collections. He was jealous and angry and fairly crazy. Your collection was actually worth $1,500,000. Too bad you burned it.”

Hearing that, I jumped into the flames and was severely burned. I’ve recovered and now I do the talk show circuit sharing my experience and how I got burned.

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

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Periergia

Posted on September 10, 2024 | Leave a comment

But what about my mother? She was made of slid personal hygiene flooring. We never talked about anything else, we would talk about different brands of soap at dinner. We’d talk about the relative merits of their smell—a very important topic to my who wore the soap sachets dangling n her armpits from a specially designed harness. Mom really smelled good. It gave me a feeling of optimism, that the world was becoming a better place—a place where cared how they smelled. we would have hygiene themed meals. The names of the didn’t reflect their actual ingredients. Hit and miss use them as topics for dinner conversations. There was Clorox chicken, Windex, Tidy Bowl Tuna casserole, Lysol lamb, Peroxide glazed pork shoulder, Comer sprinkled cod. Dinner time was always great. As we became better acquainted with disinfectants, we learned what it took to survive this filthy germ- and virus-laden hell hole. We knew we hand to be vigilant, armed sponges, paper towels, brushes, rags, and mops. Once a month we would eat off the floor. It would affirm Mom’s vigilance in protecting from the world’s filth. And this where the floor took on deep metaphoric significance eating from the floor symbolizes our desire to be close to the boards under our feet, that keep us from slipping into the basement’s abyss—the tangled mess below.

Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.

It was obvious to all who beheld Bo Jangles’ tap shoe that it’s well- considered whacking of wooden floors gave us pause and opened our minds to the realization that the floors were instrumental to his success. No floor, no above Jangles, the floor is a sweet metaphor for everything that keeps from falling into a hole or a basement? Your floor could be your car or your mother. Just think how your car is your floor. You come home from work angry and sad because Gorge Ridgly got promoted ahead of you. He escaped the hell of assembling Big Macs,and now, he’s a table wiper. You tell your cat Buffles what happened. Buffles sits there staring you as if you had a sardine in your pocket. This all you need to regain your footing: your cat has shown an interest in you. You Ross hm the sardine and go on to you next adventure—maybe having a beer at the pub around the corner where they’ celebrating Ridgly’s promotion. Damn. I’m staying home.

But Mom threw Dad out for cheating. Her name wasBabs and she had giant breasts—that’s all we about her, and that was enough. We made her favorite Method meatloaf. She was sad, but thar didn’t affect her appetite. At dinner, we talking about the best way to kill Dad, we determined that cleaning products were the way to go. We’re still working on the plan. We invited for next week to “make amends.” I don’t care if anybody gets their hands on this manuscript.

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.

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Periergia

Posted on January 31, 2024 | Leave a comment

Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.

“The sun was a ball of sizzling butter preparing evening to fry the dusk in oils of darkness, seasoned by stars shaken across the sky by God, the chef of all existing things, and their practiced waiter, serving His heavens at the feast of beginnings and endings.” This line from Apocalypto Razzuti’s “Eat the Night,” takes us beyond any measure of literary excellence so that we may nearly remain silent at its reading—awe struck and transported to providence’s mystic ether.

Razzuti’s use of what he called “spewing images” allows the reader to ascend a staircase of meaning, at each step, each comma, each preposition to wonder when the words will start to make sense. This habit of reading, of needing to have what you’re reading make sense, immerses almost all of Razutti’s readers in an ocean of doubts, anger and angst. “Eat the Night” has been hurled to the floor or into a trash bin, or even burned, many times.

But recently, a letter Razzuti wrote to his sister, Maybeleen, has surfaced, found in a box consitant with what may have been her most prized treasures. Along with the letter, there’s a pair of toenail clippers, a heart-shaped locket with no picture, a 12 inch stiletto switchblade knife, a pair of rubber gloves, a jar of pickled eggs, and an ivory toothpick.

Ironically, this was the effect Razutti was looking for—to replace affection for a text with hostility toward it: to induce dislike as a healthy aim of great literature. He believed that attachment to a book, or a poem, was perverse. So, he produced writings that were repulsive by standard literary criteria. His works make no sense, holding stalwart readers in suspense, where at the end they may say “That was shit,” and get drunk and light “Eat the Night” on fire.

The letter explains how Razzuti had hired a cadre of college freshmen literature majors to produce his writings. Knowing they would be mediocre at best, they fit his criteria of excellence and would be worthy of publication under his name. But, there is another trace. One of Razutti’s poems ends with: “In eternal shame, like snail slime across her face, my sister sits in a tub of steaming excrement, farting out her stench-laden lies. I Never wrote a letter.” So, now we have to go back to square one, to being transported, despite the likely fictitious ethic of hatred that can’t be attributed to Apocalypto Razzuti with certainty.

So, “Eat the Night!”

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.

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Periergia

Posted on June 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.

“There was a time when the flowing juices of riper moments squeezed their promise onto waiting heads, waiting to be anointed by tomorrow’s sweet juices, cleansing history’s smut from the future.”

I think Francis Gumnuts was the greatest poet ever. The quote above is from a little-known work of his published in 1666 at the height of the plague epidemic in London. It is titled “Fever.” The quoted lines have been interpreted as a paean to pustules, trying to see them in a positive light and give people covered by them a ray of hope. Another favorite of mine is “Bird Droppings.” Gumnuts is sitting on a log by a lily pond musing on a patiently fishing Crane quietly waiting, not moving, waiting for a minnow or a sunfish to swim by, when suddenly, a large flock of noisily cawing crows flys overhead, raining guano, hitting Gumnuts several times on the head and soiling his doublet with “chalky whitish goo.” He wrote: “The dozing day was passing as the slender crane concentrated upon a feast—a sunfish or a minnow blatantly sought by a blade like beak glinting yellow like a frozen bolt of burning light. And then! And then! And then! A company of raucous crows doth mount the air above my head—a darkness-forming horde of feathered demons. Now, they crap. They poop. They shite. A devil’s cloudburst of guano raining everywhere, beating down upon my head, soiling my doublet, knocking down the hapless crane. The flock passed and I looked around. The world was cloaked in white. ‘Twas like fresh fallen snow on a pristine winter’s morn. The guano was a gift so beautiful, I could not help but cry.”

Wow! Shite to snow! Gumnuts had a gift—he could wrest good from evil. His muscular transformations show how personal effort can make the world anew—shite is only shite because you want it to be, even when you step in it and it smells up your shoe. The use of euphemisms is especially helpful as a powerful instrument of reality’s transformation. For example, “poo-poo,” and “doo-doo”:smooth out shite, and “bun” speaks to its similarity to a jelly donut or a cruller. Although it still may be shite, it’s creative renaming bolsters an attitude shift, enabling a more positive quality of experience at the sight and smell of shite. After the Stoics, Gumnuts lived in accord with what he called “interpretive beneficence,” living out his final years in a hollowed out heap of garbage. Followers of his would drive by in their carts and shovel fresh trash on his “Stately Garbage Dome.”

This is all pretty remarkable. What’s most remarkable is Gumnuts’ obscurity. I’m a graduate student at Cargo Docks University in Utrecht. I am writing my doctoral dissertation on Gumnuts’ use of words to say things. My first, and most bizarre, discovery, is that Gumnuts’ early manuscripts are written in Japanese, which leads me to think he may have travelled to Japan. His first extant manuscript, which hasn’t been translated, is his lengthiest manuscript. The title page has a sketch of what looks like a flop-eared hamster with a meat cleaver for a tail. The manuscript is titled “Pikachu.”

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

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Periergia

Posted on October 20, 2022 | Leave a comment

Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.

He told me he had given the gift that keeps on giving. Given his character, my first thought was the clap. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked. He answered, “What’s wrong with giving your kid a $500 savings bond on their birthday. He’ll be able to collect in ten years. I guess that’s when it stops giving. It’s like a gold mine tunneled into the future, or a dog digging a hole in the back yard to bury a bone, or a duck flying south, or migrating caribou, or a stink bug on your window in early Fall, or a. . .” “Shut up! I get it!” I yelled. I still thought he gave somebody the clap, it’s the kind of thing he would do on his son’s birthday. My thoughts were disgusting me. I decided to go home.

I opened the front door and walked into drearyland. The curtains were drawn. It smelled like stale cigarette smoke. The living room had a couch with a worn floral pattern. There was an old flat screen TV, a tray table and a poster of the Troggs singing “Wild Thing.” at a concert somewhere. The kitchen and bedroom were done up in swimming pool furniture that my mother had given me after they had their pool filled in—after the tragedy. Grandpa’s pet muskrat had been sucked into the pool skimmer and drowned. Nobody knew how this could possibly happen. Musky had been in the pool 100s of times, and he would actually have to stick his head into the skimmer to drown. And that’s what the pet psychic told us after she laid her hand on Musky’s dead body. Musky had committed suicide. The psychic told us she couldn’t get a clear reading. The best she could do was feeling the constant bickering between grandpa, mom, and dad that probably drove Musky crazy. He couldn’t take it any more. Who would’ve thought that a muskrat could be so deeply affected by their roommates?

Thinking about my “gifts that keep giving” conversation, I started thinking about savings bonds again. What kind of legacy would I leave? Currently, it would be nothing, or next to nothing. Then I remembered that my mother had stored some boxes in my basement. Among the goodies, there was a strongbox with my great grandfather’s name on it. I rummaged around and found it over in a corner by the furnace. It was about the size of a shoebox and it was locked. It said “Beware! Do not ever open this strongbox” with a crude skull and crossbones drawn on the lid. Mother had told me that it contained a $500 savings bond that great grandfather had bought after the war. It was probably worth thousands now. But what about the warning on the strongbox’s lid? How bad could the consequences be? It was just an old rusting strongbox.

I smashed open the strongbox, and there was the $500 savings bond, but there was also a dark-blue beetle inside too. It skittered up my arm and burrowed into my ear. Subsequently, I lost my hearing in my left ear. It has affected my balance too, and I feel a soft tickling behind my left eye. The savings bond was counterfeit. Obviously, great grandfather was swindled.

I have been to the doctor three times and he can’t find anything wrong with me, and he won’t even verify my hearing loss. He told me “It’s all in your head.” Yeah, right. I never should have opened the strongbox. I stumble around and the constant feeling behind my eye makes me angry and irritable. I can’t work. I can’t play. I can’t even carry on a conversation without yelling. When my friends ask me “What’s bugging you?” I yell, “Nothing! It’s all in my head. Ask my Goddamn doctor, he’ll tell you!” Then I heard a voice in my head “Calm down Stew. I am reframing your brain. Soon you will become a world-famous poet, adored by all who hear or read your awords. So, have no fear, your healing is nearly done. Just listen to me, the dark-blue beetle, not Stew the useless idiot. Your poet name will be Codeine Jones. Take a break now, I’ll get back to you later. We’re almost there.”

I headed home to turn on the gas.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. Available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Periergia

Posted on March 1, 2022 | Comments Off on Periergia

Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.

I was roaming in the gloaming; softly sliding through the dusk toward dawn’s craven poking, the stars’ bellicose yearning for night’s end, even before moonrise, reminded me of my car—a rusted heap of contracted metal, dented, wrinkled and scratched and riding on rotting tires like over-ripe tomatoes gone from the field too long, ready to smoosh at any minute, like the sky and the stars and every anxiety I managed as my existence’s work in the spinning cycles of curling dread that coldly projected my life and death: when night began, how would it end? When I got behind the wheel, would my decaying tires go flat? Somebody is always asking me more often than less often, or not at all, “Matt, why can’t you just relax for an hour, or even five minutes?” I tell them they are making me nervous and go sit in my car. Then, I try to drive away, but I can’t find the key. I am stranded like a salmon on the shore. I wait for the Grizzly Bear and make sure my gun is loaded.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. Available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Periergia

Posted on June 26, 2021 | Comments Off on Periergia

Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.

The unchained melody climbed the staircase of my mind, skipping a step every two steps, like a frog in full-hop on the slanted plane. I felt like a rubber boot starring in a 21st century version of Cinderella; a boot that was “gripping” in its performance, as the eiderdown-like like dust blowing in the window made things slippery and threatened me with a fall. I laid on the dirty sticky floor, rather than fall on its splattered remnants of spilled food, alcoholic beverages, and fragments of plastic toys.

Suddenly, I woke up in the bathtub choking on soapy grey water. My tiny tugboat had sunk and the tub’s water was lukewarm like urine.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. Available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Periergia

Posted on December 6, 2019 | Leave a comment

Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.

This was a big day. It was the size of Canada and I didn’t have a map–just a slip of paper that said “Roll like a river.” The white Christmas lights flashing in the windows were like starfish rotating in the phosphorescent swirl of a moonless tide pool cluttered with snails and seaweed like some kind of sushi dinner that comes in with the tide and waits for the soft embrace of bamboo chopsticks clutching it and raising it toward the gaping mouth of a hungry human.

Oh God!

To my amazement, right then, the day grew larger, now it was the size of North America. I looked at my watch. It was 192 hours past 65. What!? Suddenly, a sage appeared from of the trunk of my stupid Ford. He was wearing blue and gray striped pajamas with “SAGE” monogrammed over the pocket. Before I could ask him what the hell I should do to get through what had become a limitless day, he said “Roll like a river” and turned into small shrub–maybe an azalea. I wasn’t surprised. I had read about things like this in my book club. So, I got down on the ground and started to roll ‘like a river.’ I rolled off the curb, and was run over by a FEDEX truck, and the day shrunk down to nothing–down to a broken leg and multiples cuts and bruises, and a mild concussion.

It WAS a big day. It was the day I almost died. 

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. Available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Periergia

Posted on June 1, 2017 | Leave a comment

Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.

There was a lot going on that should not have been going on–yes–going on like an endless river of stuff. Big bad brassy stuff. Like a stream of garbage flowing in my head. I tried to shut it off, but it just keeps on going. Time to schedule an appointment with my therapist to see if she can help turn off the faucet in my head–it’s like a fireplug gone wild, a jacuzzi out of control, a boiling saucepan, a teapot steeping tea too steeply. I need help damming the frothing tide of my consciousness.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99.

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Periergia

Posted on April 11, 2016 | Leave a comment

Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.

The morning wind stole clothes. 6.00 a.m. in my underpants. I should’ve pitched a tent, made a shelter, used my head, slept in my clothes, knew better, looked at the weather forecast, stayed home, or listened to my mommy when she said “Son, your feet are made for blisters, and that’s what they’re going to do after you walk to Colorado in your brand-new Danish shoes.”

Hmmm.

Even if I had listened to my mommy, I would still be standing here in my underpants.  Besides, Mommy is mentally unbalanced. That’s why I left her in the garage duct-taped to the red wheelbarrow I bought at Bill Williams’s yard sale when it was raining last Tuesday. Damn, I should’ve pinned a note on her. Something like:

So much depends on the duct tape

Holding Mommy to the red wheelbarrow

Glazed with chicken shit

I have gone camping

Latitude: 37.3192
Longitude: -108.509

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

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Periergia

Posted on March 15, 2014 | Leave a comment

Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.

We’re trying to make bacon without a pig, paint the house with a flame thrower, and make paper dolls with steak knives on a roller coaster.

Got it?

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

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Periergia

Posted on April 13, 2008 | Leave a comment

Periergia (pe-ri-er’-gi-a): Overuse of words or figures of speech. As such, it may simply be considered synonymous with macrologia. However, as Puttenham’s term suggests, periergia may differ from simple superfluity in that the language appears over-labored.

The previously considered prior point (i.e., the point-before-the-last point) would utilize its aspects in conjuction with their connection with what came after them subsequently.

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

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