originally published June 10, 2014

I have a tendency to mistrust my own ambition. One morning I felt the urge to spend that day’s kilograph using however many haikus would be necessary to fill a thousand words (eight-two, apparently). Another day had me wrestling to produce nine Shakespearean sonnets, adhering as closely as possible to the specific rules the Bard created for himself. Once I stuck my e-quill into the murky ink of limericks. Every time I drift from prose into the rhymey, heavily-structured stuff it sucks up most of my daylight hours.

Yet here I go again, this time seeking the lesser-known twists of poetic construct, and aiming to siphon yet another perfectly good weekday into the mire of make-workery. Such is the sacrifice that I shall make for you, the reader of my manifesto of madness.

And because nothing is really drop-kicking my heart of hearts between the uprights of noble inspiration this morning, I’m going to use films from the 1980s as my muse. Suck it, romanticism.

I’ll start with a seguidilla, a Spanish form of verse with a specific syllable count (7,5,7,5,5,7,5) and rhyme scheme (x,A,x,A,B,x,B).

Consider: five lives meeting,

locked in detention;

overcoming plot points, and

child-scar retention;

it might happen there –

in Fiction, Illinois, sure;

fist-pump in the air!

I’m not winning any awards with these – best to accept that early on and continue.

For my erasure, a form of ‘found poetry’ in which the words of another piece of text are erased, leaving something that might resemble a piece of poetry, I’m borrowing from James Earl Jones’ monologue from Field Of Dreams.

They’ll come to your driveway

They’ll arrive for twenty dollars

And they’ll sit on children.

Heroes dipped in magic so thick, they’ll come.

People, Ray.

Ray, baseball.

Steamrollers erased our past, Ray.

People, Ray.

People.

I think it makes the same point as the original, but with greater brevity. Sort of.

A clerihew is a quick, four-line biographical poem with irregular lines, an AABB rhyme scheme, and a whimsical structure. Since ‘whimsical’ is a must, I feel I should write one of these for the film Sophie’s Choice.

Sophie had a crappy day

They (spoiler!) took her kid away.

And though she fooled around with a guy named Spingo

Did it still hurt like hell? That’s a bingo!

Wow. Even with the fun Nazi reference to Inglourious Basterds, I still feel filthy after writing that.

A cadae is a poem based on math, because the people who develop new forms of poetry are unnaturally cruel. Each stanza of the poem contains 3, 1, 4, 1 and 5 lines, representing the first numbers of pi. Also, each line contains the corresponding number of syllables, because why make this easy?

To sum up: five stanzas with the line count above. Syllable count in each line should match pi’s digits: 3.1415926535897.

Since these poems are all about pi, I’ll write one about the greatest pie scene of the decade, from Stand By Me.

A large kid –

Huge –

Davie Hogan.

Loathed.

“Lardass” to others,

He plots an elaborate revenge:

Contest.

Comeuppance through baked goods.

“Boom-baba-boom.” Dicks.

Castor oil,

raw egg for the win!

He launches a well-placed, vulgar,

purple vomit-bomb. He sits back, chills,

and lets those jerks drown themselves.

I have never been so proud of myself for something so… vaguely inappropriate.

A fib is similar to the cadae, in that it uses math so as to challenge the poet into not going insane under such weird constraints. Rather than revolve around pi, the fib involves the Fibonacci sequence, that string of numbers wherein the next in the series is the sum of the previous two numbers. This creates a poem of six lines, with a Fibonacci syllable count: 1/1/2/3/5/8. One could go further, but by line twelve you’d need to fit 144 syllables in, and who wants to put in that kind of effort?

Grace,

this

snot-nosed

punk – Ferris –

he’s lying; he won’t

leave my cheese out in the wind, Grace.

Is this great art? No. Will I hit my daily quota and learn something about poetic forms that I’ll probably never even think of again? I guess. Do I hate it when people ask themselves easy set-up questions and then answer them? Yes, and I should stop this immediately.

I’m a big fan of the pruntiform poem, mostly because it doesn’t rhyme, giving me one less thing to worry about. The idea with these is that you can read the first line across and down, as the first words of all subsequent lines. American poet Randy Prunty invented this format. Congratulations, Randy. You’ve gone down in history.

Axel, this mystery will lead you west to fight another;

This darkness, this murder – shrouded in sulphurous

Mystery; hold tight to the truck-chains, steal hotel robes.

Will Serge make you coffee with a lemon twist?

Lead role as Balki he’ll take soon – but this is not your concern;

You must dig beneath coffee to find drugs in the warehouse –

West coast white people wear funny jackets…

To the strip club with Rosewood and Taggart with ye!

Fight Victor Maitland; there’s no concealing he’s the bad guy.

Another use for a banana you’ll find in your travels.

It’s hard to imagine I’m giving all this poetic fortitude to the masses on the internet for free, isn’t it?

Next I’ll try a little scifaiku – the science-fiction variant on the haiku form. The only differences are that they must have something to do with sci-fi or fantasy (obviously), and while minimalism is key, they can deviate from the 5-7-5 syllable structure of the haiku if necessary. Screw that – where’s the fun in this exercise if I’m not blindly adhering to structure?

Cute, crafty Muppets

Time to hoist those swinging logs;

Can’t use a blaster?

The tetractys is yet another exercise in syllable-counting. Just as the tetrad is a sacred triangle, the related poem is set up in much the same way. The first line is one syllable, then two, then three, then four, then ten. I don’t know why ten and not five – ask the ancient Pythagoreans.

“Karl

you should

have heard your

brother squeal when

I broke his fucking neck,” said John McClane.

Poetry is meant to touch the soul, and if your soul was raised on 80’s flicks like mine, I hope I inspired a tear. If not a tear, then some longing nestled within the cradle of your heart’s memory that cultivated a yearning for… oh, what’s that? I hit my thousand word quota? Should I stop writing now?

Yes. Yes I should.

originally published October 21, 2013

Good morning children. I know what you’re thinking – you’d rather be outside, frolicking in the gumdrop sunshine, knocking a hoop down the street with a stick or catching a picture show at the local nickelodeon, but this will only take a minute. You see, you don’t yet realize that before long your cultural choices will come to define an era. Your era. That’s right, your tastes will set the font and lighting for the legacy your generation will hoist upon the world.

And that’s a big responsibility.

Before the 20^th century – so here we’re going back beyond your great-grandparents’ time – nobody kept track of generational labels. People were born, they worked in the mines or the factories or the fields, then they died of scurvy and the world moved on. ‘Cultural milestones’ were almost unheard of. But the more we became connected to one another, the more we sought to define ourselves in grand, sweeping terms. Generalizations that could redact our forefathers and eventually us and our children with the economical swipe of a single brush.

So listen up. Your future – or more importantly the way your time on earth will be judged by the rest of us – is on its way. It would serve you well to learn a little something about the crowds that swarmed these streets before you.

The Lost Generation includes everyone who kicked off from the starter’s block in the late 1800s and came of age around the time of the first World War. I don’t want to depress you kids, but every generation seems to have a war or two to pin on its chest, so you’d best start watching the news now so you’ll know who to hate when the time comes. Gertrude Stein allegedly passed the term ‘Lost Generation’ on to Ernest Hemingway – it came from an outburst by a garage owner yelling at a young mechanic who had failed to properly repair Stein’s car. It was an early exclamation of “these kids today”, something you’ll probably hear your parents grumble when they discover what fluff-pop crap you’ll listen to as a teenager.

Were these folks lost because they had to share in the most globe-blasting conflict in the planet’s history thus far? Were they lost because they were the first generation to embrace feature films, jazz music, and the debauchery of the speak-easy 20’s? Did they simply not know how to follow a map very well? Ultimately this group of fine men and women are defined by a single Parisian garage owner who felt that young folks were lazy. That’s a good lesson kids – it just takes one famous slip-up to define you all.

Journalist Tom Brokaw came up with The Greatest Generation to define those who grew up during the Great Depression and went off to fight in WWII. What makes them so great? Well, they survived the Great Depression and fought in WWII. They laid the foundation for the western way of life as we know it, I suppose. They invented the earliest computers, televisions and frozen dinners. Bebop and duct tape. The microwave and silly putty. Velcro and LEGO.

But were they really the greatest generation? No, Brokaw wanted to sell a book by that name, that’s all. Every generation has had its share of dynamos and douchebags, children. Look around you – some of you will fall into one of those two categories also, though for the most part you’ll grow up to be drones, plugging your lives into the system just like the rest of us. Sorry, I’m getting a little dark here. Let’s move on.

The Silent Generation (born 1925-1942) was too young to serve in WWII, but a lot of them got to dive into Korea, so they had that. Time Magazine did a story about these kids in 1951, describing them as grave and fatalistic, with confused morals and these crazy women who wanted both a career and a family. These are Don Draper’s people – sorry, you kids probably don’t know who that is yet.

In England these kids were the Air Raid Generation, having grown up amid the panic of the second World War. Some of these kids helped to invent rock & roll though. Shit, you kids probably don’t know what that is either. Put down that Bieber garbage and ask your parents who Eddie Cochrane was.

The Baby Boomer generation is the most important generation of all time – just ask any of them. When your great-grandparents came home from WWII, they made lots of babies. Don’t ask me how – that’s for another article. But those babies became the first generation of youth with a real power to affect the marketplace. Their war was Vietnam, and if they weren’t there, they were probably back home fighting another war, against the war in Vietnam.

Baby Boomers think of themselves as a special generation, and in a way they’re right. They were the first to have a youth culture, graced with that sweet spot in history when technology connected us and delivered digestible culture to every hi-fi and console set in the country. Also, there were drugs. Ask your grandparents about those when your parents aren’t around and you’ll learn a lot.

Many of you probably have parents who belong to Generation X. Born between the mid-60’s and the late 70’s / early 80’s, we’re the gaggle of guys and gals who got screwed over when the Sexual Revolution turned into AIDS-mania. Sure, we’re known for being more accepting of racial, gender and sexual orientation equality than our folks, but we’re also the first generation who decided it was cool to be unimpressed by anything. Our war was Desert Storm. Whatever, we won in, like, fifteen minutes or something.

We got a little mopey and disenfranchised with society for a while, yet we embraced brand culture like it was going out of style (which it apparently never will). We watched our music on MTV. We had no Beatles, but dammit we had Star Wars first, and even your generation will grow up loving that shit. We were slackers, but one study at the University of Michigan claims we turned out rather well-balanced and happy. To be honest, I’m a little surprised we made it.

I was born right on the cusp between Generation X and Generation Y, which begins around 1977 or so and stretches into the 90’s. These were the first kids to grow up with computers in every house, and with video games as a staple of home life. They’re known as the Millennial Generation because they were in a culturally-relevant demographic when the year 2000 hit. Some call Gen-Y’ers ‘Generation Me’ because of a trend of narcissism and entitlement that permeates through them. I’m not quite so brash.

Their war was the mess over in Afghanistan and Iraq, and like the Baby Boomers there were a lot of them against the war back home. Except their music wasn’t anywhere near as good.

As much as we older folks like to rag on the Gen-Y crowd for coming of age right around the time the internet stuck its flag in our collective brains, they’re actually a civic-minded bunch with a strong sense of community. Snarly Youtube comments notwithstanding.

This brings me to you lot, known as Generation Z because we seem obsessed with developing labels for generations before actually learning the traits that will define them. You have quite the canvas upon which to paint your legacy, being the first to enter the connected web-wide-world and experience it from the moment your eyes can focus long enough to check out the latest Vine clip.

You are the most diverse generation of children in American history, so you’d better one-up the eras that came before you and figure out how the hell to get along. According to one study you are the least likely to believe that such a thing as the American Dream exists. I hope you go through your cynical, hate-the-world phase quickly and quietly, and move on to fixing the crap-heap we’ve left in your possession.

And take care of the old folks. We didn’t screw everything up, honest. It was messed up when we got here; we just didn’t know how to fix it.

originally published October 11, 2013

There once was a thought for a game:

To write about laws about names.

And just for a gimmick,

To write it in lim’rick

Though some will turn out rather lame.

It’s been quite a while since I tried

A full kilograph longer than wide.

I could do so much worse

Than a column of verse

Though I’ll come off as mocking and snide.

But why not indulge in a caper?

I fear my strong output might taper.

You’d best read up soon, you’re

Expecting a junior,

And with it a blank birthing paper.

Some countries will let you go nuts,

And name your kid “Boner” or “Putz”.

But check out the law

Or get smacked in the jaw

When the government kicks both your butts.

In Denmark they’ll humbly insist

That your baby’s name’s on their big list;

With just seven grand

That the Danes understand;

If you pick something else they’ll be pissed.

In China they’re not quite as picky,

Though one tiny point remains sticky:

The name must go through their

Official computer,

And sometimes that feat can be tricky.

But with so many characters out there,

The Chinese have reason to doubt their

First choice when they bred

By PCs will be read,

So they’d best pick their names with devout care.

While the surname can come from the mother

If they feel that the dad’s is a bother,

You can use just one letter

If that will sound better,

They won’t make you pick out another.

There once was a girl named Ma Cheng,

Who grew up in noble Beijing;

Yet part of her name

Looked exactly the same

As three horses – just look at this thing:

A man named Zhao C went to court,

For his name he was told to abort.

The ‘C’ is a Latin –

They cannot write that in

The characters Chinese. Too short.

In Germany names can’t be neutral;

The gender-slant mustn’t be mutual.

A frau is a frau,

And so help you if thou

Try to name your kid ‘Pepsi’ or ‘Google’.

A trademark or brand name’s a no-no,

Though they’ll prob’ly allow you ‘Hans Solo’;

You submit with a fee

And a ‘no’ isn’t free;

And dear god, please don’t name him ‘Herr YOLO’.

In Hungary, just like the Danes,

There’s a list that you must entertain.

If you want something new

There’s no way it goes through,

Which to me appears somewhat mundane.

While in Iceland (in case you have wondered),

Their list has about eighteen-hundred;

They’ll allow ‘Bil’ or ‘Bjork’,

But they won’t allow ‘Mork’;

Which to me is a policy blundered.

The Italians don’t lay it on thick;

They just hate the obscene or the sick.

It’s a simple adherence,

For Italy’s parents,

To try not to name like a dick.

And really, why be such a fool?

Why name your kid something so cruel?

It’s just common sense

On behalf of the ‘rents

Not to name their kids Hitler or Zuul.

In Japan names like ‘Warren’ or ‘Angie’

Only work if they’re written in kanji;

That’s Japanese script

(Though they’re rather tight-lipped

As to why you can’t name him ‘Comanche’).

There’s a list once again in this nation;

Though they seek to expand its notation.

Yet some kanji proposed

You may wish to oppose,

Such as ‘poop’, ‘corpse’, ‘curse’ and ‘fornication’.

In New Zealand it seems to be fact

That their laws are a touch more laid-back;

Though in 1-9-9-5

For all Kiwis alive,

They enforced a few rules in an Act.

To divert any pranks on the map,

Names too long or too silly they’ll slap;

They officially sank

Names which also mean rank,

So you’d best forget ‘Major’ or ‘Cap’.

While in Stockholm they think they’re so smartsy,

Where some parents, they yearn to be artsy;

If you need to digress

That the name should ‘express’,

Then the law will rip your dreams apartsy.

Twenty years ago there was a scene

Among Swedes who were caught in between

Where the law said “no way”

And their hearts said, “What? Hey!

We just want to name our kid Brfxxcxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116!”

(pronounced ‘Al-been’. Seriously.)

“It’s expressionist!” so said the folks;

And I know, you may think it’s a joke.

They were told “Stow your belts

And select something else.”

So they thought they’d give ‘A’ a poke.

(‘A’ in this case is also to be pronounced ‘Al-been’. I swear, I’m not making this up.)

If that’s strange (I said in italic… uh…)

A couple selected ‘Metallica’.

The Swedes couldn’t pass –

There’s already a lass

With that name; mom and dad were smart alecs… uh.

If the Swedish law seems rather stingy,

It’s still best that our names don’t get dingy;

They were probably right

When they turned down the plight

To use ‘Allah’ – that name would be cringe-y.

Our celebs, yes it’s sometimes a fact

That the names they pick out are just whacked;

You may think that the best

Is the baby North West;

There are worse that I wish they’d retract.

Tracey Morgan chose ‘Maven’ – that’s swell!

Anna Paquin picked ‘Poppy’ – oh well.

You could scantly do worse

In the breadth of this verse

Than the junior Nic Cage: it’s ‘Kal-El’.

And while Reese may be blonde legally,

She still named her poor kid ‘Tennessee’;

If you think that’s no fun,

Name your kid for a gun;

Levi Johnston’s ‘Beretta’, you see?

Jason Bateman’s great show is a staple,

But he christened his poor daughter ‘Maple’;

Though it beats out ‘Moroccan’

(Mariah’s concoction),

He could have picked something more papal.

Michael Jackson’s hermano, Jermaine,

May have also gone somewhat insane;

So beyond just a travesty

To poor ‘Jermajesty’,

This really rattles my brain.

The law might have been a protector

For Jason Lee’s ‘Pilot Inspektor’;

Or Northern Exposure’s

Rob Morrow’s disclosure:

‘To Morrow’. A pun? More a specter.

No, it won’t do to lean on our laws

To exclude our creative faux-pas;

While our freedom’s robust,

There’s an inherent trust

That our parents won’t name without cause.

And it’s true – we can’t all be the same,

With such limited breadth in our names;

Though I ask you respect

He or she you protect,

It’s their future your quirkiness maims.

originally published September 15, 2013

Ambitious? Yup. Crazy? You know it. How can an author concoct a full-on book whilst omitting that most popular ASCII swirl – that which shows up in an almost full swath of our words? You know what I’m talking about: it turns ‘bit’ into an act of chomping; it turns ‘pat’ into a pasty duck food apt for applying to a Triscuit; it turns ‘hug’ into a word for gigantic.

Could I pull it off? Is it within my hobbling Sunday morning skills, sitting in a glow from an almost-autumn sun, to plot out a kilograph of words – still witty, still topical, still skillful to charm my own brain – without using that which falls b’twixt ‘d’ and ‘f’? I highly doubt it. To accomplish this is a coup, okay, but I also think it would bring a pain within my rattling skull. This would insist upon grit, a touch of humility, and a cool and stubborn focus.

I don’t know if I got it in my digit-tips, but I’ll launch it past that bow and find out. This is a batshit-nuts try at a lipogram.

A lipogram is stunt of constraint, of rigorous word control. Is it fun? Possibly, though it’s taxing on a brain’s ability. This act of play is found in old books from that nation – you know, that classic civilization with pillars, philosophy and tzatziki. This guy, Tryphiodorus, was known for his lippogrammatic adaptation of that book… not Iliad, but that similar story by that guy with a similar autograph to that of Bart Simpson’s dad. You know.

Wow. This is tricky. My digits just waltz, shimmy and foxtrot around that button on my laptop, with such an attraction to simply plunking upon it and watching that swirl show up on my display. But I can’t – I can’t sail this far through this many words without punching that button, only to succumb now. I’m not an inaugural wordsmith in trying this, but I can truly pour a touch of compassion from my soul for that tiny batch of nutjobs who did try this. It’s hard to pull this off smoothly.

An author known as Wright (I can’t say his full monogram, thanks to my boundary for today’s kilograph) built a 50,000-word book, a work of fiction, whilst omitting that damn ASCII-swirl, just as I’m trying to do now. Gadsby is that book, and it is surprisingly smooth for having to stick to such a strict limitation. This narration flows so brilliantly, critics had to applaud not only Wright’s gimmick, but also his absorbing skills at cultivating swift drama and rich dialog.

A Spanish playwright (just his initials would push my words into illicit bounds, so I’ll just call him Ricky) sought to publish a handful of short fictions in 1926 and 1927. Ricky’s aim was for his individual fictions to omit a chunk of his ABC’s – no ‘A’, no ‘I’, no ‘O’, and so on. I don’t know if any of Ricky’s work is worth looking at; I can only do so much digging today as I try to thwart this itch to yank my hair out from paragraph to paragraph.

I can’t omit this Francophonic wordsmith, who in 1969 took on a similar task in his own vocabulary, which also has you-know-what as its most common word-part. His book is La Disparition. Franco-Man (again, can’t print his actual ‘nom’, if you catch my drift) claims Wright’s Gadsby was a primary inspiration for this work. An aggrandizing triumph was brought to our world by Gil Aldair, a man who took a shot at a translation of Franco-Man’s book, calling it A Void and sticking to that dastardly painful axiom of omitting that button adjoining ‘w’ and ‘r’.

Also, I must toss out a quip about Franco-Man’s hair. Okay, it was 1969 and drugs did a good job inspiring a lot of wacky coifs, but I’m holding out a big pair of up-facing thumbs for this guy. Kudos on the ‘do, Franco-Man.

Walt Abish’s book from 1974 is similarly grand. His first part consists only of words starting with ‘A’. Abish follows up with only words starting with ‘B’ and so on. I don’t know how Abish got through ‘Q’ or ‘X’. Just past his ‘Z’ part, Abish turns it around and strolls backwards to ‘A’ again. Talk about ambitious, or possibly just crazy.

How about that whacko author with a ‘G.B.’ monogram? I wish I could say his full autograph; this guy totally wins this kooky insanity. His pursuit was to adjust Britain’s mighty Bard’s works into a lipogrammatic sport. That play about that Danish guy with a ghost for a dad? G.B. did it without using ‘L’. G.B.’s variant on that play about that Moor had him skipping out on any ‘O’. That infamous Scottish play? His adaptation not only follows my limitation for today, but also has no ‘A’. I can’t fathom that at all. This was without doubt his most ballsy victory.

Placing limits such as this whilst trying to fashion a slab of writing that isn’t monotonous or just idiotic is not a straightforward affair. My palm is throbbing from smacking my own skull on so many occasions this morning, I might want an Advil soon. I can’t harbor how a pop song was put out with only ‘O’s – no sign of ‘A’s, ‘I’s, ‘U’s, or that individual you-know-what that I aim to banish from today’s writing. But “Ojo con los Orozco” hit pop-music radio back in ’97.

Okay, I had to drop a handful of math digits into my writing, and I know that saying ‘97’ out loud would call for that taboo sign to fall from a human’s lips. But this is still my phonic Olympics, and I’ll allow for a minor way out so that I can craft a fully lucid history of  lipograms. I allow no apology, nor do I admit to skirting my laws in this writing. A digit is a digit – how an individual says it is up to that individual.

So a lipogram such as this, skipping that most important tool of linguistic communication, is viably within my limits as a columnist. That’s good to know. Now I think I can justify a tall drink. A tasty alcoholic libation. I could also grow my hair in a way similar to Franco-Man; I won that right today. Huzzah.

originally published August 9, 2013

This is a fantastic beer. No, I mean it. This is the kind of beer you write home about, so you can tell the people living there to set fire to the place, collect the insurance money, and spend it all on this particular brand of beer. This beer is so good… well, to be honest with you I’m at a loss to describe it. 586,000 words under my project’s belt and I’ve finally uncovered the nectar that could stop my typing fingers in their plastic tracks.

I’m not going to specify which beer this is, but come on – it’s probably something by Big Rock. They brew pure liquid euphoria in that place.

I feel the need to employ some figure of speech, some linguistic trope that might properly convey precisely how luminously mellifluous this brew feels upon my virginal tongue. Perhaps if I took the lazy approach and leaned on our language’s myriad of figures of speech.

Simile: This beer is as majestic as the Statue of Liberty wearing a crown of bald eagles while a giant replica of the Constitution billows behind her as a cape.

Hyperbole: A sip of this beer by our world’s leaders would no doubt bring about an era of peace and stability the likes of which we have never seen.

Inversion: Soooooo good this beer is.

Aphorism: How can anyone claim to know true flavor when true flavor has not heretofore existed outside this singular bottle?

Double Negative: There is no way I am not finishing every golden drop in this bottle.

Anthropomorphism: This beer pats me reassuringly on the head and tickles my belly. From the inside.

Synecdoche: This is the most fantastic bubble I’ve ever had the privilege to imbibe.

Neologism: If I keep tossing these beers back, I’m liable to have a wardrobe malfunction in my own living room.

Euphemism: Another beer? Don’t mind if I do. But first I’m going to have to water the daisies, if you catch my drift.

Metalepsis: A bird in the hand is worth absolutely nothing if you have one of these beers waiting for you in the bush. Seriously, even if it’s a condor. Nothing.

Non Sequitur: This is the most refreshing beverage that has ever hit my throat. I once ate a pancake that looked like Leonard Nimoy.

Paradiastole: Sure, if I drink enough of these beers I’ll probably end up throwing canned ham at passers-by and I might pass out beside the toilet. But that’s what makes it all so much fun!

Circumlocution: I’m not saying you should be drinking this particular fermentation of hops, malt, yeast and water, but I’m sure as hell enjoying it.

Personification: My glass is perspiring at the thought of not getting the opportunity to be filled with more of this beer.

Parasprodokian: As far as good beers go, this particular brand won’t because I’m keeping all of it right here in sight.

Onomatopoeia: Don’t mind the braaping belches when I drink; I think when the beer splooshes against the back of my throat I lose gaseous control a little. Hic! Sorry.

Allusion: One sip of this mellifluous beverage after having swilled that six-pack of Coors Lite earlier this week and I’m Andy Dufresne, arms wide in the rain after having crawled through the river of shit beneath Shawshank Prison.

Archaism: This beer is so surprisingly fantastic, methinks I doth wet my pantaloons!

Snowclone: This flavorful ale boldly goes where no brew has gone before.

Pathetic Fallacy: There’s no question, those Hallertau hops were pleading with the Brewmaster to please, please smush them into the most delicious libation ever to find its way into a bottle.

Sesquipedalianism: I feel so strongly about this beer, I’m going to use sesquipedalianism to describe it. That’s the unnecessary use of long and obscure words. See what I did there? In your face, grammar!

Oxymoron: Has anyone ever tasted a better beer than this? Hmm. As expected, nothing but a deafening silence.

Metaphor: This beer is the first warm summer day after a long, seven-month winter. Of course in Edmonton, that day was only four days removed from the last warm sunny day this year, but I digress.

Invective: You’d rather drink that other brand? You are a pusillanimous and oafish ignoramus. What’s wrong with you?

Paralipsis: I don’t even want to get into how completely my thirst is quenched right now because of this beer.

Cliché: This stuff is the bee’s knees!

Epanorthosis: Wow. Coming up with literary ways to describe this beer is taking me thousands… well actually dozens of minutes.

Malapropism: I’ve got to slow down with this stuff – only a few beers in and I think I’m getting a little nipsey.

Antonomasia: I can’t decide if I want to watch The Iron Lady or that movie about The Mahatma while I drink my next beer, or if I should just chill and listen to some Fab Four or something by the King of Pop.

Epitrope: Sure, I’d happily concede that your favorite brand of beer is better than this one – no problem! You’ll just have to whip up a quick little time machine, then travel back a few years and bomb this brewery to ensure my brand never gets invented. Then you’ll have my vote.

Metonymy: Not even the Crown would dispute the fine frothy flavor in this bottle. I’m petitioning Washington to make this our official national beverage.

Pun: If you think your country’s sharp, hoppy Pilsner Urquell is better than this brew, you’d better Czech again.

Pleonasm: Even my pet bulldog knows, this ale beer is best served freezing cold for maximum enjoyment, gratification and delectation.

Irony: The throbbing in my head is evidence of how easy this article was to write. Good thing I have more beer.

Allegory: There once was a man who fell in love with a beautiful woman. He went on one fantastical date with her, and it turned into one of those magical nights – you know, when two people stay up until dawn, just talking and connecting with the universe and each other. He didn’t call her the next day. In fact, he spent the ensuing week reflecting on that magical night and retracing every supple contour of her lovely face in his mind. When he finally drove to see her at work, he learned that she had been killed in a freak bobsled explosion. He knew he would never again know such bliss, such pure and unblemished love. And that’s why I have to get to the liquor store before they sell out of this beer. So long.