ETIQUETTE ADVICE FROM AUNTIE SOCIAL.

Hello there once again, kiddies! This is your old Auntie Social here again, and I’m back with more etiquette advice to make you shining stars in the social galaxy. Yes, we were off the air for a while, on account of that little kerfuffle—can you say “kerfuffle”?—over the advice I gave you about meeting new people. Who ever would have thought Turkmenistani immigrants would be so sensitive? And who would have thought there were so many of them? It’s a funny world. But I’m back now, because one of my nephews is a personal-injury lawyer whose ads are all that keep the network afloat in this godforsaken time slot, and today we have a special treat for all of you. It’s time to talk about weddings!

Yes, I know most of you aren’t old enough to be getting married yet, unless you’re in West Virginia, and oh dear I can smell another kerfuffle on the way already. But many of you will have big brothers or sisters getting married, or cousins, or maybe your dad is finally going to marry your mom and make an honest woman of her. About time, isn’t it? So you’re probably going to be invited to a wedding sometime, and you’ll want to know what to do.

The first thing you want to do is get a wedding gift. These days there are things called registries, where the bride and groom can make up a list of the things they could really use to start their new life. So what you should do is look up and down the list very carefully and see what gifts are still not taken, and then you should get a blender. It’s not really a proper wedding unless there are piles and piles of blenders all prettily wrapped on the back table at the reception. And by the way, if you’re a bride, check out Auntie Social’s Swag Shop, where you can get whole boxes of thank-you cards pre-printed with “Thank you for the blender” in nice copperplate cursive. They have pictures of historic blenders on the fronts of the cards, too. Even the original 1937 Waring Blendor, which I got from some Russian photo site.

So once you’ve picked out a blender and paid for it with your mom’s credit card, you’ll need to think about what you’re going to wear. A lot of you are going to have parents who want to dress you up like a paper doll for the wedding, so you’re just going to have to sit still for that, because there’s nothing that can stop parents once they get it into their heads that their children will look cute dressed up like miniature Mafiosi. The best thing you can do is find a mud puddle just before the wedding, and then your parents will have to let you wear what you want. So if it’s up to you, here’s the golden rule for wedding clothes: jeans without holes and a T-shirt without a slogan.

Okay, so now you’re at the wedding, and you probably think it’s just going to be I do, I do, done. But no, there’s always an officiant, which is somebody who thinks he’s important because he’s licensed to do weddings by Underwriters Laboratories or whoever certifies these people. And this is like his one time to talk in front of an audience, and he thinks he’s got something so special to say, so he’s just going to keep rattling on for three hours. So this is why you should always remember to bring one of those little portable game consoles to a wedding.

Now, when the bride and groom are finally married and they’re leaving the church, it’s traditional to throw rice at them. It’s a tradition passed down from generation to generation. I don’t know why. I think it’s because older generations were stupid. But these days there are people who say you shouldn’t throw rice, because it gives our little birdie friends indigestion, although after what they did to my windshield this afternoon I say our little birdie friends can have all the indigestion they want. But rice is boring anyway, so I say find something more fun to throw at the bride and groom. I’m thinking firecrackers.

Then comes the reception, and this is where you have to be at your most polite, because most brides these days hire a disk jockey, and most disk jockeys make you want to punch them. But your old Auntie Social can tell you from personal experience that punching them doesn’t do any good. So I just say—

Oh, dear, there goes that phone. And I see by the caller ID that it’s a network vice president, so it looks like kerfuffle time again. And I’m out of time anyway, so we’ll wrap this up right now, and your old Auntie Social will be back with more etiquette advice next time. We’re going to talk about gender-reveal parties. Won’t that be a lark?

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ASK DR. BOLI.

Drawing by Calvi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dear Dr. Boli: The other day I heard one of our borough councilpeople interviewed on the radio about something—I kind of missed the subject, but I think he was talking about either a cellular mast or a petting zoo—and he was saying that whatever it was was an “existential threat” to our borough. I was trying to figure out what he meant, but I couldn’t work out the meaning of the words. What does “existential threat” mean? —Sin­cerely, A Resident of Grant Borough, Third Ward, but the Good Part of the Third Ward.

Dear Sir or Madam: “Existential threat” means that Jean-Paul Sartre left a note in your mailbox saying he would put a brick through your window. This is how philosophical debates usually progress among the Exis­ten­tialists. Ignore him and he’ll go away.

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BEFORE A. I. ART…

…you just had to hope that your advertisement didn’t appear too near the ones for other quacks for whom the engraver had used the same model.

Pair of ads for physicians in 1890 with nearly identical faces

From the Pittsburg Press, May 17, 1890, p. 2. Are we being unfair in calling these gentlemen quacks? Probably not. Notice that the first one is relying on the old bromide that back pain always indicates kidney disease—an assertion that, even in 1890, the American Medical Association was pointing out as the infallible mark of a quack. The second is selling a patent medicine, so we need say no more about him.

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THE SINGULAR ASPECT.

Nineteenth anniversary

Every year on this date we celebrate the anniversary of Dr. Boli’s move to the World-Wide Web by reprinting the first story this Maga­zine ever published in digital form. If we take 1993 as the foundation date of the public Web, then for 19/33 of the history of the Web, Dr. Boli’s Cele­brated Maga­zine has been one of its prominent features. Further­more, the site has always run on WordPress, which was first released in 2003; so that this Maga­zine has been one of the highlights of WordPress for 19/23 of its existence. A whole generation has reached adulthood whose members have no experience of a world without the Web, and have no experience of the Web without Dr. Boli. This is an awful responsibility, and every time we think of it we need to lie down for a while, which is why we print a 19-year-old feature today.

A man walked into Abelard’s office the other day and announced that he had a singular case. Our morning had begun with tea, as usual, but I had hardly poured the first cup when the office door opened and the man with the singular case walked in.

It is well known by now that Magnus Abelard deals only with singular cases, so everyone who walks through the door announces that he has a singular case. Nevertheless, the door is, by Abelard’s explicit command, never locked; and this case really did turn out to be singular. I have taken the trouble, therefore, to record it among Abelard’s most remarkable achievements, in the hope that the record will serve as an imperishable monument to Abelard’s genius.

We began with the usual formalities. I informed our visitor that he would have ten minutes to convince Abelard of the singularity of his case. I also explained the payment schedule in the unlikely event that Abelard did pronounce his case singular. Abelard did not speak during the proceedings; he never does speak until some singular aspect of the case has caught his attention.

“Mine is a singular case,” the visitor began as I took notes. “Indeed, it is so singular that I have not spoken with anyone about it until now. I have lived for ten years in fear for my life—a fear all the worse for being secret. I have not dared reveal it to anyone, and yet it eats at me, day after day, hour after hour, like a kind of parasitic creature that gnaws but cannot consume.”

“You have nine and a half minutes,” I reminded him.

“Ten years ago, my wife, to whom I had been married only a month, announced that she had a few purchases to make, and declared her intention to walk to the drug store on Murray Avenue. She would be gone for about an hour, she said. I bid her farewell; she walked out the door; and that, Mr. Abelard, was the last time I ever saw her.

“I shall not weary you with the details of my inquiries. Over the years, I have found opportunities to interrogate our neighbors and the clerks at the drug store. From their statements, I have discovered that my wife did indeed reach the drug store; that she left and turned right on Murray Avenue; that she was last seen walking on Phillips, the very street on which we lived, in the direction of our house. But she never arrived.”

Here the visitor stopped; and, as Abelard was still silent, I knew the narration had not interested him enough for him to take the case. It was therefore incumbent upon me to disappoint our visitor.

“Disappearances such as the one you describe,” I told him, “while exceedingly regrettable, are not extraordinarily uncommon. Perhaps the city police, or a less specialized private agency, might be able to render you some assistance.”

Our visitor sat back in his chair and sighed. “I have not yet revealed to you,” he said slowly and quietly, “the singular aspect of the case.”

Abelard leaned forward. This statement had at least caught his attention.

The visitor took a deep breath, appeared to think for a moment, and then continued, picking his words with care and deliberation.

“About an hour after my wife left, a woman entered my house by the front door. She entered boldly—as if she owned the place, you might say. Now here is the singular and remarkable thing: in every particular, this woman was the exact image of my missing wife. Even her clothes were the same as the ones my wife had been wearing when she left. She proceeded to make herself quite at home; she treated me as though she were actually my wife.”

Here the visitor leaned forward and lowered his voice about a fifth. “For ten years, Mr. Abelard, that woman has inhabited my house, living in every respect as though she were my wife. For ten long years, I have lived in fear, utterly convinced that this woman in my house is somehow deeply involved in the mystery, and afraid even to sleep at night—afraid I might fall prey to the same sinister forces that took my beloved wife from me. The fear is tearing at my soul, sir, and I have at last resolved that, whatever the cost to myself, I must unravel this mystery.”

A moment of silence followed; then Abelard spoke for the first time.

“And how exactly was it that you knew this woman was not really your wife, returned from her shopping trip?”

The visitor started forward; then he sank slowly back in his chair, staring straight ahead.

“Good lord,” he whispered hoarsely.

Abelard observed him closely.

“Good lord,” the visitor said again, somewhat louder this time. “I never thought of that.”

He sat upright in his chair with a new air of confidence. “Well, sir, you certainly have earned your reputation. I never would have imagined that a mystery of such devilish complexity could be unraveled in such a short time. I shall certainly be recommending your agency. You may expect a check from me in the morning, although you must be aware that no remuneration could ever express my profound gratitude. I bid you good day, and once again I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

Abelard watched him walk out of the office with a jaunty confidence that had been completely foreign to him only minutes before.

For some time after, Abelard was silent, as though lost in thought. At last he turned to address me.

“Perhaps,” he said, “we ought to reconsider the idea of locking the door.”

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GEORGE WASHINGTON IS COMING.

George Washington rising above the mountains

July is the month when we celebrate 248½ years of a Republican Form of Government, plus a year and a half of whatever this is, and what better way to celebrate than with the only true account of the life and career of George Washington, the Father of His Country? For the whole month of July, every other day, one chapter of Memoir of the Late George Washington, by an Associate, will appear in this space. It will be every other day because any more would exceed the recommended maximum dosage of George Washington in such a short period.

Of course, if you are impatient and want to read all about George Washington now, the whole book is available in print or electronic form.

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COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD.

The Lincoln Place Civil War Reenactment Society will be reenacting the Congolese civil war this Saturday from 1:00 to 3:30 p.m. Members of the public are earnestly invited to the festivities, as we have not yet rounded up enough people to represent even a tenth of the different factions. Bob Krantz, who was scheduled to reenact the Coalition Congolaise pour le Changement Radical et la Démocratie, will not be able to perform in the reenactment because his wife has decided it is stupid, so he he has asked us to solicit volunteers to act as substitutes.

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