Posts by Dr. Boli
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A SINGLE STATISTIC THAT EXPLAINS PITTSBURGH.
By population, the two largest counties in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are Philadelphia County in the east and Allegheny County in the west.
These two urbanized counties are in roughly the same population range. There are about a million and a half people in Philadelphia County, and Allegheny County is not far behind with about a million and a quarter.
In Philadelphia County, the larger of the two, there is one self-governing municipality: the city of Philadelphia, which is coextensive with Philadelphia County.
In Allegheny County, there are 130 self-governing municipalities. The city of Pittsburgh is the largest, but even Pittsburgh makes up less than a quarter of the population of Allegheny County. One of those other self-governing municipalities is a medium-sized townhouse development, Pennsbury Village, that formed a borough of its own after residents had a dispute with the township they lived in. The villagers, having taken up their torches and pitchforks, issued a Declaration of Secession explaining “that we can govern our affairs more effectively and equitable [sic] than a distant and disinterested authority.” (The authority, Robinson Township, had its municipal building 3¼ miles from Pennsbury Village—pretty much equivalent to the Atlantic Ocean between them.) That is the fourth-smallest municipality in Allegheny County. The smallest is Haysville, consisting of 36 houses with a total of 81 people in them, where presumably everyone, children and pets included, has to take shifts running the borough government.
Everything that is different about Pittsburgh from its rival to the east, both for better and for worse, can be explained by these two numbers: 130 and 1.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR.
Sir: Last night I purchased a bag labeled “Everything Salad” from a certain supermarket which I shall call, for the sake of convenience, “Whole Foods.” A superficial examination of the contents through the transparent plastic was, of course, all that was permitted me by the packaging, but I took the label at its word and spent my $5.95.
When I opened the bag at home, what did I find? Not a single 1957 Dayton trolleybus token in the package! I carefully sifted the contents, but there was not a Ruckers harpsichord to be found. If the Virginia House of Delegates was hidden in that pile of lettuce and cabbage, I certainly failed to locate it. I did not see a badminton shuttlecock or a terrarium. I did not even find a single pulsar, which ought to have been quite easy to locate if it had been in there at all.
In short, the salad, in spite of its deceptive packaging, did not contain everything. I will say that I do not blame the manager of the store. He agreed to refund my money after I had spent half an hour explaining the problem to him, and indeed he seemed quite eager to make sure that I left his store happy, or at least that I left his store. But still, fraud is being committed in the packaged-salad industry, and I think it my duty to inform other consumers that packages labeled “Everything Salad” may not in fact contain everything. Thank you for providing the forum in which to do so. And, by the way, just how celebrated is this magazine? —Sincerely, Melville P. Gaspipe, East Liberty.
THIS POPUP AD CANNOT POSSIBLY BE A SCAM.
Reproduced for the purpose of commentary and mocking, and let’s see them try to claim copyright on the word “Continue.”
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ASK DR. BOLI.
Dear Dr. Boli: Every once in a while I hear people talk about the “seven arts.” But they never say which seven they mean. Can you provide a canonical list of the seven arts, or will I have to go to Reddit and take my chances? —Sincerely, M. R. Jackson, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts.
Dear Madam: The canonical list of the seven arts is updated periodically by the competent authorities, so it is important to keep up to date, which you can easily do by paying a small annual subscription fee to Competent Authorities LLC. For example, the list promulgated in August of 1971 specified the seven arts as tie-dye, macramé, protest songs, macaroni painting, carpet bombing, free verse, and laugh tracks. If you mistook that for a current list, you would be accused of wallowing in nostalgia. Here is the most recent list of the seven arts as it was announced in April of this year:
Graffiti
AI prompting
Tattoo removal
Auto-Tune
Telephone scams
Article-spinning
Tragic backstories
WHAT THE ALCOA CORPORATE CENTER NEEDS.
Our friend Father Pitt published some pictures of the Alcoa Corporate Center on the North Shore in Pittsburgh. It is a striking building that makes a good advertisement for aluminum as a building material, but to Dr. Boli’s eyes it seemed to be missing something. It took a while to decide exactly what it needed, but at last it came to him in a flash.
This building needs appropriately scaled Lionel trains.
COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY.
