Posts by Dr. Boli
A CALL FROM ANOTHER WORLD.
Dr. Boli’s secretary has just brought him the interesting news that the house recently received a call from the fictional dimension inhabited by television characters. The man did not answer the call, because he has heard far too many stories about the disastrous consequences of connecting two dimensions. Demons might pour out of the receiver, which would be inconvenient and require a great deal of cleaning up. Here is yet another reason why Dr. Boli prefers to communicate by means of handwritten letters, or (in cases of urgency) through his private telegraph lines connected to the offices of various heads of state.
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FASHION FAUX PAS.
The Marquis d’Estomac fell out of favor quite suddenly when he appeared wearing sixty-three buttons on his waistcoat at the same ball where King Louis XIV’s waistcoat had sixty-one buttons.
The ghost of Anne Boleyn once appeared headless at the Constable’s Charity Ball in the Tower of London, providing the tabloids with weeks of scandal-fodder.
Miss Diana Smoulder, the ravishing heartthrob of the hurdy-gurdy, once played an entire concert at Carnegie Hall (Homestead) in her Carnegie Hall (Braddock) gown.
Two days before Labor Day, Miss Ernestine Pinoak died of ennui in the woods behind the Metro Mart in Beaver Falls. When the body was discovered a week later, she was still wearing white shoes.
The notoriously casual Duc de Nîmes once received King Louis Philippe in a pair of cutoff shorts and a T-shirt that said “Ask Me About My Grandchildren.”
TONIGHT AT EIGHT.
Dumont Network: Harsh Words (crime drama). The hit Dumont drama that pairs a by-the-book cop with a cold but beautiful forensic etymologist. Tonight: When Dr. Skeat realizes that everyone she knows has a phone number in the 555 exchange, she begins to suspect a vast conspiracy involving all cell-phone and land-line service providers.
The Brimstone Channel: The Jesus Show, with the Reverend Bob-Bob Lee (religion). Tonight: Rev. Bob-Bob’s special guest, noted firearms expert the Rev. Ralph Cackle, explains which automatic weapons Jesus wants you to keep on hand.
Northern Broadcasting System: Giggles and Sins (crime drama). The hit drama that pairs a by-the-book cop with an architectural-historian clown. Tonight: With Bozar on the run, Shackle finds it unexpectedly difficult to break in his new partner, the Great Blando.
Metromedia: Al ’n’ Me (comedy). The wacky adventures of best buddies Alexander and Hephaestion as they look for new worlds to conquer. Tonight: When Al accidentally kills the king of Persia, he and Hephaestion have to hide the body until they can forge a will leaving the Persian Empire to Al.
Wolf Broadcasting Corporation: Fries with That (reality). The hot reality show that takes ten new college graduates, puts them in dead-end jobs, and leaves them there forever. Tonight: Lauren gets a gig selling flowers by the roadside, dreaming of the day when she’ll be promoted to selling food from a truck.
Science Central: The Puffin Whisperer (documentary). Meet the Icelander who has taught the puffins of Akurey Island to stuff envelopes, earning him the nickname “the Puffin Whisperer,” although usually he has to shout.
The Lawnmower Channel: World Cup 2014: The Science Behind the Turf (documentary). An in-depth, blade-by-blade look at the grass on which the world’s most prestigious football games are played.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
A GOOGLE HAND OF WHICH ANDY WARHOL WOULD BE PROUD.
Dr. Boli continues his unusual hobby of collecting librarians’ hands from Google Books, although he hastens to explain that the collection process does not require the detachment of the hand from the librarian. Sometimes the scanner reads the hand as a color illustration and attempts to balance the colors correctly. Sometimes it fails.
DR. BOLI’S PRESS-CLIPPING BUREAU.
FULSOME PRAISE.
Over at our sister site Flora Pittsburghensis, a commenter is very encouraging in his praise of the originality of one of the articles:
You are so interesting! I do not believe I’ve read a single thing like this before. So wonderful to discover somebody with some genuine thoughts on this subject. Really… thank you for starting this up. This website is one thing that is needed on the internet, someone with some originality!
If you, dear reader, were wondering, the article that displayed such wonderful originality was on the Canada Thistle, and the “genuine thoughts” consist almost entirely of text taken from Gray’s New Manual of Botany.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
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