Posts by Dr. Boli
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
RECALL NOTICE.
The Chem-U-Lotic Corporation has announced a recall of all shipments of its new Chem-U-Lotic Universal Solvent product. According to a company spokesman, customers reported receiving shipments of empty bottles with holes in the bottom. An estimated 100% of shipments are affected. Customers may return the empty bottles for a refund.
PUBLIC OPINION.
According to a recent survey, Americans who believe that the Crimea is located in northwestern Illinois are much more likely to favor military intervention in Iowa.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF PERFORMANCE ART.
“Mr. Dixon, the celebrated Californian Penman, as he appears at Mr. Stokes’s lectures, illustrating Memory as applied to Fine Art Penmanship, and executing beautiful specimens while keeping time to music!” From Stokes’s Rapid Drawing; for Rapidly Teaching to Draw, and for Teaching to Draw Rapidly, 1879, by William Stokes, Teacher of Memory. —Mr. Stokes taught memory by means of rhyme, among other techniques, and one cannot help admiring the way he has condensed the substance of every preface into two lines:
PREFACE.
The Public asked, and I obeyed,
And that is why this Book was made.
In the third edition, he added a new preface, which similarly condenses the substance of every preface to a third edition of any book ever written:
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
By this Edition you may tell
The Public liked the others well!
From DR. BOLI’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MISINFORMATION,
Second Series.
Raymond Loewy’s original mechanical design for a streamlined racing dog.
Dog races. The world of dog racing was revolutionized when, in 1938, the new streamliner dog designed by Raymond Loewy made its appearance. Like many of Loewy’s designs, it quickly became an iconic symbol of its industry, even though the popular press saddled it with the singularly unimaginative name of “greyhound.”
ASK DR. BOLI.
Design for a Flying Machine, by Leonardo da Vinci.
—
Dear Dr. Boli: I was looking at Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks full of inventions, and I was thinking: What would the world be like today if Leonardo had been able to secure corporate funding? Would we have flying cars? —Sincerely, A Professor of Alternative Futurology.
Dear Sir or Madam: It is not surprising that you should be fascinated by Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo could do just about anything well. His paintings are counted among the great masterpieces of the world’s art. He was an architect of no little skill and taste. He could play “I’ve Been Floating Down the Old Green River” on the banjo faster than anyone else. He wrote a series of bestselling thrillers under the name “Dick Francis.” He was reputed to be the most devious badminton player in Europe.
But his notebooks are what fascinate us today. He filled them with ideas for practical inventions that were centuries ahead of their time—a submarine, a machine gun, a flying machine, a warp drive, a spork, and countless other ideas that never went anywhere, because he was not such a fool as to publish them. There was, after all, an Inquisition to take into account.
But it is tempting to wonder, as you do, what the world would be like if Leonardo’s ideas had been put into practice. Dr. Boli, having looked into the notebooks of Leonardo, has concluded that his flying machine would have tumbled out of the sky the first time it was launched from a high place, and the test pilot would doubtless have been impaled on his own spork. So the world would probably have been pretty much the same, except perhaps with more of a healthy aversion to flying machines.
COOKING FOR ONE.
Here we are again with Herb’s Cooking for One, the show where we cook things guys like to eat. I’m Al, filling in for Herb, who’s supposed to be transferred into rehab any day now, so keep up the momentum there, Herb.
Now, guys like meat, am I right? So today we’re going to do something that’s meat, or at least meat-based. It’s called Salisbury steak, probably named after that town in Maryland that’s just far enough from Ocean City to be inconvenient. Now, Salisbury steak comes in a box like this, where—as you can see by the picture on the box—it lives in a little compartment, along with another compartment for the mashed potatoes and one for these green things, whatever they are. And it says on the box that you should microwave it on high for three minutes.
Well, I suppose that would work. But a microwave isn’t much fun, is it? And anyway, my wife won’t let me touch the microwave after what happened to the baked potatoes. I don’t know what her deal is. I thought they were supposed to be good if you baked them in foil. So I was wrong for once in my life. Big deal.
So we won’t be cooking this in the microwave. Instead, we’re going to do this the guy way. That’s why I’m out here in the back yard. Well, partly because Georgina locked me out of the house, but mostly because we’re going to barbecue this sucker.
So the first thing we have to do is get the grill started. Now, I’ve learned by experience that the secret to getting one of these grills started is lots and lots of lighter fluid, or as I’ve heard some famous cooks call it, “barbecue sauce.” I just use the whole can like this, cause it’s more convenient that way. You can toss the can on, too, cause it’s empty now. Then I get out my lighter like this, and—
Well, I think that might have been a little too much lighter fluid. That’s okay. Live and learn, and I didn’t really like that John Deere cap much anyway. I bet you’ll be seeing that fireball all over YouTube, just like the last one. Somebody even made a music video out of it. But anyway, we’ve got our fire going, so now it’s time to get grilling.
You’re probably going to want a good pair of tongs for this part. Or you could do what I’ve done and tie a spatula to another spatula. Although that doesn’t seem to be working as well as I’d hoped. But, hey, it doesn’t matter if there are grass stains on the outside of the box, because you’re not going to eat the cardboard, are you? Or at least not much of it. You know, if I keep dropping this thing, I’m going to have to give up on these spatulas. Okay, that does it. We’re going with Plan B. I’m just going to pick it up like this, and give it a toss into the flames.
How’s that for aim? Now, it says it should cook in three minutes, so— Whoa! That was fast! I guess that’s what happens when you toss a cardboard box into a roaring fire. But I’m pretty sure I see some cooked meat down there with the melted plastic. So we’ll call that a success.
Well, I think I’m going to wrap up now, because I just noticed the maple tree above me is on fire, and I’m thinking 911. So until next time, this is Al, saying what Herb always says, which is, Remember, cooking is for guys, too. Georgina! I’m going to need you to unlock this door!
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
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HOW THE RACCOON GOT HIS MASK.
Back in the old days, when hardy pioneers lived in log cabins built from logs they had hewn themselves from trees they had painstakingly assembled from toothpicks, people used to love to tell the story of How the Raccoon Got His Mask. They hated like anything to hear it, but they loved to tell it. And this is how it went:
The raccoon was the most elegant creature in the forest, and he used to strut along the bank of the creek all day, first one way and then the other, but never both at once, saying, “Look at me, I’m hardly elegant at all.” He said that because he was fishing for compliments. So one day the vole, who in those days was eight feet tall, came along and said, “I agree that you are hardly elegant at all. And do you know why that is?”
“No,” answered the raccoon, who was more than a little annoyed that the vole had agreed with him instead of paying him the compliment he had expected.
“It is because you are not wearing a tiara,” the vole explained. “Everyone who is truly elegant wears a tiara.”
“Wouldn’t I look a bit silly with a tiara?” asked the raccoon.
“Or cufflinks,” the vole added. “Cufflinks are very elegant, especially if you have cuffs.”
“I don’t have cuffs,” the raccoon said.
“You know what else is elegant?” the vole continued. “Proposition 47 in Book I of Euclid. That is a seriously elegant demonstration.”
“But can I wear it?” asked the raccoon.
“Well, I have seen the figure silkscreened on a T-shirt,” the vole responded. “But then one must admit that T-shirts with printed figures on them are not very elegant, and where does that leave us?”
“Where indeed?” the raccoon agreed.
“I think it leaves us back at the tiara,” said the vole; and, bidding the raccoon good day, he lumbered off into the forest, accidentally knocking over a few saplings as he went.
The raccoon still thought he would look perfectly ridiculous with a tiara. But later that day, he happened to pass the opossum’s annual spring-cleaning yard sale, and on the front table was a rather dashing black mask, and the opossum only wanted a quarter for it, so the raccoon figured, hey, why not? And that, dear, children, is the story of How the Raccoon Got His Mask.