Posts by Dr. Boli
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NEWS FLASH.
MOUNTAIN MADE FROM MOLEHILL.
DUCK HOLLOW UNIVERSITY.—Prof. Reinhold Queasy of the Department of Geomechanical Engineering announced today that he had succeeded in fabricating a mountain from a mere molehill, ending a centuries-long quest that has frustrated scientists since the days of the medieval alchemists.
ASK DR. BOLI.
Dear Dr. Boli: Could you please give advice on whether money can indeed buy happiness? —Sincerely, MC Grammar.
Dear Sir: The great beauty of our consumerist-capitalist system is that money can buy absolutely anything. Happiness therefore may be purchased on the open market, because consumerism has taken the trouble to define happiness as the accumulation of material possessions. Even the poor may participate in the pursuit of this happiness, since many consumer goods that take up a great deal of space are available for very little money at large discount chains throughout the suburbs, and usually the suburbs are only a short jitney ride away from the haunts of poverty. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that a greater amount of money will buy a higher quality of happiness, in proportion to the quality of the consumer goods it can purchase. A great deal of wealth will buy gold taps for your bathroom sink or neckties that cost as much as a family sedan, and these extraordinarily expensive trifles obviously bring a much more concentrated dose of happiness into your life. If you have unlimited wealth, you can buy anything you set your heart on, and your happiness is correspondingly unlimited. Of course, to judge by the antics of the truly filthy rich, this is apparently the kind of happiness that makes you wallow in misery. But you can buy it.
Dear Dr. Boli: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? —Signed, Hubert G. Galliformes, Puzzled Poultry farmer.
Dear Sir: Quite some time ago, Dr. Boli addressed this question in his Encyclopedia of Misinformation, which has become the standard reference in the field (viz., of misinformation); and he is delighted to be able to reprint the relevant entry for you here:
Eggs. “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” —This hoary folk conundrum reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of evolutionary history. The chicken and the egg are distinct organisms living in a symbiotic relationship.
For more useful information on these two fascinating creatures, you may wish to read the entry on the Chicken in Dr. Boli’s Allegorical Bestiary, and to review the instructions for cooking eggs from our series Cooking for One.
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ASK DR. BOLI.
Dear Dr. Boli: Where do babies come from? —Sincerely, Sir Wilmot FitzGeoffrey Toe, Bart., Age 53.
Dear Sir: This is, of course, a delicate subject, and Dr. Boli will attempt to address your question in terms suitable for your tender age.
Before the dawn of civilization, early tribes had to manufacture their own offspring from whatever materials came to hand. Most primitive hominid skeletons found by paleontologists have been made of stone, which was both durable and readily available; the remaining parts of the body would have been made of animal hides, leaves, and other perishable materials that have not survived.
Civilization brought specialization, and the production of human offspring became the domain of a specialized class of craftsmen. So it remained for thousands of years, though the scale of the enterprise of course varied with the degree of civilization and organization. In imperial Rome, vast workshops filled with slaves assembled children for the Empire; with the fall of Rome, the business reverted to a small-scale village craft; but in either case the technology was the same, and human labor was the engine that drove production.
With the dawn of the Industrial Age, mass production of babies at last became practical, and most of the small tradesmen who had painstakingly crafted each child by hand were thrown out of work. By the middle nineteenth century, New England had become a world leader in the production of human offspring, and many a New England mill town owed its prosperity to the thriving baby industry.
The twentieth century saw the consolidation, standardization, and eventual decline of the European and North American baby industry; and today most babies are sourced from China and Indonesia, where parts and labor are cheaper, the American and European distributors supplying only a rough design and a basic set of specifications.
Dr. Boli hopes he has answered the question to your satisfaction. He is aware that at times his language has been uncharacteristically graphic; but he has always believed that concealing the facts of life from our young people, no matter how laudable the impulse to preserve their innocence may be, can only have detrimental effects in the end.
ASK DR. BOLI.
Dear Dr. Boli: Why don’t offices and schools use spirit duplicators anymore? They were cheap, they smelled good, and they printed in the most delightful shade of purple. I miss them. —Sincerely, Ursula Burns.
Dear Madam: Spirit duplicators passed out of fashion when a wave of religious fundamentalism swept over the country, causing massive protests and boycotts against any institution found to have dealings with satanic powers. They have been replaced in large measure by duplicating machines that rely on mechanical or electronic technology, rather than the old-fashioned captive demon scribe that used to inhabit every office duplicator in the benighted days of the middle twentieth century. Spirit duplicators may still be found occasionally in junk shops or in on-line auctions, but the incantations that made them work have largely been forgotten.
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ALAS, ALAS, ELISSA.
A Song.
–
ELISSA WAS THE lass’s name, and she was young and pretty.
Her older sister Janet thought it really was a pity
That young Elissa seemed to gather all the male attention.
Now, Janet loved her sister, so she thought she ought to mention
The awful peril she would face if she defied convention.
So, one day, feeling bolder,
She sat her down and told her:
Alas, alas, Elissa!
A lass elicits lust
From men who want to kiss her.
Such men you cannot trust!
The world would never miss her
If she should bite the dust:
So if a man should dis her,
A girl does what she must.
Now, men will tell you, sister, that their hearts are full of honor.
A woman who believes such tales is certainly a goner!
The way of all romantic dalliance leads unto perdition.
To live a life that’s free from men should be your fond ambition.
And if your own heart puts you in a pliable condition,
Then just take up a hobby,
Or play Chopin on your Knabe.
Alas, alas, Elissa!
A lass elicits lust
From men who want to kiss her.
Such men you cannot trust!
The world would never miss her
If she should bite the dust:
So if a man should dis her,
A girl does what she must.
So bolt your doors and shut your windows. Fasten every shutter.
And, if you have to, grease the drainspouts up and down with butter.
And if men corner you some evening when the moon is ripe,
You tell them you can’t lend an ear to their romantic tripe;
But just in case you can’t escape, you carry a lead pipe,
And let them know their flirting
Will only leave them hurting.
Alas, alas, Elissa!
A lass elicits lust
From men who want to kiss her.
Such men you cannot trust!
The world would never miss her
If she should bite the dust:
So if a man should dis her,
A girl does what she must.
DR. BOLI’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MISINFORMATION.
Sporting Edition.
Baseball. Under the terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Pittsburgh Pirates are required to hire players who are really bad at baseball.
Basketball. The average basketball player is about five feet two inches tall, but basketball courts are cleverly designed to make the players look taller.
Curling. The popular Canadian sport of curling evolved from a curious cross-pollination, so to speak, of lawn bowling with housekeeping.
Football. An investigative report by the Dispatch in 2008 revealed that more than 60% of the players on the three football teams investigated were audio-animatronic.
Golf. Because of the continually escalating expense of the equipment involved, sporting bodies have long debated whether to classify golf as a sport or as a form of extortion.
Tennis. The scoring system of tennis is a relic of the days when the sport was practiced by the ancient Belgae as a fertility ritual.
Yachting. In 2003, a number of well-publicized incidents finally forced the World Yachting Commission to ban the longstanding but controversial practice of blowing really hard over and over again into the sails to gain a little extra speed.
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