Posts filed under “Books & Literature”
IN ENTERTAINMENT NEWS.
THE FOLGER SHAKESPEARE Library has announced a new project called “Shakespeare Rebooted,” which will bring Shakespeare up to contemporary standards of storytelling. The project aims to provide a new timeline for the Shakespearean universe that will place all of Shakespeare’s characters in a consistent world. The first production is a Hamlet prequel entitled Aye, Claudius!, which will reveal the tragic origin story of the “Claudius” supervillain character.
ANNOUNCEMENT.
MORE THAN ONE correspondent has expressed a keen desire to see the historical essays published here of late in the form of a book. It is flattering to see so much interest, and it is also very encouraging, since, as Dr. Boli has already mentioned, the book is in preparation, and will be published later this year under the title Dr. Boli’s Complete and Utter History of the World.
Although the book is not ready yet, there can be no harm in releasing this preliminary table of contents, which will serve to keep hope alive in the breasts of those readers whose patience is sorely tried by waiting a few months for the release of the volume they anticipate with such fervor.
A few more chapters from the book will be published here, so that, from the part, readers will be able to form a fair judgment of the whole.
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Dr. Boli’s Complete and Utter History of the World.
1. From the Creation of the Universe to the Dawn of Civilization
2. The Definition and Character of Civilization
3. The Ancient Egyptians, Furnishing and Decorating the Afterlife Since 3150 B.C.
4. The Less Marketable Ancient Civilizations
5. The Israelites Discover Monotheism and Spend Most of the Rest of Their History Trying to Back Out of It
6. The Ancient Greeks Live the Examined Life
7. The Ancient Greeks Invent History
8. Alexander Runs Out of Worlds to Conquer
9. While Rome Conquers the World, Greece Conquers Rome
10. Christianity Ruins Everything
11. The Roman Empire Declines and Falls for 1500 Years Straight
12. Barbarians Everywhere
13. Nothing Happens in the Dark Ages
14. Charlemagne Turns On the Lights
15. The Middle Ages Mistakenly Think Themselves Modern
16. France Invades England; or, England Invades France
17. Europe Pushes the Reset Button
18. The Reformation Eliminates Evil from the World
19. Europeans Discover America; Americans Discover Europeans
20. It Turns Out That the Reformation Left Some Unfinished Business
21. Europe Discovers That the Rest of the World Is Just Sitting There
22. France, England, Spain, Holland, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, and Liechtenstein in North America
23. The French and Indian War Is a Pretty Big Deal
24. Liberty and/or Death
25. So the French Think They Can Have a Revolution, Too
26. Napoleon, the Most Successful Failure in History
27. Americans Throw Their Weight Around
28. Europe Has a Bunch of Revolutions and Stuff
29. Americans Debate the Slavery Question Rather Noisily
30. The North Prospers; the South Gets Reconstructed
31. Suddenly, There’s This Thing Called “Germany”
32. It Looks as Though Africa Might Be Profitable After All
33. Labor Malcontents with Their Unreasonable Demands Ruin Things for the Rest of Us
34. The First World War Is Impossible to Explain
35. The October Revolution Is Delayed Till November
36. The Great Depression Breeds a Snobbishly Thrifty Generation
37. The Second World War Is a Lot Easier to Explain Than the First
38. The Cold War Is Good for Business
39. History Comes to an End
40. Actually, Ignore the Title of the Previous Chapter
DR. BOLI’S LIBRARY OF LOST BOOKS.
No. 11.—Stratagemata, by Hilary of Neapolis.
IN THE ANNALS of lost books, a special interest attaches to those that were deliberately suppressed rather than simply lost to the ravages of time. Such a one was Hilary’s Stratagemata, which dealt with various stratagems that could be used to defeat an enemy. It was suppressed by order of the emperor Vespasian because he considered the stratagems contained in it to be too inhuman for civilized Romans to practice against their enemies. Our only knowledge of this book comes from a few notices in Pliny’s letters, in one of which he describes several of Hilary’s stratagems:
A bladder, which, filled with water, may be hurled or tossed at the enemy general by a skillful ball-player. The sudden drenching will throw him into confusion.
A set of disembodied teeth, which, by a clever mechanism first devised by Hero of Alexandria, are made to chatter with a great deal of noise. They may be placed along the road to strike panic into the enemy’s infantry.
A kind of ink that becomes completely invisible some time after it has been applied to papyrus. It may be used in the writing of treaties which one has no intention of honoring.
An arrow which, by a clever contrivance, is fitted over the head in such a way that the wearer appears to have been shot through the skull. It will terrify enemy soldiers with the belief that the men they are facing are immortal.
A cushion may be made with a concealed bladder, inflated in such a way that, when pressure is applied, the breath escapes with a sound indistinguishable from that of a severe attack of flatulence. The demoralizing effect of several such cushions placed on the chairs of the enemy generals cannot be overestimated.
A jar or small amphora which, when the lid is removed, releases a number of artfully made snakes in such a way that they appear to leap toward the holder of the jar. It has been known to cause attacks of apoplexy in enemy officers.
FREE POSTER.
CLICK ON THE image to download a PDF file; then print it on tabloid-size paper and present it to someone you love.
ASK DR. BOLI.
Dear Dr. Boli: Can you explain to me the difference between humor and satire? —Sincerely, A Professor of Literature.
Dear Sir or Madam: The mission of humor is to make us smile or laugh. “Satire” is a word used to excuse humor that has failed in its mission.
FORTUNE COOKIES.
THE NEXT TIME you decide to bake fortune cookies, you may wish to include a few of these wise and inspiring sayings on the little slips of paper inside them.
You are wise beyond your years, assuming that you are four years old.
Things that you think of as uncertain may be more certain than you think, but possibly not.
People who live in glass houses should grow Phragmipedium orchids.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and you have exceptionally beautiful eyes when you are looking at me.
ERRATUM: The phrase “or a nelk” in the previous fortune should have read “or an elk.”
You have a hidden talent for macramé.
If a man offers you lint, check its quality before buying.
Your lucky animal is the Japanese beetle. Sorry about that.
Be strong like the oak and silent like the—well, like the oak.
BUMPER STICKERS.
DR. BOLI HAS come to the conclusion that the bumper sticker is a kind of formal poetry, the American equivalent of haiku. He therefore counts his own contributions to the art among his poetic works, which will be released posthumously in thirty-four volumes.
Click on the image to download a PDF file, which may be enlarged to any arbitrary size without loss of resolution.
USEFUL ENGLISH PHRASES FOR VISITORS FROM FOREIGN LANDS.
No. 5.—What Time Is It?
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What time is it?
It is three of the clock.
It is eight of the clock.
It is half past seventy-one.
Is that ante-meridiem or post-meridiem?
It is either ante-meridiem or post-meridiem, depending on which side of the earth you stand on.
It is both ante-meridiem and post-meridiem, because I bestride the narrow world like a colossus.
It is neither ante-meridiem nor post-meridiem, because in this enlightened age we have repudiated the outmoded chronicist concept of “noon.”
Are you certain that your clock is correct?
Are you positive that there are seventy-one hours in a day?
My clock is always correct, because it is in constant radio communication with the Foucault pendulum at the Smithsonian Institution.
My clock is never correct, because a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little clocks.
My clock is a regulator, and therefore all other clocks in the house must be set to half past seventy-one.
What time will it be this time tomorrow?
It is not possible to know what time it will be this time tomorrow, because tomorrow is infinitely far away.
It is not possible to know what time it will be this time tomorrow, because it has not been voted on in committee yet.
This time tomorrow it will be a quarter to four last Tuesday.
Do we still have time to get dressed?
Do we still have time to make tea?
Do we still have time to read Proust?
We still have time to read Proust and make tea, but we do not have time to get dressed.
It is too late, because the tea is cold and Proust has already been read by someone else, and that suit is now out of fashion.
Will you meet me tonight at midnight under the full moon?
I will meet you tonight at midnight, but I should prefer not to walk any farther than the moon in the first quarter.
I will meet you tonight at midnight, but you will have to bring the moon with you, as mine is in the shop.
I cannot meet you at midnight, but if you can wait until half past seventy-one I may be able to spare a few minutes.
From DR. BOLI’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MISINFORMATION,
Second Series.
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Typewriter. The replacement of the typewriter by the computer as the commonly preferred writing tool has had unforeseen and largely salutary consequences in the world of literature. Because of distractions like the Internet and computer games, literary statisticians estimate that the world has been spared more than three million insufferably self-indulgent first novels since 1982.
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Did you know that February is International Misinformation Month? If you did not, then you have not been sufficiently misinformed. Fill the gaps in your ignorance with Dr. Boli’s Encyclopedia of Misinformation.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
