Dear Dr. Boli: The box of matches by the kitchen stove says “KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN” in big capital letters on the side. Why does it say that? —Sincerely, Masaharu Morimoto.

Dear Sir: By longstanding convention, boxes of matches are imprinted with slogans embodying a few sage words of advice or folk wisdom, somewhat after the manner of a Chinese fortune cookie. Thus your matchbox bears the motto “Keep away from children”; another from the same manufacturer might say “Look both ways before crossing” or, appropriately enough, “Don’t play with matches”—all good advice, though hardly astonishing insights. Dr. Boli, for example, learned to keep away from children at a very early age.

“A foolish consistency butters no parsnips.”

——Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Fanatic (noun). Anyone who believes that his religious or political opinions are more important than Dr. Boli’s.

Sir: A recent visit to the “public library,” as this demonic institution described itself, proved eye-opening in more than one respect: first, in that I was literally compelled to open my eyes in order to navigate the unfamiliar space (one of the many reasons why I instinctively dislike most of the locations that exist on the wrong side of my front door); and second, in that I was exposed (owing to that unfortunate opening of the eyes aforementioned) to a shocking level of depravity beyond what I had even imagined to exist in the outside world. In this so-called “library” I saw displayed the most appalling variety of books, apparently made available to all comers, without regard to age. We suppose that our children are passing their time innocently slashing their neighbors’ tires or planting explosives under bridges, when in reality they are flocking to these libraries, which derive their very name from the dangerous books contained therein, where no one stops them from perusing the history of the Persian Empire or teaching themselves the principles of Palladian architecture, long before their little minds are ready to absorb such complex information.

Nor are these libraries the only culprits in the dissemination of dangerous information to our young people. Let every library be closed, and there would still be bookstores, where (again the very name tells the tale) books are sold indiscriminately to anyone with a few misappropriated dollars to spend. Even the very Internet, which we mistakenly believed to be a safe refuge from information, abounds with complete texts of books that have been passed from one miscreant to the next for hundreds of years.

Yet as culpable as the peddlers of “literature” may be, surely the most appallingly guilty culprits are the so-called “public schools,” which lure children, often by the most nauseatingly coercive methods, into dens of indoctrination, where they are actually taught to extract the information that has been carefully encoded in books for no other purpose, as far as I can see, than to keep it safely out of their hands.

I can see only one way of saving our children from becoming prey to this relentless onslaught of information they are too young to handle. I call on our newly elected Congress to establish a federal minimum reading age of twenty-one years.

It may be argued that this is a matter for the individual states to decide; but, as with the drinking age, ways can be found, when the matter is of such obvious importance, to circumvent pedantic constitutional questions. Use the federal budget as a weapon. Let it be known that any state refusing to pass a law raising the minimum reading age to twenty-one will receive no more printed copies of the Congressional Record, and the states will fall in line soon enough.

Until then, I call on all parents to exercise vigilance. It is true that the federal government bears the primary responsibility for the care of our young people, but, when the government has clearly been negligent of its duties, it may occasionally become necessary for parents to step in and make up what is lacking in the rearing of their children. If you see your child with a book, take appropriate steps now, before the problem grows beyond all control. Set him down in front of the television, or buy him a pack of cigarettes to occupy his time. Until the government takes the needed action, we must all be on the alert, or this wicked tide of literature will engulf all our children.

Sincerely,
William “Bubba” Shakespeare,
Canonsburg

Dr. Boli’s Comprehensive Atlas of Switchplates. It is well known that styles of electrical outlets vary by country and region, and many fine books have been published that detail the subtle variations in the plates that cover them. Little attention, however, has been given to switchplates, either in their mechanical and technical aspects or as representative samples of regional folk art. Now, at last, we have a true worldwide survey of all the distinctive styles and types of switchplates throughout history. From the primitive mud switchplates of Sumer to the precision-engineered polycarbonate switchplates of the International Space Station, the ubiquitous but too often overlooked switchplate finally gets its due. “The chapter on guardian-angel switchplates made us laugh out loud” —Electrical Subcontractors’ Quarterly Review of Literature.

Emulation (noun). The process of making someone or something into an emu.

 

Translated from Lettres d’un poète parisien, by Udolphe de l’Ennui.

My dear L——,

Autumn is come, with its crisp air and brightly colored leaves. Of such tawdry clichés is nature capable! I despise nature, as I despise everything in Art that is not natural. It is the duty of Art to be true to nature, and only what is natural in Art is praiseworthy. But what is natural in nature is merely commonplace…

Mme La Salle is demanding the rent again, though it is hardly a month since she last demanded it, the greedy bourgeois hussy… I despise her filthy bourgeois greed, and I despise this filthy bourgeois apartment. Yesterday I flung soup at the ceiling to make it filthier, so that I might despise it the more. I tell myself that one must live somewhere, yet something within me asks why—why must one live somewhere instead of nowhere?… This morning Mme La Salle came in and cleaned the soup stains while I was out. She has ruined a good day’s despising…

I was out this morning because I was eating madeleines at the café on the Rue du Nom Disyllable. I despise the empty allurements of bourgeois pastries. But I think I do not despise madeleines as much as I despise the rest. This has provoked a crisis of conscience…

Soon the winter will be upon us, that annual reminder of our mortality, grim metaphor for death. I despise metaphor; and therefore I despise the winter, because it is metaphorical. A season that has not the courage to say what it means directly is despicable;—nay, more than despicable: it is bourgeois. I despise bourgeois seasons as I despise bourgeois bourgeois, with their filthy greed and their petty talk of nothing but money. I know, my dear old friend, that you despise money as much as I do, which you might easily demonstrate by sending 120 francs for the rent.

Yours in misery of soul,

Udolphe.

P.S.—As always, give my love to Mme L—— and all the little L——s.