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Here is a Sup—I mean repository of the texts of my together with some readings of them. The essays were broadcast by WXXI 91.5 Classical of Rochester, NY on Salmagundy each Saturday at 9:35am Eastern Time, from the beginning of time (1985) till May 2009 when Entropa (evil Goddess of Change-for-the-Worse-or-Possibly-the-Worst) troubled the minds of the WXXIites and they retired Simon and Salmagundy, and Rochester went into a terminal decline---for ever.
I continued on that brilliant bastion of all that's good and kultured, WCLV's syndicated Weekend Radio on many (mainly NPRish) stations traditionally on the first and third weekends of the month, though weekendage varied, till the horror crept ever onward and that too was devoured (in August 2023, a date which will live in infamy or at lease mild irritation)... and only I remain, defiant though wimpering.
Richard Howland-Bolton
There are pop-up pics and links all over the place here. In text they are indicated by a double underline like this:
mouse-overing brings the pop-up up and clicking (usually) goes to the link |
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I suppose Jim-at-Work was just trying to be nice to me, and we all know what a good predictor that is when it comes to the impending doom stakes, but give him his due he was trying. And of course everyone knows my predilection for matters sub-Roman (and not---you purient-minded lot--- just in the case of those sexy sub-Roman sports bras as worn by Guinevere in that otherwise utterly unmemorable, though recentish, Arthur movie).
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One pleasant late morning in early summer and many years ago, I was walking along Monroe Avenue, just past the Co-op, and heading towards downtown Rochester. The Sun was shining. It was warm. There were a fair sprinkling of fellow pedestrians all decked out in their appropriate-for-early-summer clothing. And there walking towards me I noticed a tallish middle-aged black man, slightly overweight, with neatly cropped hair and (and it may seem surprising, in the event that I noticed this, but I did) nicely shined black shoes. He also had a suit of some decent dark material. This too was neat and was neatly folded over his left arm. And there, still in the distance, but rapidly approaching, and with their lights aflashing and their sirens asirencalling, came two police cars to arrest him, or perhaps, since it was just outside the Co-op, to merely suggest that the suit might be better applied as a covering for more of him than just his left arm.
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As unluckier listeners will remember (because I told you last week) I've just been to England again, and whilst I was there me Mum told one of her many amusing wartime stories (and as an aside you should note that all of her wartime stories are without exception amusing, and I haven't yet been able to figure out if this is because, after all this time, it's a case of distance lending amusement, or if she really did have a very funny war) anyway this story involved, at one point, a reference to the forties fashion of wearing stockings with seams down the back and the perceived necessity of drawing artificial seams on bare legs when the exigencies of wartime deprivation rendered the acquisition of actual seams (and of course the stockings that supported them) impossible.
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I just got a memo this morning that claims to be "From the desk of… well never you mind, you know how I always try to avoid embarrassing people in these essays"---and fighting down, with amazingly mature restraint, my immediate reaction to reply "Dear desk, would you please tell your damned owner to send his own bloody memos, and while I’m at it, I rather resent being addressed in such familiar terms by inanimate objects, especially when they are collections of cheap tin, particle board and imitation formica held together with too few screws!"… when I suddenly thought: Why?
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Isn't it exciting! This year we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar (or as we more pretentious folk like to call it--Trafalgar) when the noble English, under the even more noble (well you've just got to ignore that Lady Hamilton ...thing, haven't you?---and what happeved to her and to poor little Horatia afterwards certainly wasn't his fault, so we'll still say...), noble Admiral Lord Nelson, beat those evil, stinky Froggie chappies, who were then (under the auspices of that notorious, Corsicoid, pseudoFroggie, one-armed bandit Napoleon) so intent on world domination, and you'd better forget all that Lafayette crap, because if we hadn't stopped them you can be sure that you Mercans would have been next: and then you'd be sorry---why, you'd have been forced to speak French and eat garlic in bed and even (Oh! Horror!) been forced to eat French fries with every single meal!
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Friday saw my kids all dressed up in their little threadbare monks' habits with their little peg legs and hooks poking out from various orifices and their eye patches all askew: munching on raw turnips and going down the street to school chanting "kirie-eleison! Oh-arrr me hearties!" of course the other kids do make fun of them, and occasionally throw things, but we need to get some momentum going here...
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[Simon introduces Erich von Donkey-Kong, who is having difficulty getting to work through the Can of Worms these days.]
Hello every-vone! It is vell known, is it not, how some 30,000 yearhs ago Ancient Egypt vas visited by pyrhamid building teams of extraterhestial mortitians on fat contracts for ze Pharaohs. Vat however is not so vell known is zat ven these, if ve may so call them, “Sky Gods” firhst arrived on zis planet it vas not to the Old Vorld they vere commink but rather to ze New … World. And in New Yorvik they built some of their most mysteryious and terrhifyink artifacts. Artifacts vhich to zis day are the centre of shtrhange voodoo like coolts.
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Herebeorht, my twelve-year-old, keeps telling me I need to get a life, but I’m sure I have one---it’s just that most of the communicating I do in it involves my fingers rather than my tongue!
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I suppose you might consider it to be a serious character flaw, but I just can’t stop myself from promoting dead people who are somewhat obscure, especially, and with really great delight, if they are deservedly somewhat obscure.
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One thing growing up in Britain gives one is a love of the past and of old ruins. I’ve found that as I’ve become older and more ruinous myself this love of the past has deepend and saddend...
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