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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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Oh you may crow about the loss of life in the turkey population at Thanksgiving or bay about the wearing of animal skins (as I saw some people were doing on the Beeb news site the other night), but if you are at all sensitive to the sad plight of other species under the fell Hand of Man, spare a thought, during this the month of Christmas, for the Christmas-tree, and for Sudden Christmas-tree Death Syndrome or, as it’s commonly alphabetised, SCTDS.
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As you probably know, when I came to America there were two things I absolutely refused to change. The first was my way of speaking (I’ve never had an accent and I was damned if I was going to get one at that late date); and the other was, of course, my time zone. So when I leave for work of a morning, and it seems to all those Texans about me that it’s a horrendously early 5:30, to me it’s merely a leisurely, eat-your-heart-out-bankers’-hours late start to the working day at half past eleven.
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They tell of an ancient legend, and though I can't for the life of me remember who the original 'they' , the legend (or perhaps it's merely a joke) is that whenever you fly and you check your baggage, whatever your destination happens to be your baggage will always end up in Vladivostok . The only exception to this rule being, of course, if you actually happen to be going to Vadivostok yourself.
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Well I've just realised that it's certainly a bloody vicious, evil old world---or at least an immature, silly and thoughtless one. You see my web site (you do know I have a web site: the final resting place for my dead essays?) my web site has been hacked for about the fifth time, mainly in the last couple of weeks, apparently by people from Turkey, or (with my new plummeting opinion of humanity in mind) perhaps they are people pretending for some unfathomable, but essentially evil reason, to be people from Turkey---or maybe they are just turkeys pretending to be people.
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This won't have a happy ending. It is, indeed, unendingly unhappy, and I don't just mean the essay.
You see...
You see...
You see I've just realised the woeful extent to which Spite is really, really, underrated as a driving force in society.
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I've been (surprise surprise) in England for the last couple of weeks with Raed, my eldest, and his gurl Sara and, in that typically epiphanic way of mine, while I was there something hit me---well, come to think of it, it actually hit me nearly every single time I walked into a shop or other public building, often almost hit me right in the face, each time emphasising just how far the of Richard has proceeded.
It was, of course, the door.
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Most of the time I'm really glad that I'm such a pessimist: I mean what other state of mind could so happily ensure that I've never ever been tempted to gamble? Though there is of course another side to this un-flipped, un-bet-upon coin and that is that, as a pessimist, I can't escape the realisation that pessimism does, indeed, have its slight disadvantages: the main one for me as a technophile being that I have a tendency to rehearse over and over again how terribly thin is the thread that modern high-tech life dangles from---it's like the story of Damocles told from the sword's POV. I mean there you are way up high and hanging by a thread dangling day after day in terror of falling, and hoping above hope that when the inevitable happens to your thread that there also happens to be some guy, and preferably a big fat one, sitting under you on the throne to break your fall and save you from getting a really nasty, painful chip knocked out of your point.
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Now! Quickly and without looking it up: when are the Twelve Days of Christmas? Come on---come on: you should know this. And you can stop all that furtive counting backwards on your fingers and ...Yeuch!... put your sock back on! Right Now!!
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Forget the fearful Turkey-Caust of Thanksgiving: ignore the ignoble ritual disfigurement of Easter Eggs at Easter: fail to notice the nauseating calumnies heaped upon witches at Halloween: completely miss the malicious bonfiring of Guys just after that on the fifth of November (even though, since that's only in England I don't suppose it should matter too much to YOU)---But DO NOT, do not ever, or for one moment forget, ignore, fail to notice or completely miss the tragic plight and sad, sad fate at this otherwise joyous time of year of. . . ---the sad fate of... ---of... CHRISTMAS TREES!!!
Onward to the Original!... |
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The month of Christmas is probably the best time of year for us to look at our roots - as it is for the Christmas trees to look to their roots, and for all of us to maintain that vague pathetic hope that we still have some. And so it is at this time of year, when we all get so sensitive and sentimental and even downright maudlin, it seems so much easier for us to look fondly back at the last couple of millennia and ask ourselves “What went wrong?”
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