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Here is a 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.
But I do continue on that brilliant bastion of all that's good and kultured, on WCLV's syndicated Weekend Radio on many (mainly NPRish) stations traditionally on the first and third weekends of the month, though your weekendage may vary, (these are archived for a couple of months). Richard Howland-Bolton |
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As you probably know I’m a wild, ungovernable Mac-computer-lover ---I have a disgusting tendency to acquire anything Apple. So of course I had the first iPhone just as soon as it was available, even though that involved (I kid you not) entering Willow Bend Mall over the roof of the car park well before opening time. Then, even of courser, when the latest one came out I had no alternative but to upgrade. Such is the life of a junkie, though in mitigation, I must say this new iPhone does have lots of can't-live-withoutishnesses.
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As if us left-wing, science-mad intellectuals weren't getting enough of that old jollies-stuff this year from having the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Rabbie Burns , the four hundredth of Galileo Galilei 's first scoping out of the sky (not to mention ditto of the publication of Kepler's Astronomia nova ), and the eight hundredth anniversary of Cambridge University ; as of the Glorious Twelfth1 of this month, our cup is positively runnething over for all it's worth (and no doubt sloppething all over the carpet) with the two hundredth birthday of Charles Darwin and the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the publication of his Origin of Species---
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I don’t know how on Earth it happened, because lately we’ve been sweltering (relatively speaking) with temperatures up in the seventies down here in Plano, but the other day someone actually brought up that old chestnut about no two snowflakes ever being alike.
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Well here we are once again back at that time of year when all I can think to essay about is pollen: all I can write about is pollen; all I can speak about is pollen; all I can even think about is [Atishoo! Atishoo! --- Atishoo!] bloody pollen.
As I think I’ve told you before, I am a martyr to the sex life of trees.
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[to the tune of the Irish Washerwoman---sort of]
Oh! O’Flaherty’s dead and his brother don’t know it
O’Flaherty’s dead and his brother don’t know it
The trouble it is they’re in the same bed
And neither one knows that the other one’s dead
Oh! O’Flaherty’s dead and ...
and so forth.
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Last time I was going on at some length about the wonderful English pint (particularly the English pint of beer) and how much it was superior to the boring, stunted and pedestrian American pint, and now two (count em--TWO!!) people have proven that I not only have hearers but actual listeners! Who pay attention!!!
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This just in from the News Department:
Genetic Engineering has almost perfected the piranha bunny: and while this is potentially a frightening concept, as they are both prolific and voracious; scientists have yet to overcome their tendency to suffocate both on the land and in the water, so we have nothing much to fear.
Yet.
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Many years ago, when I was even sillier than I now am, and didn't even have my current excuse of incipient senility to account for it; I had a girlfriend, name of Christianne, who had the most strikingly long, stunningly red hair: hair that one might reasonably judge to be, for all practical purposes, unique: hair that stood out in a crowd---Hell, hair that probably stood out in aerial photographs.
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One of the most endearing, enduring and traditional aspects of Modern Science is that it is hedged about with great Principles of Conservation: the Conservation of Momentum, the Conservation of Spin, the Conservation of Energy (which so recently made its successful take-over bid for that oldie but goldie the Conservation of Matter) and so on and so forth, and now, today, we can finally announce an amazing breakthrough.
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I suppose this could be considered a Science Fiction story (though, really, I would like you to remember that everything depends on your point of view), but anyway whatever this is; imagine the following terrible scene:
Fifteen or sixteen thousand square miles (an area, say---just for example, resembling Maryland and Delaware and Washington DC combined--not that I would suggest for one moment that it WAS actually Maryland and Delaware and Washington DC combined): those places reduced to a fused, lifeless, flat plane, scattered with the crushed remains of what might be small furry animals, or might indeed be something far worse; nothing can grow there, not even a blade of grass; above it the very air itself is damaged, blighted, troubled; and what about the inhabitants?---hundreds of thousands dead, many millions more hurt, possibly dying too. And who knows what hulking shapes lumber or hurtle their bulks through this nightmare plain, sometimes blaring their sudden, shocking cries or, as the light dims, glaring lights of a blinding intensity into the gloom.
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