TONIGHT AT EIGHT.

Dumont Network: Midas Welby, D.O. (medical drama). In the pilot episode, Dr. Welby is mistaken for an orthodontist, with nearly tragic results.

The Brimstone Channel: The Jesus Show, with the Reverend Bob-Bob Lee (religion). Tonight: The Rev. Bob-Bob introduces his new money-back pledge guarantee: a full refund if you end up in hell.

Northern Broadcasting System: Stones of the City (crime drama). This latest entry in the vampire-building-inspector genre follows the adventures of Sam Ionescu, inspector for the city of Washington (Penna.). Tonight: Inspecting a local high school, Sam discovers what he thinks is a secret nest of vampires like him, unaware that all teenage girls dress like that these days.

Metromedia: Al ’n’ Me (comedy). The wacky adventures of best buddies Alexander and Hephaestion as they look for new worlds to conquer. Tonight: Alexander orders an epic to commemorate his victories in India—but the poet delivers a Broadway show instead! A very special musical episode.

Golf Network: The Golf Show (golf). Tonight: Extreme mud golf.

Baldwin Borough Community TV: Baldwin Borough Council Meeting (public affairs). Tonight: An empty room, since a certain council president rescheduled tonight’s meeting without bothering to inform the production manager at Baldwin Borough Community TV.

Wolf Broadcasting Corporation: Fries with That (reality). The hot new reality show that takes ten new college graduates, puts them in dead-end jobs, and leaves them there forever. Tonight: Dawn asks why all she gets to do is hold the flag at the construction site, so her supervisor hands her a backhoe.

The Lawnmower Channel: Dandelion Wars (yardwork). The score so far: Homeowners 3, Dandelions 8,374,752.

Science Central: Ghost Stalkers (documentary). Tonight: A refreshing cool breeze blows in off the river, causing the team’s sensors to go haywire.

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FORTHCOMING WORKS BY DR. BOLI.

Distromachia. An epic poem in twenty-four books, describing in allegorical terms the battle between the various distributions of the Linux operating system. The triumphs, tragedies, humor, and pathos of open-source programming are thrown into sharp relief by casting the story in the Homeric mold. 8vo, 2 vol.

“Demonstrates an almost alarming level of erudition.” —Saturday Evening Hacker.

“The want of an English epic poem worthy to stand with Homer and Virgil has long been remarked. With this work, we see at last that the problem was not any lack of native genius in the English language, but merely a question of the proper choice of subject.” —Dawes’ Monthly Review of Digests.

“The character of Mentha is especially well drawn.” —Dispatch Literary & Real-Estate Supplement.

“Exceeds all similar works in both scope and feeling.” —Open-Source Poetry News.

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ASK DR. BOLI.

Dear Dr. Boli: I find your Allegorical Bestiary columns most edifying. I’ve always wondered: is there any allegorical significance attached to the Giant Cuttlefish (Sepia apama), the common garden slug or Madonna (the performer, not the Blessed Virgin)? —Thanks in advance, A Curious Reader.

Dear Sir or Madam: Allegorically, the Giant Cuttlefish represents Nostalgia. All members of the genus Sepia produce copious amounts of a very useful brown ink, which until recent times was favored both by writers and by artists. Indeed, Dr. Boli still makes use of it for his own writings, as it seems to adapt best to his rather florid pre-Victorian hand. In former times the demand for this ink was so great that gigantic workshops were kept busy night and day expelling ink from cuttlefish. The vast scale of these ink-mills created a fine mist of sepia ink that settled on everything for miles around, tinting it a uniform rich brownish color, as you may see in old drawings and photographs. It is only natural that many people of Dr. Boli’s age should look back with a mixture of fondness and sadness upon this simpler time, now lost forever in our age of mechanical typewriters and synthetic dyes; and it is equally natural that the cuttlefish, whose ink gave that lost world its characteristic tint, should represent that longing, which is the very definition of the word “nostalgia.”

The garden slug, whose genera and species are too numerous to catalogue here, represents the virtue of Resolution, which like the slug flourishes in the dark under the shelter of a strong rock, but when exposed to the harsh light of day, which is to say the reality of human existence, tends to wither and blow away in the first puff of wind.

Dr. Boli was not familiar with this Madonna-the-performer you mention. Having indulged in a bit of Web research, he was struck by a certain similarity, and is therefore inclined to assign her the same allegorical significance as the garden slug.

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DR. BOLI’S ALLEGORICAL BESTIARY.

No. 16.—The Chihuahua.

THE CHIHUAHUA IS a demonic creature of Aztec mythology, somewhat resembling a dog but impossibly tiny. It was the tutelary spirit of Toltec royalty, and adopted from them by the conquering Aztecs, who never stopped to think that it might have done the vanquished more harm than good. It was said that, if an Aztec prince was attacked, the high-pitched yelping of his tutelary Chihuahua would shatter the skull of his opponent. Indeed, the many solid-gold earplugs which Díaz del Castillo records as having been melted down after the Conquest attest to the pervasiveness of this myth among the Mexican upper classes.

Many curious stories about the Chihuahua are told by the superstitious Spanish missionaries. One writes of his failed attempt to exorcise a Chihuahua whose incessant yelping deprived the friars of their slumber for weeks on end; another reports having seen a Chihuahua with his own eyes as it gleefully tore apart the sumptuous tapestries in the governor’s palace. We may spare a smile for the benighted credulity of the monks, but we ought not to suppose that our own age is entirely free from such superstition. The Mexican state of Chihuahua was named for this mythological creature, which local lore insists still inhabits the arid wastelands of the Chihuahua Desert.

Allegorically, the Chihuahua represents Entropy.

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