I have a little skit called 'The Dementia of Professor Happenstance'. It
isn't possible to reproduce its format accurately in e-mail but I've tried
my best. Please note the words of 'our poet' when being asked what it's all
about: 'I dunno, I only work here'. His job is that of doorkeeper.
By e-mail standards it's quite long, though short in reading realities. I
might mention too that Basho was a pseudonym, one of many the writer
employed, which can be translated as 'Mr Banana'. He prospered as a comic
writer.

Anyhow, the Professor, his assistants, the typing baboons and, above all,
Nora below. With the shadowy figure of the Poet in attendance.


David Bircumshaw

Spectare's Web, A Chide's Alphabet
& Painting Without Numbers

http://www.chidesalphabet.org.uk




THE DEMENTIA OF PROFESSOR HAPPENSTANCE

( a reconstruction )

Personae:

Baboon troop with typewriters (p.p. an infinite number of chimpanzees )

Prof. Happenstance, Head of the Laboratory

Morine, a cleaner

Nutt, Boom and Case, assistants on secondment to the lab.

Our Poet, a.k.a. the doorman

Scene:

The Coalville Cavendish Laboratory towards the end of the 20th century. A
room of grey and white terminals and consoles, of flickering green screens,
wire trays stacked high with paper and gleaming metallic tables. A troop of
baboons, each of which is secured to a seat before a typewriter, occupy a
deep cage at one end. Wires from the cage connect to a wall speaker and
screen. The Professor is deep in discussion with his assistants. The baboons
begin to type.


Baboons: To be or not to be, that is the Quested.

 Prof: Excellent. 95% duplication, 100%
                 reduplication of run 107 @ 33b.
                 Gentlemen, I believe we are on
                 the brink of success.

Nutt : Absolutely.
Boom: Indubitably.
Case: Undeniably.

Baboons: A verse, averse, our kingdom is a hearse.

Puzzlement and concern wrinkle the domed foreheads of the scientists. The
assistants peer frantically at readouts.

Nutt: Deterioration of Improbables.
Boom: Unlikeliness
unstable.
Case: Abnormality critical.

Assts(all) Warning! Meltdown! Warning! Meltdown! Warning!
Prof: Enough! Peace. Originality vectors variable.

(at controls)Likeliness of Hackenshaft effect 3.2 rising.
                Reverse typewriter feed, reverse type -
Assts(all) Feed reverse jammed. Feed reverse jammed.
Baboons: Who would not abdenture for such merchant ice?
                Who would not conventure for such parod eyes?
                 This must give us paws, this puddles the Will.
                 LIKEWISE:
                 Thou dost affect the royal in thy speech.
Prof: Overload! Duplication crash. Originality
                  invasion. Breakdown of banality field.
                  Boom, call security. Case, switch -
Baboons: Why what but why what mine but my what why?
Prof: No, no! Order is all. The degradation of
                   the predictability of the impredictable,
                   the control of the uncontrolled, doth rank
                   and steep against the vantage of our state.
                   The very certainty that rests embower'd
                    in the pleasant suburbs of security
                    becomes the beast of madness when the sure
                    and fixed balm of number-reining law
                    turns to a dark hell that munches roses
                    ranked in figured nature on the lawn.
                    That way dementia lies. That way lies.

He begins to break connections, upend terminals, beat at screens. Nutt, Boom
and Case try to restrain him but fail. Worriedly, they confer.

Nutt: Project's end:
Boom: Technicians' meeting:
Case:
Events to ditch:
Assts(all) Our names to save. Records dump and let's unhitch.

They begin to erase records but leave on hearing footsteps

Enter security, in the guise of 'the door', Our Poet.
Poet: Did somebody want me?

The Professor is sitting in front of the baboon cage, making simian noises.
Smoke rises from the terminals, befogging the room.

Baboons: Ill-sits my reason with this heavie houre.
                     The gross enfumed mist that ranks and steeps--

Enter Morine, mop and bucket in hand, cigarette in mouth.

Mor: Nora bleedin' bucket, what a pig-hole. Hoi, gormless,
(to Poet) give us a hand with this. The old prof don't
                     look too good, does he, eh? What's all this about?

Poet: I dunno, I only work here, you know.

They clear up the mess in the smoky room. Poet looks for a fire
extinguisher. The Professor gibbers softly. The baboons type faster and
faster, red lights begin to dance, an alarm sounds bleatingly and a printer
disburdens a mass of sheets.

Poet (reads) 'The Ghost Machine or a Fit in Four Bits'

Puzzled, he tucks the sheets under his arm. He and Morine gently coax the
Professor from the room. The smoke thickens as the plot thins.