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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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April / May 2006 Contest Results |
Monkeys, Cell
Phones and Jelly Beans
By
Erica Glenn, Utah
Several years ago,
I discovered an article which claimed that a monkey whacking randomly at
a typewriter would eventually reproduce Shakespeare's Hamlet. (Newer
articles replace "typewriter" with "IBM ThinkPad" and "Hamlet" with
"Harry Potter.")
This article
fascinated me, not because of its cruel undertones (how long could the
defenseless monkey "whack" -- a word which suggests extreme physical
exertion--before expiring?), not because of its deeper implications
(Shakespeare Wasn't Francis Bacon or Queen Elizabeth: He was Really a
Monkey! -- which sounds like a Darwin ripoff anyway), and not because
its author had obviously overdosed on Lortab ("Mo Tab," as my friend
Rachel would say). Instead, I can sum up my fascination in two words:
randomly whacking.
For some reason, this phrase conjured up delightful images in my mind
and instilled within my heart a longing to randomly whack at something.
No typewriters being readily available, I sat down at my Dell computer
and began smacking and whacking away. This lost its charm and novelty
after a duration of five seconds and an output of "lskdfiooc -skdf928
Dfkha q2RFodfl1." Clearly, I wasn't as clever as the monkey who produced
Hamlet. If only there were some way to ensure that my random whacking
would produce actual words. That's when I had an epiphany!
Ode to T9 Words:
O, thou wonderful cell phone invention!
Thou createst actual words from random whacking
And allowest me to text my friends during theory class,
O, thou tool of joy!
Although thou writest "of" instead of "me"
And "kelly adam" instead of "jelly bean,"
Thou art still manna to my lips and power to my thumbs,
O, T9 setting!
(Note: Much of the world's greatest poetry is unrhymed. Also, much of
the worst.)
So I shuffled into my music theory class, pulled out my cell phone, and
began to randomly whack. It was a transcendent experience. Within 10
seconds, I had given birth to such creative masterpieces as: "Meat tin
are wife oil," "Limp love or day as dim," and "Kul tinkey vinta
hue"--each teeming with more veiled meaning than Shakespeare (or Queen
Elizabeth or monkeys or whatever) could have produced in a lifetime.
I felt
instinctively that I was about to singlehandedly--or rather, double
thumb-ed-ly-- discover a 21st century counterpart to the Infinite Monkey
Theorem of the Dark Ages/Typewriter Days. Then my cell phone rang, my
theory teacher shot me a venomous glare, and the moment of inspiration
was gone. My lofty thoughts plummeted earthward, and I was forced to
analyze John Cage instead of meditating on the mysteries of monkeys and
jelly beans. (Incidentally, John Cage is better known for randomly
whacking at keyboards than most monkeys are!) Ah, well. At least I made
it to the brink of a brilliant breakthrough without the aid of Mo Tab!
But now theory class is over, lunch is hours away, and I forgot to eat
breakfast. I think I'll text my friend Holly and ask her to share her
stash of skittles and "kelly adam"s with "of" (hold the "meat" and "wife
oil," please!)."
http://www.ericaglenn.com
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