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, which is short for Mormon Tabernacle Choir). 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!).
