art – Robert Garnham

Professor Zazzo Investigates – 12. Literary Self-Reconfiguration

LITERARY SELF-RECONFIGURATION

Nobody believes it possible that a novel, left unopened on the shelf of a library, say, or a private house, might alter its substance internally, subtly, change paragraphs here and there, the exact wording of certain phrases, even its slant or view on one subject or another, that the next time the book is read it has altered enough to be a new book entirely. Is it not conceivable that the human brain – surely a more complex and rich piece of equipment than a humble novel – might approach, each time, the novel in exactly the frame of mind, only to find the novel changed? Such a prognosis had to be investigated

It took years to find an institution where my ideas would find support. Most universities and research facilities shied away from such a controversial approach, while many did not even answer my letters of inquiry. As luck would have it, one of the last institutions I contacted responded with a letter not only of interest, but a research team of my own to investigate the phenomenon of literary self-reconfiguration. When I visited the institute and asked who it was who had shown such an interest in my ideas – for I hardly believed the news myself – I was introduced to a humble man by the name of Professor Zazzo Thim.

We hit it off immediately, the professor and I. He took me to a local cafe where, over steaming mugs of hot chocolate, he enthused over the implications that literary self-reconfiguration had on the world at large.

‘Don’t you understand’, he said. ‘For so long we have thought that each generation attempted a wealth of literature from the past from a slightly different angle. Now it seems that it is the books which change, that human consciousness remains the same’.

‘Indeed’, I agreed. ‘Is it not indicative of human weakness of character that we have assumed our race to be getting less intelligent when, all the time, it is literature itself which is altering, mutating? If you read subsection three of my report, you will find that I blame most chemicals used in the production of ink for the changes which are taking place in classical literature. It seems the older the volume, the more changes there have been. The character Polonius, for example, has almost been edited out of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, while Esmerelda has negotiated such a large part for herself in Hugo’s ‘Notre Dame’ that the whole hunchback issue is now nothing but a sub-plot. This is an important issue, and one which we must address with considerable haste’

The old professor looked down at his fingers on the surface of the cafe table. Feebly, he threw his scarf over his shoulder, then looked at me with sad, red eyes. ‘This’, he whispered, ‘Could very well be my last adventure in literature. Unlike the average novel, I am no more timeless than the common sparrow. This investigation will give me the chance to approach life with some meaning each morning, and I look forward to that one moment of discovery where all mysteries are solved’. He lifted up his hand, which I shook, delicately, in fear that I may hurt the old man’s fingers. At last he smiled, bravely. To us’, he said, ‘And literary self-reconfiguraton.’

We began our investigations on a windy Tuesday morning. The old library in which we’d set up our equipment seemed to shake and shudder with each gust, while the tall, gothic windows at the far end of the room whistled and moaned, as if the books themselves were trying to expel us from the building. An ethereal, overcast light spilled into the room, tinged green and red by the stained glass of the upper windows. Zazzo was in his element, scampering between the rows of books and leaning over the railings of the upper gallery, waving his walking stick in the air and declaring that literature shall hide no secrets from us!’ At last we settled around a large table on the ground floor, placing several books open, flat on the desk, under the omnipotent gaze of a high-powered lamp and several cameras.

‘And now’, I told the old man, ‘We sit back and wait.

Zazzo parked himself on an old librarian’s chair at the side of the table, and leaned his chin on the top of his cane. I sat on the other side of him, and, over our equipment, regarded his form somewhat enviously. How like Zazzo I truly wanted to be! A man who had dedicated his whole life to fiction, to the glare of words printed on the page, the honesty of their grammar, the timelessness of ancient stories, modernist experimentations. Likewise, Zazzo stared back at me, hardly shifting from his pose as if he didn’t want to budge an inch from his chair. How obstinate in character, how determined to have carved such a life for himself. He saw me, I was sure, as a rival, as an usurper wishing to take his crown, and claim his glory for myself.

Barely five minutes into our experiment, and I decided I would have to show the world that this was all my own work.

‘Why don’t you go home?’, I asked him, ‘And have yourself a rest?’

He looked up at me. ‘What for?’

‘It’s very unlikely that we shall make any advancements in our first few hours. You must be tired from your exertions’

‘Nonsense’, he laughed. ‘On the contrary, I am in my element. Having lived a life so defined by books and ancient volumes, fear it is you, my young friend, who should leave me be, that I may commune my soul to whatever internal spirit holds this magnificent library together’.

The crafty old man! Already he was trying to hide me from my moment of glory! How senseless I had been to the logic and temperament of this aged professor! That he, in his twilight years, should claim all the plaudits and the celebrations! I’m staying right here, I told him, crossing my arms, defiantly, across my chest.

And so we remained, for the next six hours, silent, quietly seething from across the desk. I decided I would have to take drastic measures.

I spent the night in a cheap hotel not far from the library where, amid the damp bedclothes and the peeling wallpaper, and entertained only by the music from passing cars, the rhythmical grunting from the brothel nextdoor, I carefully removed half a dozen pages from a number of volumes and then, under a magnifying glass, re-arranged certain words and nuances of grammar to create, while not a new work in themselves, a mere variation on the same theme.

It was eleven ‘o’clock when the pounding music started, a sleazy thump-thump through the thin walls which vibrated the table on which I worked and caused the cheap decorative pictures to swing ever so slightly in their frames. Yet I hardly noticed any of it, so intent was I in carrying out my fiendish plan.

And oh, what a joy I had in my endeavours! I went to bed that night with an image of the aged professor, Zazzo Thim, dressed in a mothballed tuxedo, explaining to the gathered scientists and members of literary circles his theory of self-reconfiguration, only to be shocked, dismayed as I stand, waving a pair of scissors and a stick of glue, declaring his whole research to be nothing but a hoax, an ill-timed, unmitigated disaster! And how I would chuckle to myself, using a scalpel to remove the words, the letters, even the punctuation of Jane Austen’s

‘Mansfield Park’, only to replace them just millimeters to the left or the right. The sweet joy of my conquest!

Yet my labours were not without stress. Each night, the tenant of the room next to my own would, quite regularly, indulge his passions with one of the young ladies from the lower floor. At first, the excitement of my quest meant that his exertions were nothing but a minor distraction, but soon I could concentrate on nothing else but his seemingly endless enthusiasm for the opposite sex, his insatiable desire to explore every avenue in his lovemaking repertoire.

As the season drew on the nights became hotter, until I reduced myself to banging on the wall with a hardback copy of Ivanhoe, desperately, the tears running down my sweating face, the tiny letters I had cut from the volume flying into the air and landing around me like a perfect snow. I knew I would have to finish my project very soon.

Slowly, I would replace the books in the library on the table in front of my aged colleague. Yet the old fool would not notice a change in them, nor did he spot the more glaring alterations – such as the new sub-plot in Wuthering Heights dealing with a harlequin on a pogo-stick. Yet he was so worried about his appearance to me that he would get up every now and then, tinker with the electronic gadgets we had assembled on the next table, adjust the lense of the camera, bend the light closer to the table.

‘Nothing again today’, he would say.

‘Really? Oh dear, what a shame. I must bow – as ever – to your superior knowledge’.

No matter how significant the change, Zazzo Thim did not spot a thing. And such lengths I went to! I changed the rhyme scheme of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady sonnets from iambic pentameter to twenty-five syllables each line. I removed all of the exclamation marks from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I inserted a product endorsement for Coca-Cola halfway through the Canterbury Tales. Yet nothing I could do registered with Zazzo Thim. How obstinate he remained in his ignorance.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, stranger things started to occur. In the odd moments that Zazzo left his post to visit the toilet, I would open some of the books at random to admire my handiwork, only to find that the novels had gone back to their original states, that the extra syllables had vanished, that certain lines were printed exactly as the original writers had intended. At first I was perplexed, but then I realised that there was a greater significance at work. Rather than reconfigure themselves, I now knew that books had the ability to heal themselves whatever damage had occurred to them. Oh, the possibilites! started to see that Zazzo’s supposed discovery would be nothing compared to this new twist!

Each night I left the gothic library and returned to my dreary hotel. I knew there was only the one course open to me – I would have to eradicate every mention of a whale from Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’. Zazzo would discover this anomaly and present it to the world, only for me to step in with my greater discovery. It was a mammoth task and would need all night to carry out my fiendish plot before, that next morning, allowing Thim to discover the latest reconfiguration by himself. I sat down at the desk at eight ‘o’clock with a scalpel, a magnifying glass and a tube of Uhu, and began work on chapter one feeling within me the persistence of a marathon runner, the tenacity of a soldier in battle.

At eleven ‘o’clock the man next door began his aerobics. At first I tried to expel it from my mind, and concentrate on the task at hand. Yet the more resolved to dedicate myself to my work, the more his grunting and pleasured yelping began to intensity, until the bedsprings seemed as if they were attached to my eardrums and the banging of the bedhead against the wall was occurring right on the very top of my scalp. The sweat began to pour from my head and my clumsy fingers began to miss their mark, until I accidentally edited Queueg from a vital scene involving a bar-room brawl. In trying to make amends for this error, went too tar and gave Captain Ahab two legs, and then, when trying to cut one of them off again, forgot which one it was that he had originally lost. Bang, bang, bang, grunt, grunt, grunt. I wiped my arm across my eyes, the tiny scissors stuck on my thumb. Oh, Melissa! Melissa. Grunt, grunt, grunt! I picked up a spare page to fan myself only to see Jim from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island insert himself in the text. Grunt, grunt, grunt! And that’s when I flipped. I stood up, opened my door, marched down the passageway and pounded on the door of my neighbour. ‘For God’s sake!’, I yelled, ‘Cease this unending barrage of noise! Rest for an hour, and allow the female species at least some respite from your neverending appetite! For goodness sake, what stamina can a man possibly have to keep up such endeavours hour after hour! Can’t you see, you’re driving me mad?’.

The door opened at last, and Professor Zazzo Thim stood before me, quite naked apart from a towel, while Melissa looked over his shoulder.

‘Was I keeping you up?’ he asked

‘Don’t you understand what you have done to me?’, I asked. ‘You’ve made my life a living hell! How can I possibly work when you are busily satisfying whatever cravings that ancient body can still afford? You have ruined these last few weeks for me, and caused a hole deep in my psyche! How can I ever finish my work?’

‘What work?’, he asked.

‘Well, erm…. The point is, your incessant lovemaking has been a severe distraction to me!’

‘Lovemaking?’, the old man asked. ‘Melissa, here, is showing me how to use the pogo stick. It’s something l.. read somewhere.

‘Pogo stick?’, I stuttered

‘In any case, what work could you possibly have away from the library?’

The moment I looked over his shoulder, I knew what was occurring. On the desk against the wall I saw, much like in my own room, a couple of volumes, a scalpel, a magnifying glass, and a tube of Uhu. The old fool was taking the books I had altered home from the library, and changing them back! So keen was he that I should not discover the self-reconfiguration, that he was eliminating all evidence before I could find it! Or was it all a trap? Was he making me believe that the books were mending themselves, that I should announce to the world this miraculous literary discovery only to be laughed at, as I had planned for him? He glared at me, and I glared right back at him.

‘I’m putting the kettle on’, Melissa said.

Of course, the part that hurt the most was that he was able to spend more time on his hobbies than on the execution of his own plan. No wonder he looked so tired at the library, I told myself.

And yet, what a genius, that he should carry out such a plan with such elan, with such cunning and dedication to his task.

We met at the library again the next day, and sat on either side of the table. And there we sat, for the next five months, not noticing anything except the arrival of dust mites, until our funding was, eventually, transferred to another area.

Professor Zazzo Investigates 11- The Conception and Execution of the Collard

THE CONCEPTION AND EXECUTION OF THE COLLARD

1. My name is Professor Barry Worthington.

2. My office is accessible only by a labyrinth of corridors and hallways at the University where I work, a gothic, stone structure with courtyards and spiral staircases which, if viewed from above, would resemble the inner workings of the human mind. My room has no windows, and no decoration except for a large desk, a book shelf, a radiator, a chair, a coat-stand. The green carpet is held in place by masking tape, while the walls, which long ago were painted cream, have now been reduced to a stale grey.

A colleague and I have, for some months now, argued over the validity of a certain punctuation mark known as the collard. Its use and development began two years ago in the metafiction department downstairs when a simple typing error resulted in a random mark which, when viewed on the page, resembled nothing more than an unvoiced break in the flow of the letters on the page. The collard then, in the manner of all great fashions, was adopted by the most cunning of the students in their essays, and then by one or two trendier professors, until its proliferation was declared an epidemic in the end of year report. We have now reached the point where the collard appears in everything, from the deepest, most academic report into symbolism in the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, to the sign in the corridor outside which reads Fire E°xit.

My eminent colleague, Professor Zazzo Thim, celebrates the collard as proof that the English language is evolving before our eyes, and that the necessary acrobatics needed to type this meaningless symbol are suffered willingly by writers and students alike just to see it grace the page. Thim is excited by the collard, and has even published a short paper on how the collard can be represented in different type fonts for maximum effect. Yet I do not share his enthusiasm. The collard has spread throughout our department like a virus, infecting even the most mundane hand-written note, to such an effect that the whole of the east wing has been quarantined until a solution is found to the problem at hand. Yet Thim is hostile towards me, a representative of the pre-collard world who has, so far, managed not to infect my writings with that bizarre, inconsequential symbol.

‘A solution must be found’, I tell him.

He is nonplussed, he waves his arms like the sails of a windmill and he says: Let the collard live! Writing has never felt so vibrant as when it is affected by this mark!’ Excitedly, he pounds his fist upon the dining hall table.

‘Our output will be scorned by the world’, I whisper.

‘Nonsense! We will be adored! The collard will escape the stone boundaries of this institution and take over the world! Our future will be assured!’

So enthusiastic is Zazzo that he twirls his cane around in a circle which disturbs the cobwebs hanging above our heads.

‘The collard’, I whisper, Will be our ruin. The whole department will be ruined. The collard will die within a couple of years and reduce everything we have written to that of an unfashionable age’.

‘It will give our work style and substance! No other work will be confused with ours! The collard will be our call sign, we shall be the envy of the world!’ I have no choice but to challenge him to a duel.

3. The department is a-buzz with our feud and groups of students congregate around our offices to offer their support and opinion on the merits and the dis-merits of the collard and our positions thereon. Yet despite the controversy, the proliferation of the collard continues. It seems th*at there is nothing I can do to stop its advance throughout the building, while the conditions of the quarantine demand that the students sleep in the hallways, or crowded in my office around the radiator. The whole university is a breeding ground of bad punctuation, a crazy fad with Zazzo Thim as the high priest.

And oh, how he loves his position among them! Thrice weekly he holds seminars in his office in which the collard is deba*ted, dissected, put back together again, even copyrighted in case another, unscrupulous university might come along and steal his precious gem. Like a crazed scientist, he spends hours at his desk, inserting collards into the most famous texts: the Bible, the Canterbut°ry Tales, the Koran, until, with a childish glee at seeing the even lines and narratives of these great works spoiled forever by that hateful symbol, he sits back in his desk with a big smile on his face.

How I look forward to our duel! Whatever the outcome, I know I will be acting for the best interests of the English language, and for literature in general!

4. There has been a development. Last night, a group of students managed to evade security, and this afternoon there was the first report of a collard inserted deep in the thesis of a biology student from the west wing. Pandemonium ensued; the whole building has been buzzing with a slow panic, the hushed whispers of those who aim to see the collard take on the world, the frightened scampering of those who, for fear of their grammar, refuse to stay still for too long. And all the time I can hear Zazzo Thim in the room next to mine, laughing, interlacing his fingers and cracking his arthritic knuckles, drumming his fingertips on the desk in front of him as the collard takes another victim.

Zazzo Thim must perish.

5. There have been moments in my I°ife when I would have welcomed any advance in the language which we use, for proof that it would adapt to certain conditions under which we live, yet the last few years have been particular repellent in that grammar and spelling have suffered at the hands of mobile telephone text devices and the common E-mail address. Enraged by the compacted, lower-case stylings of my first E-mail address, in which I was unable to print my name in the manner in which I have long used it myself, I decided would embark upon a programme of protection, in order that the language we use should never be defeated by modern technology or, even worse, vulgar Americanisms. Such thoughts come to me now, as I sharpen my pencil and plot the best method by which I shall slay the devious Zazzo Thim. can hear him now, giving a lecture on the poetry and exoticism now evident in our writings since the collard was adopted. How excited he is that a Japanese student, in an E-mail home to her family, managed to secrete two collards into her dense Japanese script and, thereby, spread its beauty to the far east. I groan as I hear this news, to think of that beautiful, artistic language sullied forever. Zazzo Thim must perish!

6. It is time now.

We are gathered in the quadrangle, surrounded by the grey walls of this once-esteemed centre of learning. Students surround us, youngsters wearing T-shirts, many of which are decorated with that hateful device. The manner by which our duel will take has been decided by a council of impartial observers, students with no strong leanings one way or the other, who may or may not have dabbled with the collard. Professor Zazzo Thim grins as he meets his entourage. The old man, I note, has become more sprightly of late, a spring in his step as he +° traverses the endless corridors of this institution. How I shall ache to put him out of his misery, yet it is a duty, a solemn duty which I must perform.

The rules of our duel are simple: we shall both, on the count of three, sit down on opposite sides of a desk and write a haiku which explains, in simple language and observing all the rules of that genre, whatever position we take on the collard. I know I have the advantage; Zazzo is a man of blasé taste and artless fortune, a man for whom poetry is nothing but a blowing of the nose before the pen commits to proper literature. Yet I am a romantic, a strong believer in the power of words.

We stare at each other across the table. He glowers with a fool’s intent. The leather patches on his elbows glisten in the sun where he has worn them leaning on desks, against the walls of his classroom. His white hair is illuminated by the sun, and, with a desperate claw, he pats it down as if conscious of my gaze. At last the count of three is heard

He writes first, bends down, I hear his pen scratching and the table move as, with energy, he marks the page. I notice the acrobatics of his hand as he adds a collard or two to his lines, the bony flesh, the thumb and forefinger shaped around the shaft of his pencil. At last he finishes, looks up, hands the paper to a nearby student, who coughs once, holds up the paper for all to see:

‘There once was a ma®n from Dumfries

Who one day said to his niece

‘It°f you remt°ain a dullard And fail to use a collard,

It will have to be °a matter for the police.

The quadrangle is alive with the sound of laughter. Oh, sweet victory! That the old fool should have, in his moment of prime, mistaken a haiku for a limerick! Oh, the beauteous euphoria! Yet I must perform my duty, I must actually set to writing my haiku for the contest to remain valid. A calm comes over the crowd. I start to write the first line:

evening glories of

My senses heightened, I felt a rush within me from the power of literature. The second line comes, and I write on the page:

unquestionable faith in

only for the moment to become dizzy, the victory, scented by my fair hand as it grips tighter the pen, that magic tingle which comes from knowing one has been proven. Yet the tingle persists. look up, worried that things may be going astray. On the air, from the grey head of Lazzo Thim, and sparkling in the afternoon sun, curling on the slanted beam shot through the surrounding trees, a dust, a dandruff, a remnant of chalk from the old man’s jacket as a sneeze builds up in my nose and I strive to complete the last line:

divine poetry

only for the sneeze to escape me on the completion of the last letter, causing the pencil to slide, crazily, across the page

divine poetry__________________________________

I am given a round of applause, of course.

7. The Worthington becomes the latest craze. It appears everywhere, from official documents to the dining hall menu. Delighted by this latest turn of events, the paper industry, sensing the amount of paper that might be consumed by the extraordinary length of the Worthington, celebrates our achievement with a healthy grant, while the anti-collard quarantine is lifted.

Professor Zazzo Thim comes to my room. Sheepish, he looks down at the carpet. ‘I am’, he says, ‘A humble man in such matters. But the conception of the Worthington, and its appearance at the duel, was a masterstroke’.

‘Unintended, I can assure you’, I reply

‘Yet the Worthington has put this college on the world map. It has spread around the world, into every place where English is written. And you know, children world-wide have even developed a vocal Worthington? It sounds, I am told, very much like a sneeze, and it peppers conversations everywhere. If you turn on MTV, you’ll hear it all the time’.

‘I’m flattered’, I whisper.

‘Though of course’, the Professor continues, ‘I can’t say that I totally agree..:

We stare at each other for a while. Eventually he leaves the room, and 1 hear him next door in his office, cracking his knuckles once again. He still has an affection for the collard, I believe, though he sees the Worthington as its natural progression. He says he even foresees a time when the whole page will be taken up by Worthingtons, the true meaning of the page lost forever, concealed, heralding a new age in communication only by grunts and hand signals. He says he can hardly wait __________________________________

Mr. Bassman – A Poem

Mr Bassman

Oh Mr Bassman,
you’ve got that c-certain s-something
when you go . . .

Believe it or not
that was my dad’s favourite song.
he used to sing it all the time
when we were kids.

Oh Mr Bassman,
you’ve got that c-certain s-something
when you go . . .
A-aye yi
a-aye yi aye yi

I had no idea what it was about.
Neither did my sister.
neither did my dad.
what even is a bassman?
I was too young to know much about music.
I just thought it was a man
who really liked skirting boards.

Oh Mr Bassman,
you’ve got that c-certain s-something
when you go . . .
A-aye yi
a-aye yi aye yi
I wanna be a bassman too.

I think he only sung it to us
because it had weird sounds in it.
The only other song he sang a lot
was
I’m late, I’m late,
for a very important date.
no time to say hello goodbye
I’m late I’m late I’m late.
But Mr Bassman.
Oh, Mr Bassman was the thing.

Oh Mr Bassman,
you’ve got that c-certain s-something
when you go . . .
A-aye yi
a-aye yi aye yi
I wanna be a bassman too.
Bur b-b-bur b-b-bur b-b-bur b-bur bur

I was listening to the radio.
It was Sounds of the Sixties
presented by Brian Mathews.
(‘This is your old mate Brian Mathews saying,
that’s your lot for this week,
see you next week’).
And he said,
The next song is from
1961
And it was a minor hit for Johnny Cymbal
and it’s called
Mr Bassman,
and seriously,
it was like a kick in the goolies.

And the song started.
and the song played.
and the song came out of the radio
and all this time I’d thought it was just a song
that my dad had made up
and all the time I thought it was a piece of genius
that my dad had made up
and I tell you that a small piece of my childhood
suddenly dissolved.

but the more I listened,
the more I thought, oh, he’s doing it wrong.
Johnny Cymbal has cocked it up.
Johnny Cymbal is singing the wrong words.
This is nothing like the song my dad used to sing.
this is not how the song goes.
this is not how the song goes.
THIS
is how the song goes.

Oh Mr Bassman,
you’ve got that c-certain s-something
when you go . . .
A-aye yi
a-aye yi aye yi
I wanna be a bassman too.
Bur b-b-bur b-b-bur b-b-bur b-bur bur
BUR BUR BURRR B-B-B-BURR BURR!

(Pause).

Anyway,
Just thought I’d tell you that.
I’d better be off, now.
I’d better be off.

Professor Zazzo Investigates- 8. The Law of Infinite Reverse Criticism

THE LAW OF INFINITE REVERSE CRITICISM

I believe it was Professor Zazzo Thiim who first conceived of a branch of criticism which, in its entirety, was devoted to the criticism of criticism. For a while, only those in academic circles were aware of this new science, and the principals to which it could be attached. The theory of Reverse Criticism, it was hinted at the time, might be applied not only to literature and the arts, but also to other facets of human conscience and philosophic living. It was an interesting concept, and, more than a subtle joke, a hypothesis which demanded attention before, inevitably, it was superseded by the next fashion, the next phase. However, it seems only the one proponent has not completely abandoned the concept, and indeed, has made it the basis of his life work. And this man? None other than Professor Zazzo Thim himself.

I first became aware of his work when I met him at an art gallery. It was one of those evening exhibitions open only to members of the gallery, in which work by a substantial artist, working in water colours,based on the life cycle of the grizzly bear, was being displayed for the first time. I noticed the Professor, a tall, white-haired man with a long scarf, working his way around the room and peering at the notes being taken by various critics. Indeed, it seemed he was more interested in the notes than the actual work hung around us. At last I managed to make my introduction.

‘A civilisation’, said he, ‘Is defined through its art critics. Every facet of its aesthetic life is categorised, pondered, and probed by those who profess to know better, or at least, those who offer advice on the protocols and temperaments observed’

‘And?’ I asked.

‘The point is, most of them have appalling handwriting

I frowned, and started to walk away, but then the old man reached out and grabbed my arm.

‘Think of it!’, he said, excitedly. ‘There are but two layers – those who can, and those who criticise. Remember the old maxim – ‘those who can, do, those who can’t, teach?’

I nodded.

‘What if there was another level? A level of those who can but decide not to? A civilisation in which even criticism is criticised, can only be a better place’.

That night I went back to his office and he showed me some of his work. There were folders filled with script, reviews of art criticism, literary criticism. One critic was pointed out as having a more than average dependency on adverbs, another used too many paragraphs.

The most interesting review was that of a literary critic who, according to Thim’s report, had made the mistake of reading James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ while wearing a hat. ‘A trilby, perhaps’, Thiim had written. ‘Even a beret, but certainly not a bowler! How can one ever have confidence in, or an affinity with, the content of the book they are reading, with a bowler hat perched on the top of their head?

I soon became friends with the formidable Professor Thim and we would meet at least once a week so that I could read more of his Reverse Criticism. Yet towards the middle of this year there was something of a crisis, hinted at only in the fact that his secretary had phoned and warned me not to come for a couple of weeks. When one morning I finally insisted I arrive and carry on with my reading unhindered – using the flimsy excuse of a post-graduate thesis in the role of the critic – she told me that the Professor had been taken ill, and that the department could not be as accommodating as they had previously been.

I arrived in any case, as if everything were the same. His office seemed fairly normal, though there was no sign of the Professor. As was my practice, I sat myself at his desk and leafed through one of his collections, although I did note that the book itself had been rearranged and some of the pages taken out. Half an hour passed with no sign of the Professor, and I was in the middle of making some notes for myself when the door opened.

‘Ah’, said a rather pleasant, middle-aged man. I was led to believe that nobody would be here’.

I stood from the desk, feeling rather sheepish. ‘I rather bullied the secretary, I’m afraid’.

‘Yes’, said the man, leaning back and placing his hands in his pockets. ‘All very sad, isn’t it?’

I asked what he meant, and watched as his face folded first into shock, then a well-meaning affectation of acceptance. ‘Zazzo’, said he, ‘Is very ill’.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It all started a few weeks ago.’ The man sat down on the other side of Thim’s desk and lit his pipe, an object which seemed to juxtapose with his relative youth. ‘My dear colleague had just returned from a production of Romeo and Juliet, and he was anxious to catch the first of the play’s reviews, that he might begin to dissemble them as was usual for him. Indeed, he was particularly excited, having clearly seen one of the critics picking his nose during the balcony scene. How could a critic properly criticise one of the key scenes in such a state? Zazzo wanted to begin work immediately. Ah, the poor fool. How tenaciously he clung to that outdated philosophy, and look what harm it has done him’.

‘What?’ I asked, impatiently. ‘What happened?’

‘While waiting for the reviews he sat down right here and began leafing through that selfsame folder, the one in which he had kept all of his Reverse Criticisms since he had first conceived of it. And what do you think occurred? He began criticising his own criticisms, themselves criticisms of criticisms. And when he had finished that, he looked at what he had written and decided that these, too, needed criticising. But this did not satisfy him, so he criticised the criticisms of criticisms of criticisms of criticisms, until he was literally spinning in circles, frantic that the cycle of event and criticism would never be broken. You see, each new criticism was a separate event, a new work worthy of classification’. My new companion looked down at his lap. ‘The poor man. He hasn’t stopped since.

‘And where is he now?’ I asked

‘He has been confined to the medical centre. A nurse administers whatever help she can, but Thim will not rest until he thinks his job is complete. Yet it does not take a genius to work out that his work will never be finished. Oh, poor Zazzo. Poor Nurse! How she suffers, merely trying to do her job’.

‘Why?’ I asked

‘Because he keeps criticising her!’

For a while we both sat there and pondered the fate of our mutual friend. What a delirious, hateful circle he had invented.

When Zazzo Thiim was judged to have improved sufficiently to leave the medical centre, myself and a few of his colleagues decided to throw a party on his behalf. The middle-aged academic I had met in his room – Doctor Hubert Worthington – had by now become a close friend too, and we had spent the last couple of weeks planning how we would handle the Professor when he returned.

We had decided that there would be no criticism, not the slightest word for or against any aspect of our lives. Worthington suggested we shield Thiim from any work of art but, in an institution such as ours, this would almost certainly be impossible. The most important aspect of his return would be that there was no mention of the illness he had just suffered, or the reasons behind that illness. Apart from this, it was assumed that everything would go according to plan.

The party was held in the main canteen of the building, and it was dutifully and respectfully attended by colleagues and students alike. The illness that had befallen Thiim had been worrying for us all, for he, despite his eccentricities, had always been respected and well-liked.

The tables were spread with a buffet lunch and there were several bottles of white wine on a side-table. The chatter in the room was low-level and jovial, as if everyone was conscious that they were in the presence of a sensitive man. Thiim himself was happy, oblivious to the concern of his contemporaries, and he held court at the buffet table, explaining in great detail the hidden significance of works as diverse as Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’, Michelangelo’s ‘David’ and the Postman Pat books.

Of course, I was especially anxious about meeting the Professor again, for our association had been built around the concept of Reverse Criticism, the very theory which had resulted in his illness. Yet the moment Thim saw me he opened his arms wide and greeted me with such friendliness that it was obvious he didn’t blame me at all.

‘My friend’, he said. ‘How are you?’

Choosing my words carefully, so as not to hint at any criticism, I said: ‘How well aren’t I?

‘My word’, he said, throwing the end of his scarf over his shoulder. ‘The weather’s taken a turn for the worse, hasn’t it?’

‘It’s colder than it was yesterday’, I agreed, without the slightest criticism.

‘I must say, I do like your jumper’, he said, bending over and peering at the stitching.

‘Good’, I said.

We stared at each other for a moment.

‘Well’, he said. He looked at his watch. ‘I suppose I’d better mingle. After all, isn’t that what this party’s for?’

‘Yes’, I agreed.

I didn’t see much of the Professor after this, although I could tell from the various conversations he was having with his colleagues that they, too, were as cagey as I had been in their replies to his questions. For some reason, I gravitated towards Doctor Hubert and the Nurse, who were sipping white wine in the corner of the canteen.

‘How does he seem?’ I asked.

The Nurse frowned. ‘It’s hard to say. Some people can be remarkably resilient after a period such as his. I would say, just by looking at him, that he has recovered most of his faculties. However, we must still be careful

‘You mean’, said Hubert, ‘That something could set it off again?’

‘Absolutely. And he could suffer as a result. His illness – I am sorry to say – would be much worse than it was before’.

This was not good news, and I was dispatched round the room to warn the other guests that Thiim could suffer a relapse at the slightest mention of any criticism. However, the mood of the party did not suffer as a result, and Thiim remained oblivious to our sensitivities.

I worked my way around the room and spoke with a good many people about a wide number of subjects. It seemed everyone had an opinion about the world, or about literature and art, and I got into a few heated debates about one aspect or another concerning these. Yet whenever we saw Thiim approach, we would change the subject and begin discussing, in earnest tones, what we could see through the window.

‘A bird!”

‘A tree!’

‘A house!’

‘A lawn-mower!’

It was a tiring event and I wanted, desperately, to go home, to think about something else.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted no more to see Professor Zazzo Thiim, for I, more than any of his contemporaries, had been closer to the philosophy behind Reverse Criticism. To continue with my studies now, after everything that had happened to the main proponent of that philosophy, would not only be dangerous for Thim’s health, but also my own.

What, I began to wonder, if the same thing happened to me? Would I be as lucky as Thiim?

Would I make such a full recovery? Or would I spin out of control, into a vortex of eternal criticism, unable, ever, to find my way out?

At last it came time to give a couple of speeches and applaud the return of Professor Zazzo Thim. Hubert Worthington took to the stage at the end of the hall and gave a moving – though empty – appraisal of Thiim’s work and career.

‘He became a Professor. He worked hard. He sat at a desk. He marked papers. He delivered lectures. He read books. He went for long walks in the orchard…

And then, suddenly realising that this could, conceivably, be regarded as criticism, he amended his words.

‘A-hem. Sorry. He went for walks in the orchard’.

When Hubert had finished his speech, there was a polite, muted applause, for anything more thunderous or spontaneous might probably have indicated some form of opinion.

It was then the Nurse’s turn to make a speech.

‘Professor Zazzo Thiim is a man. He is a Professor. His name is Zazzo Thiim. I am a Nurse. He was my patient. We both work here’.

Another muted round of applause followed, and the Professor himself stood on the stage.

He thanked everyone for coming, and said how nice it all was, that the food had been good, that he particularly admired the brushwork on the painting over his left shoulder, though not the frame it had been placed in, and that he was looking forward to coming back to work, although his office needed a coat of paint and the radiator smelled. At the end of his speech there was a tentative, subdued clapping, and a buzz fell on the room as various guests began to file towards the door.

Alas, Hubert chose this moment to pick up the wrong cup of tea. ‘Oh god’, he said. ‘That’s disgusting!’

A silence fell on the room and everyone looked at him.

‘No it isn’t’, someone yelled

‘I mean. the purpose of my saying that it was disgusting was

‘Handled with great sensitivity’, someone said, finishing his sentence for him.

‘No it wasn’t’, said the Nurse.

‘Not that it’s important, someone else said.

I could see that the downward spiral had begun. ‘Of course it was important!’ I said.

‘Yes’, someone agreed. ‘Important, but not relevant.

‘The question is not the quality of the tea’, Hubert said, ‘But the fact it had sugar in it, which is, I think you’ll agree, only a product of my own prejudices regarding hot drinks’.

‘No’, a student yelled. ‘The whole criticism itself was not important’.

‘It wasn’t even a criticism’.

‘Yes it was’.

‘He smokes a pipe’, someone shouted. ‘How can someone who smokes a pipe make a valid judgement on taste?’

By now, everyone in the room was shouting and screaming, adding their opinions and criticisms on the original criticism, which had been that Hubert had felt the cup of tea he had inadvertently supped to be disgusting. And while this was happening, Professor Zazzo Thim stood on the stage next to the microphone, regarding us all with a quizzical eye, puzzled, and yet strangely entertained. Indeed, the whole performance was only ended when the Nurse managed to round us all up and transfer us at once to the Medical Centre.

Which is where we remain today, unable to finish our eternal criticism of the main point, the beginning factor, that of the cup of tea drank by Hubert being disgusting. We shout, we scream, we pound on the tables, unable to let go, unable to accept that the problem will never be solved, that the criticism will be infinite.

Professor Zazzo Thim, meanwhile, has returned to work. He visits us every now and then. He always chooses his words carefully.

Professor Zazzo Investigates – 6. Fish! Fish! Fish! Fish! Fish! Fish!

FISH! FISH! FISHI FISH! FISH! FISH FISH

Professor Zazzo Thim’s experimentations with surrealism have been well-documented, though there are still one or two questions which have remained outstanding from this most provocative and exciting time of his life. Indeed, many historians have assessed the time to be one of great bonhomie among the surrealists, with Thim himself occupying the role of grand master. Yet my investigations have uncovered the truth, and it appears that the determination and the willingness to subvert which we now associate with the surrealist fad was, if anything, subdued.

Jacques Collard was one of the surrealists. An old man now, he remembers the time fondly, though his brow creases into an ugly frown the moment I remind him of Zazzo Thim.

“No, no, no!”, , he says. “The view we have no of Thim’s part in this is all wrong! It is based on Thim’s own testimony! We hardly ever saw him as one of us! If anything, we saw him as an annoyance …”.

Collard paints a picture of the cafe culture prevalent at the time, of the surrealists, united by their subversive acts, holding court at one of the many Parisian bars associated with deep thought, philosophical ideals and literary merit. “We would make such grand pronouncements” Collard says, “Such as proclaiming the death of language, or at least, the terminal illness of the full stop. None of us had a clue what it meant, it just felt good to say it. Bilo was the master at the time – an artist, he had embraced surrealism for all its worth and he created bizarre works which he exhibited here and there throughout the city. We became known for our fine talk, our love of food, and our rebellious spirit. There were always disciples, or tourists eager to catch our glimpse. To start with we thought Zazzo Thiim was one of these”.

Collard leans back and presses his palms together as if in prayer. His apartment looks out over a flower market, a merry-go-round, and the white wedding cake of Sacre Coeur towering above. His voice deepens as he remembers his subject.

“We knew very early on”, he whispers, “That Zazzo Thim was an idiot”.

“Go on”.

“The first thing he said was, I want to be like you. I want to be with you. I want to be a surrealist”. We asked him if he was a surrealist at heart, and if he ever dreamt of lobsters, or bearded nuns. No, he replies, but he did once spend a night in Basingstoke. At this we turned to each other, as if confirming our suspicions. ‘What form of surrealism are you developing at the moment?’, Bilo asked. ‘Literature’, Thim replies, without hesitation. I remember the groan which passed around the cafe terrace. ‘In a medium such as ours, the fullest impact is gained through visual means’, Bilo told the hapless youth. ‘Surrealism is about the ephemeral, the short-lived, the dream-like, the throw-away. You would have to prove to us your devotion to the cause before we even considered you as an equal’.

“I can do it”, Thim said, filled with an unusual confidence.

“Then you have one week.”

“We all waited for Thiim to leave before we fell about, laughing. Oh, how I remember that week! A cold spell had fallen upon the city and we were frozen to the bone. The cafe terrace was warmed by a gas heater, yet the chill and the drizzle still fell from an overcast grey sky. We talked about many things, the surrealists and I. We talked of our art, and the methods we would employ, as we put it, to go beyond surrealism, to the next phase, whatever that might be. We would talk for hours of this exciting time, and speculate as to what the world might look like if surrealism was developed further.

“Thim came back the next night. He always wore along scarf, the ends of which would trail along the cobblestones. ‘See here!’, he said, coming over to our table and standing in our midst. ‘For I have created a surrealistic masterpiece!’

Ms. Muller-Reed, an art critic of note, took a drag on her cigarette and motioned that he enlighten us further.

‘A poem’, Thim said. ‘Called, ‘Ode to a Washer-woman’.

Thim straightened, pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and began to read. ‘Hippo hippo hippo! Yawn, oh hippo, oh yawn! And then we both swat at a swarm of bees..”

We looked at him for a while, and it was Bilo who spoke first. ‘Merely a pastiche”, he said

“We all laughed. Oh, how cruelly we laughed. Ms. Muller-Reed especially could find no sense in a poem about a hippo and a swarm of bees and she was most vociferous in her condemnation.

“What do you take us for!”, she hooted, slamming her palm down on the table surface. “I’ve never heard such rot!”

“Dejected, the hapless youth slouched off, and we continued our speculations as to the advancement of our cause.

“The next night he came back again. By now it was very cold and there was a light snow falling from the sky. We wore gloves and sat around the heater, shivering, though unwilling to venture inside. ‘A-ha!’, said Bilo, on seeing young Zazzo. ‘Here he comes again with another poem for us!’

‘More than a poem’, Thim replied, ‘But a surrealistic masterpiece!’

Knowingly, Ms. Muller-Reed winked, and we sat back in glorious expectation.

“The Cinema’, Thim said. He cleared his throat and began to recite: In the cinema I cook asparagus. The marching band sneeze in unison. A-tisshoo! A-tisshoo! Here comes my aunt with the Christmas tree.

‘Stop!, Bilo said. ‘Please, stop!’ Dramatically, he placed his hands over his ears. But it was too late, for Ms. Muller-Reed was already roaring with laughter.

‘Oh dear, oh dear! What a marvellous send-up! Never have I heard such a fateful attempt at surrealism! Go, go this instant! Oh dear, I think I shall be quite senseless if this were to continue any longer..!

“The next night he came again, more determined than ever, and he grandly announced that he had a poem which would re-write the rules, and leave them gasping at his abilities. He then proceeded to show them a blank piece of paper. “Here it is’, he said, ‘My poem. At the bottom of the page was the smallest full-stop.

‘Now you’re just being silly’, Bilo said. And they all roared with laughter once again.

“I must admit, I began to feel sorry for Zazzo Thim. A pattern emerged – he would come every night with his latest attempt at surrealism, and we would laugh, and then he would go home, dejected, crestfallen. It became our tradition, and we would speculate freely on what delights he would have for us. It was as if he was trying a little too hard, you know what I mean? Anyway, about a week afterwards I decided I would find where he lived and offer him some friendly advice.

“He was staying in a decrepit hotel in the Quatier Latin. The concierge allowed me in and I took a winding, rickerty staircase up to his room. The walls were damp and the landing was ill-lit, I almost fell to my death when one of the steps gave way underneath my shoe. I knocked on his door and he let me in, surprised to see one of his beloved surrealists come to visit him. I remember the smell of his room even now, a mixture of dust and over-worked electrics, the dampness of his bed-clothes, the mould growing on the window-sill. He motioned that I sit in the one armchair, then asked why I had graced him with my presence.

‘I am concerned’, I told him, ‘That your work may be in vain’.

He sat on the edge of the bed in front of me. That fact that you do not find my work notable in any way’, he said, ‘Does not detract from the fact that it is just as worthy, if not, worthier than you realise.’

‘An artist is always protective of his output’, I told him. He looked up at me, his forehead wrinkled, the scarf still wrapped around his neck. ‘Maybe you should write how you feel, rather than how you want to be perceived’.

‘In this modern world’, said he, ‘Are we not now defined by how we are perceived?”

‘ Exactly’, I told him. ‘And I see in you a serious man, a man of strong, sensible conviction, a man so far removed from the basics of surrealism as to irrefutable sober.”

“At this, Zazzo looked down at the floor and let out big sigh.

‘Don’t you see?’, he whispered. I don’t care about surrealism. I don’t care about the basics of the movement, nor do I care about visual or literary representations. I just want to belong to a group, I want to be surrounded by friends’.

“I got up from my seat. ‘Noble words, indeed’, I whispered. ‘But surrealism is more than just a social club. It is a way of living. And you, my dear friend, are in complete opposition to its aims and philosophies. I must leave you now, for the world here – if you don’t mind me saying – stifles me with its boredom’.

At that moment the door opened and a llama came in. ‘Oh, for goodness sake’, Zazzo said. He ushered it back out into the hall again, and fought briefly, ducking to avoid a globule of spit from the irate beast. He was just about to close the door when a circus clown appeared on the landing from the floor above, inquiring as to the whereabouts of his monkey. I told you before’, Thim said, ‘The last place I saw him was in Papua New Guinea. “But I need it’, the clown whined, ‘Because we are meant to be trampolining for the Duke of Norfolk this afternoon!’ Thim turned to come back into the room when there came the sound of scampering from the stairs and a herd of badgers swamped the landing, jumping over the furniture, flowing en masse as if directed by some primal determination. At last he managed to push the door to, before turning to me again. ‘Sorry about that’, he said. ‘You know, sometimes this place can really get on your nerves’

“The next night he was back at the cafe terrace with another one of his poems. It was about a nun, I remember that. And the nun was having trouble blowing up a balloon, it wasn’t very good. Ms. Muller-Reed made some biting comment about the translation of sense into the senseless, and Bilo snorted back his derision before waving Thim away with a flick of his hand, like a king, dismissing his servant.

‘The trouble with that lad is’, Bilo said, as we watched Thiim walk off to the end of the street, ‘He is far too serious’.

I thanked Collard for his observations, and I went for a walk around the local area. The streets were crowded with tourists, and commercial artists who, running up to me, asked that they paint my portrait for money. I wondered how Thim had acquired this reputation as a surrealist even though he was shunned by the surrealistic establishment, but then I recalled Thiim’s own account of this period, and the opening paragraph of his own autobiography, which begins with the words:

Every day it seemed that strangeness was attracted to me. I became immune to the normal pleasures of living. I would open my brain, and things would be poured in. I didn’t really know what was happening.

I realised that Thim himself had never proclaimed himself to be a master of surrealism, nor had he ever been noted for his surrealistic style, yet the image which has been brought to our consciousness now is of a man so steeped in strangeness as to be wholly consumed by it. And perhaps this was the very form that the cafe patrons were searching for, this one level beyond surrealism, unknowing, unbidden and unconscious. I sat for a while in the park on the steps of Sacre Coeur, and closed my eyes in the afternoon sun. I wondered if it were possible that strangeness can stick to people, that unusual events gravitated only to a certain type of person. How glad I was to be a sober, investigative fellow, inquiring, yet safe from the whims and unconventions of a truly strange world. How satisfying this last thought: that Zazzo Thim was so surrealistic, that the surrealists didn’t even know it. How I revelled in my ordinaryness!

At that moment I was attacked by a flamingo.

Professor Zazzo Investigates- 5. The Rubaiyat of Viktor Khayyam

THE RUBAIYAT OF VIKTOR KHAYYAM

Great excitement greeted the first publication of the volume which, under the direction of that esteemed professor of literary extremism, Zazzo Thim, has uncovered more than the wild-eyed fanatic in all of us. I believe it is time we all express this instant our eternal gratitude towards this most learned individual and the service he has done mankind, in his uncovering of this volume, The Rubaiyat of Viktor Khayyam.

On a wet winter morning I travelled to the distant city of education where I was due to meet him. The moment I got off the train I could feel the cold wind, which seemed to whip around the old, classical architecture and across the wide squares. I made my way down the main thoroughfare to a discreet cafe where we had arranged to meet.

A couple of students watched me enter. I ordered a hot chocolate at the bar and sat down at a table in the corner where the Professor might easily see me. One of the students came over and asked who it was I would be meeting.

“Professor Zazzo Thim”, I replied, with a hint of pride.

“Oh, him”, , they replied, and they slouched off through the door into the rain.

I watched them leave. They walked past the plate glass window and they were both smiling, laughing. How terrible, I thought, that such an intelligent man should not command the respect of his inferiors.

After a while the Professor himself entered the room. I recognised him immediately from the promotional material which went with the book. The long scarf, the heavy coat, the pained expression on his face, the cane which he leant on as if it were the only thing in his life which made any sense. He saw me in the corner and waved, jovially, then ordered himself a cup of coffee at the bar. He then attempted to navigate the room with the cane in one hand and the cup of coffee in the other, a feat which resulted in most of the drink being spilled on the bare wooden floorboards. The bar staff, I noticed, nudged each other in the ribs and pointed to the elderly gentleman, before suppressing giggled comments. How rude, I thought to myself, how unaccountably rude.

I introduced myself and pulled out a chair for the Professor to sit. He lowered himself down as if into a hot bath, then sighed. “Well well well, my dear child”, he said. He took off his wet cap, unwound his long scarf, then placed his palms flat on the table surface. “No doubt”, he said, “You have requested this meeting to add to the ill-feeling, the derision and the scandal. In that case, let the butchery commence

I shrugged, then took out a notebook. I told him how much I had enjoyed the poems, and that their discovery was nothing short of a godsend in this modern age, where word and the power of language have so recently lost all of their power to enchant. The old man leaned back in his chair and made a pyramid out of his fingers, though his face creased into a frown as if he were unsure of my true sentiments. When I told him that he had done the whole world a favour, that he was an explorer akin to those ancient adventurers who had discovered the new continents, strange tribes, buried treasure and the geographical features which now make up our general knowledge of the planet, he let out a big, long sigh and said: “Go on – what’s the punch line?”

“There is no punch line”, I replied, “My sentiments are sincere”.

He hummed, doubtfully.

“How strange”, he said.

He leaned forward and, quite sadly, looked down at his hands. “There has been”, he said, “Some controversy over the last few weeks”

I asked that he explain, and for the first time he looked up at me, looked me straight in the eyes. He told me that he had always assumed there to be a set of poems to be discovered in the ancient city of Tangiers, that the merchants and the council of that distant town had been hiding from the modern world a work of such literary merit as would change the world forever.

“Such beauty was hinted at” Zazzo said, “Such magnificent constructions, I just had to investigate. You see, it all dates back to a Victorian guide book I had come across in an antique shop, some thirty years ago. In detailing the attributes of Tangiers, it mentioned – and I quote – ‘ a wondrous system of oudagogoo veritably produced by his eminence Viktor Bayyam and now kept for the benefit of his excellency the sultan’. How enraptured I was by these words, for l knew that to find an oudagogoo – (the western Berber-derived word for a four-line verse set into a unified system) – would be the defining achievement of my career”.

N. “I left earlier this year for Tangiers. I sailed from Southampton on a steamer filled with chickens and llamas, for the desert tribes have been encouraged to experiment with different kinds of meat. The seas were unforgiving and I spent most of the time confined to my cabin, vomiting profusely and calming my volatile stomach with the image of these verses, these celebrated, yet secretive oudagogoo”

“When I finally arrived at the city I became inextricably lost in the labyrinth of back streets. Strange people crowded me in on all sides and I was hustled in the markets, shouted at, sneered at by unforgiving locals. At once I began to realise that they had already guessed the purpose of my visit, that I had come to steal their precious oudagogoo, that their secret would soon be in the domain of the world at large. The heat was oppressive, and as the sun went down I found lodgings for the night in a small hotel set around an inner courtyard with mosaic tile walls. The hotelier, a genial man who, despite the barrier of language, attested to my every need, allowed me to sleep in the open, under the stars where at night I would gaze up at the constellations, cursing my ill luck to be so near and yet so far.

“The morning brought fresh sunshine and a renewed determination on my part to make this momentous discovery. My host showed me to the library in the middle of the town, where, among Arabic tracts and volumes of luxurious splendour, I found no mention of the oudagogoo. I realised quite soon that the verses, being so timeless and secretive, would never be mentioned so openly in any of these books, so l asked if there were any secret libraries or private collections where information might be gathered. When he took me to the local taxidermist and presented me with the head of a camel, I knew there had been a mis-translation.

“By the end of my third day I realised that I would not find these mythic verses. The heat was getting to me and I longed for the cold winds, the fogs of my homeland. In desperation I kept notebooks and filled them with what I hoped to find in the poems, though the images I created were obscured by the drops of sweat which fell down the side of my head on to the page. I constructed poems about the desert, about the beauty of camels, dromedaries, about the dreams and mystic visions of a traveller who longed only to see the fabled city of Basing Stoke, though at the end of each day I would screw up these vile sheets and throw them in the waster paper basket.

“And then came the twentieth day of my expedition. A knock at the gate of my lodgings, and a mysterious fellow entered, his hair wrapped in a thick turban despite the heat, his body covered by white robes which fell down to his sandalled feet. “I hear”, he said, “That you are looking for the oudagogoo”.

“My heart jumped, yet I dare not demonstrate an over-eagerness.

“And what of it?”, I asked.

“I can take you to them”.

“My word! I could barely speak with the excitement within me. Feigning indifference, I looked at my watch. “I can spare about half an hour”, I said

“Half an hour”, he said, “But a whole lifetime of wonder”.

“He led me through the streets, past markets and decrepit quarters where small children ran barefoot and old men smoked in the doorways of bars. We seemed to walk forever, but at last we came to a nondescript house and a large wooden door, which he opened with a key hung round his neck. When we entered I could smell the dust and the sand, a burning smell as if the centuries were falling away, crumbling before me. At last, rather grandly, he said: “Behold! The most beauteous, divine oudagogoo”

“He turned on a row of lights to reveal a row of laundry baskets.

“Is that it?” I asked

“He frowned and looked at me. “What were you expecting? When word reached us that an Englishman was looking for the oudagogoo, we decided we would not help you in the slightest.

“We have cherished these four baskets for years and have built up a system of mystic belief in their divine protection. But when you went to the local library and kept asking people for poetry, we thought, ‘Well, this isn’t any fun, let’s just show them to him’. So here we are – the oudagogoo of Tangiers”

“‘Oudagogoo?” I asked

“Yes. Laundry baskets. The most splendid laundry baskets for many years. My grandfather quaked in their presence, such was their beauty and power. It is said that an artist, deeply in love with a simple washer-woman, but kept from the woman he loved by his allergies to detergents, could only proclaim his love to her by these splendid laundry baskets, which she would see every day, a new oudagogoo every time she washed the clothes”.

“But there are only four of them”.

“They split after a week. Love can be so fickle. But the story is still, I think you would agree, deeply touching”

“But I thought oudagogoo were … •

“Poetry?” he asked.’

“If this were a western-influenced Berber word, it would indeed mean

‘four line verse’. But ‘oudagogoo’ in eastern Berber means laundry basket’. And you know, we Tangiers folk have a wicked sense of humour. We called these baskets ‘The Rubaiyat of Viktor Khayyam ”

He then commenced a deep bellied laugh which caused him to rock back and forth on his feet.

What could I do? I thanked my host, and returned back to the guest house. But now I was faced with a conundrum. I couldn’t go back to the university empty-handed having promised them such magnificent poems. Tired, I thanked my host and left that very afternoon, taking with me a wicker basket I could show my colleagues in demonstration of my folly.

When I arrived home, seasick and delirious with the llama and chickens the Moroccans had sent back in disgust, I was confined to my bed, though the wicker basket was an object of fascination among my colleagues. Imagine my surprise, when I emerged from my delirium, to find that a whole series of poems had been published, resultant from my travels, The Rubaiyat of Viktor Khayyam. I was intrigued, and tentatively, opened a copy to see that my name was mentioned as translator. Yet the poems were oddly familiar, and dealt with many subjects, including camels, the beauty of sand dunes shifting in the evening wind, and the bountiful, mythical city of Basing Stoke.

“We found them”, an assistant told me, “In the luggage you brought back. How feverishly you must have translated them to have left such stains of sweat on each page! And your madness, evident in the way you screwed them up, and hid them at the bottom of the basket in which you stored your linen, as if you never wanted to see them again”.

I looked at the aged Professor.

“They found out, didn’t they?” I asked.

He nodded, sadly.

“I have disgraced the university and made it a complete laughing stock”.

Gently, he wiped a tear from his eye. “On the plus side, my designs for laundry baskets have been taken up by a well-known DIY company”.

I left him short afterwards and walked back out into the windy, rainy streets. Students passed me on bicycles, others walked past with heavy volumes tucked under their arms. The whole world seemed darker, colder.

Professor Zazzo Investigates – 1. Zazzo Declares the Death of the Short Story

Between the late nineties and the mid 2000s, I wrote hundreds of short stories. This was a very hectic time in my life, and probably needlessly so. In 2000, I moved into a gothic flat near the seafront in Paignton, almost directly over the road from the shop where I worked. I was studying Open University every morning, getting up at 5, studying 6-9, going over the road and working 9-5, then home, and spending every single evening writing short stories.
On my day off I’d attend a Writers’ Circle and it soon became apparent that the other attendees seemed drawn to my funnier stories. In one story, I invented a character, a professor of literature by the name of Zazzo, and soon the other members of the writers’ circle started saying things like, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to see what Zazzo gets up to next week!’
My Open University degree was in Literature, so I’d have to watch a lot of videos (it was still videos back then), and listen to lots of cassettes presented by these eccentric academic types who were a million miles away from the milieu in which I moved. I saw Zazzo as belonging to this community, perhaps barely tolerated by his contemporaries, and often shooting off at a tangent, seeing patterns where there were no patterns, narratives where there were no narratives.
Zazzo was a literary investigator. Whenever there was a mystery with a literary element, Zazzo would be there. Skateboarders quoting Shakespeare for no reason? Send in Zazzo! A crab routinely predicting the winner of the Booker Prize every year? Another case for Zazzo! The discovery of yet another Brontë sister? Who do we call? Professor Zazzo!
The Zazzo stories were saved on various floppy discs, and then promptly forgotten about for twenty years. I had no way of accessing them for quite some time, but now, thanks to various technological developments (and some paper versions I recently found), Professor Zazzo has been saved from obscurity!
My life has moved on since those days. I’ve been working as a comedy performance poet since around 2008, and worked on various other projects, so it was a delight to rediscover this strange world. And I really hope you might enjoy reading some of the stories which I shall be publishing on this blog.

As the train pulled into the station, Professor Zazzo Thiim felt a twinge within him, deep down where he knew his heart should have been. He didn’t want to be there, he knew what was waiting for him. It was here, this very place where, years before – decades before! – he had given his infamous speech in which he had proclaimed the death, as an art form, of the short story. There had almost been a riot.

But the Professor was a sentimental man, and when he had received, in the depths of the University in which he taught literary experimentalism, a letter from a middle-aged lady who had witnessed him that day, fleeing for his life amid the baggage trollies and the tourists, pursued by an angry mob, he knew he had to go, just for old times sake. How lucky that he had given them the slip on platform sixteen, he thought to himself, as the train slowly navigated the last few inches of the track. Would anybody recognise him now, all these years later?

The grand old station was the same as it ever was. The glass roof was a dirty grey, matching the overcast skies outside, while the rusted superstructure was plastered with pigeon droppings. Zazzo pulled his coat collar around him as he stepped off the train on the worn tarmac of the platform. He felt a coldness in the air, an eternal coldness, as if all the emotion from the thousands, the millions of journeys begun and ended here, the lives separated, the people who would never see each other again, had somehow become crystallised and manifested just in him. The Professor began to shiver.

She was waiting for him at the exit of the platform, next to the aerodynamic train engine which throbbed and sizzled as it recovered from its journey. She recognised the white-haired professor from the photographs on the jackets of his various, little-read volumes on the literature of Greenland and the cultural significance of the Haiku in Guatamala. (Verdict: virtually none at all). She stepped forwards and extended her hand, then helped him with the big bag slung over his shoulder which contained the manuscript of his latest novel. They went to the station cafe.

“We talk about it even now”, she said, over a cup of coffee which steamed gently in the slant of morning light.

“I didn’t realise it was such a big event”.

“Big event?” she asked. “It was the only event”

The cafe was filled with travellers, youths with backpacks, old ladies with small trollies, all of them static for this one moment in time before they each went their seperate ways to the furthest corners of the continent. Behind the counter, the coffee machine let off a cloud of steam which moistened the ceiling, while a small radio played jazz in the kitchen. The saxophone made Professor Thim feel sad, though he didn’t quite know why. Something about the passing of the years, perhaps.

“You certainly caused quite a stir” the woman said. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Mathilda, and the day I saw you leaping over the tracks while being pursued by that mob, l was employed in the cigarette kiosk. I remember it now : your scarf trailing in the wind, the papers of your speech flying away behind you, the angry mob piling over baggage racks and the barriers like ants coming back to their colony. Nothing stood in their path! You started a change in me…”, she said, contemplatively.

“What do you mean?” the Professor asked.

“While I was working that morning I was listening to your speech. When I saw you set up on the main concourse with a soap box and a sheef of papers I thought you were just another religious nut, or maybe one of those hopeless politicians. But when you started speaking about the short story, and speaking so eloquently, I might add, I became entranced. I remember it to this day – the way you said that short stories no longer mattered, that we were all philistines because we preferred trashy novels or the television, that all writers of short stories are, in some ways, the chroniclers of the modern world, capturing moments and emotions in subtle

ways which other means can never attain. I remember the way you used to adjust the scarf around your neck as you talked, your face wrinkled in concentration. I was so captured by this! I couldn’t concentrate on my job, and when these people started crowding around you and heckling, I thought – a-ha! He has struck a nerve!”

“It’s nice that you remember” “, the Professor said, fingering his collar where the scarf would have been. He remembered the scarf, he still had it at home, somewhere.

“So I went home and I started to read short stories. Nothing major at first – romance, a bit of light comedy. Then I progressed to Dorothy Parker, Mark Twain, Chekov. After a few years I wanted more, so I started on James Joyce, Italo Calvino, even dear old Franz Kafka. Borges came next, of course, the master of them all. And now…”

“Yes?” the old man asked, fearfully.

“Now I’m reading Samuel Beckett”

“My word” , he whispered

“And it’s all thanks to you. My life has been enriched by that moment, by the passion and the fury of that one episode. I resigned from the cigarette kiosque, enrolled in university, and I began to acquire literary ideas of my own. Do you know what it means for a character to appear in a short story, for example? The characters believe themselves, for just one moment in time, to be so important as to be forever captured in the reader’s mind, and lodged there forever. Yet they do not have the longevity, the life-span of characters from, say, a novel. Such animosity exists between them! The moment in which they exist is so precious, so pure and concentrated that they could never last a whole novel with the same intensity. Just look at ourselves – if we two were to last a whole novel, we would be exhausted by the end of chapter three”

The Professor nodded, solemnly.

“I have so many ideas inside of me”, Mathilda continued. “And it’s all thanks to you. So when I read a textbook on the use of penguins in the shorter fiction of Virginia Woolf – (in which it was concluded that penguins hardly featured in any of her work) – and I saw that the author was a certain Professor Zazzo Thim, who, years before, had almost been lynched right here at this very station, I thought: T’ have to find him, I have to thank him personally for the life he has given me'”.

The Professor fingered the clasp of his briefcase. He felt so many different emotions. “I’m glad”, he whispered, above the soft saxophone solo from the kitchen. “That I have made an impact on someone’s life”.He opened the briefcase and pulled out a manuscript. “In fact”, he continued, “I would like you to have this . .”.

“What is it?” Mathilda asked, laying an expectant hand on her chest.

“My latest academic work, explaining the death of surprise endings in short works of fiction. It is my belief that all surprises have been eliminated, that nothing more can ever be said at the end of a short story which may shock or confound the reader. I have called it, ‘No More the Lonely Badger'”

“I’m touched”, Mathilda said. Zazzo passed the manuscript across the table towards her and she took it in her quivering hands. “No more surprises”, she whispered, reading the sub-heading. “An investigation by Professor Zazzo Thiim”.

“Just one more thing”, he asked. “Why did the crowd react so badly to my speech? Why did they set about me in such a hostile manner? Surely, the people of this city don’t care that much for the short story as to attack me personally, just because of my hypothesis? I’ve thought about it for the last forty years, I’ve thought about the effect I had and the passion they displayed, you see, and it, too, changed my life, it changed my ideas, and I started to devote my life to demonstrating that short stories do make a difference, and I have used the episode as an illustration in lectures, academic works and after-dinner speeches. Indeed, it could be said that my whole career has been based on this one incident! So tell me, why was the crowd so incensed?”

“Didn’t you know?”, Mathilda asked. “It was your scarf. They thought you were a United supporter.