Recently, as we perused, with much admiration, Ezra Gloppened's recent publication "Goo! : Butter Churns and their Role in the Peasants' Revolt", I ventured to ask if the Professor had ever considered an alternative career. "I haven't always been attracted to the academic life," the Professor admitted. "Many years ago, I did spend some time on the road with my band The Inadequate Zarf. Ah, happy days! Except for the less happy days, which, come to think of it, was most of them." I was unsure about the veracity of this statement until I chanced upon a copy of The Inadequate Zarf’s classic album "Physalis In My Pocket" in a bric-a-brac sale at the Sandford Spence Schultz Home for Fractious Umpires. My favourite track is, without doubt, "Ruckus In The Olfaction Department", featuring the Professor's solo on bass harmonica, an instrument of which he has little or no knowledge.
The Professor was in a pensive but loquacious frame of mind recently following a particularly agreeable game of pitch penny in Wickham Skeith. There wasn't a dry eye in the house when, once again, Arthur 'Toad-in-the-Hole' Shellbottom was declared Champion Pitcher and Foremost Penny Ruminator. Taking a long draught from his pint of Dringey Forplaint Special Ale, the Professor began his solemn tale: “Shellbottom's great-grandfather was the principal reason that my own ancestor became an academic and funambulist. The two men were great rivals in the hatting business, vying for the role of principal supplier of doubtful hats to the Federation of Minor Cricket Umpires and Croquet Mallet Makers. My great-grandfather thought he had the edge on his opponent with his use of the finest gutta-percha in his much-admired, multicoloured trilbies. But there was no way he could compete with Shellbottom's development of a range of ventilated hats named after British politicians of...
After finding the Professor hiding out in his garden shed pretending to look for an esoteric barometer, I insisted that we return to discussion of the artistic side of his illustrious career. The Professor is known for his loquacity on most subjects but oddly silent on both his artistic endeavours and his idiosyncratic stint as a Lasker Morris adjudicator. During his time as visiting lecturer at the Odstone College of Fine Arts and Herb Strewing, the Professor created a memorable, site-specific work at Barton in the Beans. The work entitled “Intimation Wall” required that a specific wall should be observed for an entire week. The Professor pointed at the chosen wall early on the Monday morning before wandering off somewhere for the remainder of the week. The observers were told to expect a “precipitous manifestation” during the ensuing days. People came from far and wide to play their part in the experience and, at the end of the week, absolutely nothing had happened. The Shackers...
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