Whilst we are being held captive by the wonderment of the Masterpiece Opus Magnum in which our beloved “π” has contributed several lines destined to change the ever wandering ways of humanity, we now share the subsection thirty seven regarding the foot note (0) of the twenty fourth chapter of this eternal opus:
“According to the erratic judgement of the imminent but yet not less eminent, though not so prominent (1) improbable winner of the Nobel prize in physics, mathematics and anthropology, in addition to being an expert in haute cuisine, a gifted ice-cream maker, an horticulturist and landscape gardener, Dr. Mortimer Mauser Münster, MA, PhD, a flamboyant millionaire, lover of rare vintage cars, as sweet-toothed as Hänsel and as pyromaniac as Wilhelm Grimm, the current human specie did not descend from the monkey but rather our primordial origin could be found in the same existence of the mythical rodent that we nowadays lovingly refer to as mouse; according to his flamboyant thoughts, Mickey is our very own Adam, and Minnie, Eve.
“Dr M followed his personal and empirical proto-scientific method of observation, which had been dreamed and conjured in a stormy summer night during his twelfth year on this planet Earth. Since the time when he first heard some blurry concepts about the Darwinian theory at his eleven years of age, he became a man with a mission (and obsession): to prove the enthroned bearded fellow scientist wrong. But it was not Darwin’s survival of the fittest and the human descent from apes that upset our deranged man of science; what Münster really despised were Charles’s bald skull and extremely long white beard. We can read in some undelivered letters written to his cousin Joacob Petreus, that I really hate that Pirate Naturalist. I do as well hate his looks and long chested beard, which I think is only there to create an apeish effect on all those ill-fated men that are obliged to look upon and suffer his Santa Claus style.
“During his first period of scientific observation, undertaken in his back then tiny hometown of Casablanca, which has now actually transformed itself into the biggest city in Morocco, he, and when we write he we are referring to Dr. Mortimer Mauser Münster, MA, PhD, first noticed that men descended both from horses and donkeys, notwithstanding the mechanical physicality involved in such an abandoning animal movement seemed at the time to be of a random nature. At this very point it is necessary to assert that when we write both from horses and donkeys we are not claiming that these men were in fact able to descend from both animals at once; of course, this due to the impossibility to ride both equidae at the same time.
“Thence, for the moment, his observations proved Darwin wrong, besides being a long bearded and surely distastefully smelling apeish man: the whole of humanity descended from horses and donkeys, and there was no sign of apes, monkeys or Santa Claus whatsoever.
“He, which is the same to say Dr M, was barely putting his mind around that ground-beardbreaking idea whilst trying to find through endless nights the missing link between those equines and ourselves, when an unforeseen wheeled and wooden means of transport made its revolutionary entrance; those creatures who had once inhabited the immortal throne of humanity were now the power in front of the wooden vessel that, for the moment, was doomed to become our own very primordial ancestor. Carriages became the object of his fervent obsessional study, yet reality once again proved to be bigger than any scholar’s mind (and mouth).
“After the westernisation of the country and as a consequence of the ill conceived gender equality movement which forever transformed the African city, women, who slowly were beginning to copy the worst characteristics which are commonly related to the masculine, were allowed to travel in the new acquired French buses that started, all of a sudden, to flood the streets of his now thriving Casablanca; humans of all sorts started to descend from a unique moving object, hence, a living creature just as horses, donkeys and carriages had been a short time before: le bus marocain.
“Such a pictorial metaphor convinced the young hero of the idea’s perfection: the entire scope of the population shared a common forefather, a common origin which transformed all into equals. But money always finds its way, and this revolutionary and ground-breaking idea was about to be forced into oblivion.
“Capitalism started to nestle in the former humble home town of Dr M (just in case you have already forgotten his complete name: Dr. Mortimer Mauser Münster, MA, PhD) and a new unsuspected and unintuitived ancestor came into frame; now it appeared that both men and women descended from something that indeed looked like the le bus marocain but petit. A smaller and faster device that he soon learned had its own personal denomination: those little buses were called voitures, or cars if you prefer.
“Despite his heroic efforts in trying to prove wrong his own ever-mutating theory, he still could not find a trace of men – or women – descending from monkeys, apes or anything that even resembled to Santa Claus or eventually his generous sleigh. Notwithstanding this flagrant contradiction, the tenacious scientist kept an attentive eye; but the closest thing to monkeys or apes or anything even remotely close to the Darwinian theory he ever managed to observe were men riding and descending (not at the same time, of course) from donkeys, horses, camels, dromedaries and even dogs, not to mention the eventual gigantic cat; but not a single living proof of the hairy banana eating ancestor.
“He even considered the possibility that the whole history of evolutionary biology could have been reduced to a simple typographical error: what if Darwin wanted to write donkeys, but due to an innocent erratum the word (concept) monkeys was eternised? Or maybe the tempestuous austral seas were to blame for that mistake?
“Dr M knew, after having explored all the logical possible explanations, that he had to leave his now home city of Casablanca in order to see with his own eyes if there were, out in the wide and open world, any other probable ancestors from which the human species could have had primordially descended from.
“For the first time, as he set a foot in Spanish territory, he was almost convinced that our first and unique origin was the very same giant floating device that had taken him to coast of the Levante; our ancestor had a name and that was Santa Isabel la Católica. The ship as the primordial commencement of humankind made not only sense to him, but it reconciled both his scientific self with his religious side or mask; Noah’s Ark was the fable that put all the scattered pieces together in his mind (hence in his life); a floating vessel, a wooden womb navigating the eternal waters of the ever-renewing life which kept bringing humanity to this shore, which we call earth. Again, the metaphor made complete sense: we are animals, projects that need to be completed. Our task is to seek our own Noah, awaiting for us in the material world, to then find it in here, in our hearts: on earth (within) as it is in heaven (outside).
“His happy days and glory dreams ended abruptly when a rumbling noise in the sky shocked his train of thought; at first he believed the end of the world was coming, then that a giant ape was chasing him in order to destroy his glorious discovery so that his monkey race could rule as the forefathers of humankind as well as guarding Darwin’s reputation and polishing apeish names. Unfortunately for him and the history of science, he was fatally and flagrantly wrong: that noise was the flat chant of a 747 about to land in Barajas, Madrid’s international airport.
“The final proof, or at least that’s what he thought at the time, came again (2) through his very eyes and ears: all of us, babies, grown men, women, teenagers, even black people, descended from the winged device. Dr M now was convinced that he had reached the peak of his scientific quest, even though it meant the end of the harmonic coexistence with his pious side.
“His ego then flew as high as the new steel bird obsession did. The metaphor again was perfect: what Daedalus and Icarus failed to perform, that metallic beast achieved; to fly as high as the sun and caress the sea fearlessly to thus prove to be the worthy ancestor of men.
“But some thoughts are not recommended, at least not for unstable and passionately obsessed men like Dr. Mortimer Mauser Münster, MA, PhD. As a fatal consequence of his ancestral intuition, several innocent subjects died after being pushed (and after having been convinced about the benefits of his brand new theory) from different European deadly cliffs. Luckily for our man of science, he chose to jump from Jimmy Cliff’s back; an occurrence that proved harmless for his physical well-being, but which was eventually deadly for his winged and flying theory. Little did matter the failed attempts to seek for a mythological presence in Wagner’s opera, Der Fliegende Holländer. Notwithstanding, the question kept haunting him: if white men can jump, why can’t we, us, descendants from flying steel winged beasts, do it as well?
“An obscure happiness blended itself with the satisfaction of scientific breakthrough; his religious self needed to reconcile both worlds. He could bear the haunting of an evolutionary question, but he needed the glue that eventually would keep both selves united. Thousands of famished hours spent in the Vatican archives proved futile; not a single record entry provided any evidence whatsoever of Noah building, nor designing, an airplane.
“Obsessed with his now winged divinity, he was unable to abandon the airport’s premises, hypnotised by his methodical motto: Cosmon specta. His obvious destination was jail, before a brief visit to the Hospital de la Almudena so he could be fed intravenously. Several months went by, but unfortunately for Dr. Mortimer Mauser Münster, MA, PhD, they didn’t fly: they passed through the tedious crawling movement.
“Freedom proved not to be an easy goal; eventually it became a reality once his paediatrician came all the way down (or up if we are to be geographically accurate if we accept that the North is “up”) from Casablanca to Madrid in order to give a full account of not only his own mental ailments and narcissistic tendencies, but also of his patient, the now locked up Dr M, of which the writer of this very story was not aware until this very same moment: Holy Shit! This dude was out of his fucking mind! And his paediatrician too!
“After a short bureaucratic deliberation which began forty seven days before an agreement was reached, the Guardia Civil agreed to let the teenager and future Dr M go, not before forcing both Maryam and Youssef, our scientific lead man’s parents, to confine their only son in an approved mental institution. This was done to the letter, and after ten sessions of electroshock performed in the Casablanca Mental Scientific Asylum, the intrepid and curious man of science at heart, was a reborn mouse… I mean, a reborn man.
“All traces of his past ailments were long gone, however, nothing could be done to ease a passion so fiery as his, and no soul could have ever foreseen the influence his own fragmented ego would have in his future scientific investigations.
“Slowly but steadily, he began to retake the mouse path.
“In order to maintain and prove such an adventurous theory, he recently unveiled both for the general public and the entire scientific community, a personal collection of papers that reflect his monastic labour performed throughout more than forty five years, which include DNA analysis of thousands of spices, such as cardamom, clove and oregano. Of course the unclassified dossier also includes complete DNA sequences of millions of different races, breeds and types of rats, mice, and other rodents; and only because it was going to take him almost no time out of his busy schedule, he also analysed the molecular and DNA structure of the exquisite chocolate mousse he occasionally enjoyed at the Churchill Club in rue de la Mediteranée, in his beloved Casablanca.
“It is worth mentioning that his very unique tenacity and determination helped him to discover the almost complete genetic sequence (97%) of the most exquisite cheeses that have ever been tasted by men or women alike.
“As it was expected, these adventurous rodental theorem and research-statements have awoken heated debates along the erudite cloisters around the world, even in those countries that have really low temperatures. Not only was Dr M’s work under fire, but also some unexpected victims paid the price of existence: Siamese cats, all the breeds and species of mice known to date; the types, breeds and species of rodents yet to be discovered, and the entire families of Mickey Mouse, Speedy González, Tom, Jerry and Sylvester. The whole scope of derogatory epithets (3) have been heard in the main Auditoriums of Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, Princeton, Kington, Dartmouth, Dartarm, Darteye, Dartleg, and Dartthewholefuckinghumanbody and the great European Universities.
“Being obliged to face this tsunami of insults and verbal abuse, Dr M felt compelled to give an exclusive interview where he explains the fundamental and basic points on which his theory is built:
“’I knew perfectly beforehand that controversial would be the common adjective that was to be used – and abused – whenever people talked about my theory; but I simply appealed to the inner mouse that we all possess inside in order to give birth (4) to one of the most grand and important discoveries in the history of human kind. Common sense is my guide; there is no man, woman or child who could honestly proclaim that they dislike cheese. This is an irrefutable proof that shows pristinely clear that we share with mice much more than our front superior teeth.
“’Of course, I’ve heard the argument that claims we all love bananas as well, and that such a nutritious preference could be used in order to reinforce Darwin’s theory. But I know a couple of men and women alike, who seem not to know through which hole such a fruit should be eaten; that is, for me, an irrefutable proof that unbinds us from those bearded primates.
“’Now, going back to the cheesy issue: we eat cheese, we enjoy cheese and some unique individuals like myself, get turned on by cheese. We love cheese and the great thing about it is that you don’t have to wear a condom, and after the lovemaking you can eat your lover. There is also poetry in this act: everything that is, aims to return to its origin, and so it occurs with our sexual milky substance which lives to die inside the cheese we love, we long for, we eat. I cannot resist those dairy holes that the Gruyère sensually offers. You can clearly see (addressing the interviewer) how my body instantly reacts when I talk about that divine dairy product.
“’We have mystical experiences with cheese: who has not been led far away and beyond the matrix after trying a strong Camembert, a presumptuous Gouda…? Did not the master Jesus multiply the cheeses in the market? I strongly believe that it is not by chance that the scent of our lower extremities in their natural state, which support and connect us with our pacha mama, with the realm of the dreams and with life itself, is so related to that smell of cheese (*).
“’I quote the great Karl Marx when he said that football is the cheese of the people… or did he say that cheese is the religion of the people? Could it be that he said that religion is the cheese of the people? Or better said: cheese is the opium of the people! These types of slogans, immoral phrases that linger on eternally in the collective unconscious point out to a concealed truth hidden by the powerful lobby of the banana industry that makes us continuously believe that we descend from the monkeys.
“’Let me share with you a recently published poll that shows that cheese is by far the preferred food among the world’s population: 98% of Earth’s inhabitants loves the taste of cheese, whereas only 21% enjoys bananas. More data? Napoleon Bonaparte was himself a cheese addict. In one of his multiple unpublished memoirs he writes that I see the world as a cheese that is awaiting to be conquered and bitten, a precious Roquefort where I shall sink my rodental front teeth… hic. Richard III claimed: my kingdom for a bite of Gorgonzola. To be or not to be, that is the Fondue!, said Hamlet through the Bard’s feather as he was thinking of which fondue casserole should he buy; apparently the Mouse Day was drawing near and he wanted to honour his writer friends by surprising them with a Fondueish Feast (5). I could name you at least thousands of cases like this, but true is out there only to be ignored’. (**)
“Among other advantages, this theory would provide a feasible explanation about the unusual yet commonly accepted success of Mickey Mouse among the entire human population. Walt Disney could have been part of the Masonic Loggia Caseus Rex, circumstance that could have eventually led him to gain (and use) such a privileged endorsement in order to get classified information that in the end resulted in being crucial in the building and success of his entertainment empire which by the way would be nothing but a smoke curtain that allowed him – and still does – to implant in our brains the idea of the rodental origin of the human specie.
“The identification process between us humans and the little and cute mouse has been previously and accurately described by Aristotle himself, when he used the word katharsis (κάθαρσις in Greek). Though it is true that the great philosopher did not make explicit the true content of such a word, it is easy to use its common meaning and apply it to my genial investigation: Purgation, purification, clarification; these are some of the concepts attached to katharsis. The very phenomenon that occurs thanks to the power of theatrical Drama and Tragedy. Just as one is purified by watching Sophocles, Hamlet or My Fair Lady, the same occurs when we enjoy some of the exquisite adventures of Mickey Mouse and his dear friends; it connects us, bonds us with our very origin. It offers comfort, relief and a safe place for our tears of laughter and weeping sadness. If Oedipus Rex is the revival of some past experiences in our lives, if Desdemona reminds us of our mother or Elektra of an estranged daughter, it is precisely through that very emotional mayhem that we will emerge clean and free from those enslaving feelings. Such is the mechanism that works so effectively in our subconscious when we joyfully watch a Mickey cartoon whilst feeling that fatherly, almost ancestral, closeness.
“I am not sure who, but someone really important and wise said that knowledge is but remembrance. The anima, before entering this realm, crosses through the river of Lethe, thus washing away all accumulated memories, which then shall be excited by any given worldly element which then officiates as a trigger the remembrance, hence knowledge; in this case, a tiny and cute little mouse wakes up our memory and affectionately touches us. If you are lucky enough, and you fancy some lawbreaking experiences, he might do more than simply touch you; make sure to carry a couple of hundreds in your left rear pocket. Before that, make sure to wear some trousers.
“He, the ancestral Mickey, leads us toward our very same terrestrial origin; he is the vessel of preterit memoirs.
“This theory also provides an enormous state of relief to all those parents, teachers and psychotherapists who were not able to find a reasonable explanation for the increasing problem (and recent, overall in first world countries) of callowed teenagers who, feeling aroused, engage in feverish masturbatory activities under the Muse of Minnie, the beautiful, gorgeous, sensual and super hot girlfriend of Mickey; what psychologists today label as a mega-super-mythical-Oedipus complex.
“The controversy is served, with an exquisite parmigiano topping.
“Dr M’s final remarks:
“’Thousands of clubs, discos, saunas, pharmacies, kiosks and other clandestine associations where the best and purest – and hardest – cheeses can be found, are going to be regulated and legalised in less time than it takes to bite an M&M after swearing to only let it melt in the mouth. In an unsuspected near future we are going to be able to release our quite little tails, let our whiskers grow abundantly, and wear the costume of our favourite mouse or the archetype of our family tree according to our DNA sequence, thus enjoying a life without taboo.
“’In the meantime, throughout the most prestigious laboratories of the world, some specific experiments are being performed in order to determine our very origin. The unstoppable struggle has begun: Apes versus Mice.’ (8)
“Dr M himself begs for prudence as news broke out about bloody tortures and ritualistic sacrifices of all types of cats, and the imminent prohibition to possess domesticated felines in every big metropolis of this insane planet. Leaks from the Pentagon indicate that the Puss’n Boots might be planning a one way journey to an undiscovered island which might be a part of the Mahaiueppo archipelago at some eight thousand leagues from New Zealand (6).
“The entire human history, in the brie of an unprecedented change.” (7)
It is with great sadness that we inform our admired readers that Dr. Mortimer Mauser Münster, MA, PhD was found dead in the interior of a seventy-four meter Python. Police reports suggest that the deadly snake mistook our crazy scientist for a mouse; apparently he was about to leave his abode in order to attend a private meeting in Orlando, USA.
(0) I can’t refrain from formulating a deep question that involves the whole Anglophone culture: if the term “footnote” refers to those notations at the bottom of any written page, addressing or completing a formerly touched subject, how shall we refer to those poems, novels or even shopping lists that we, one day, might fancy to write on our very right – or left – foot? Can something that is written on the bottom of someone or something be considered harassment? What are the boundaries that separate an act of art from a desperate act of sexual touch? Is a writer or a copyist to be considered a pervert for writing footnotes at the page’s bottom? (TN)
(1) Few men can claim to be as coquettish as our depicted man of science, who always followed a much suitable Mediterranean diet, despite his coeliac sprue and the obvious hence constant watery evacuations.
(2) Maybe one of the few cases of a multi-orgasmic Proof.
(3) Both super complimentary and ultra pejorative. The last one ever registered found its origin in the brain, slipped through his tongue and was expelled by the watery mouth of the Greek mathematician Tito Rodriguez during a talk with the BBC. He said: ‘boorish’. He later claimed to ignore what that meant.
(4) It’s not until recently that we’ve found out how jealous Dr M was of women and their unique birthing experience; he always fantasized about being able to try out that miraculous event as the star.
(5) In this given case it was not a proper Fondue; in any case, given the amount of invitations sent by William, it could have probably been a Fondieux.
(*) We have to assume that the lunatic scientist used to sleep alla Batman.
(**) The interview was edited by a naive and amateur hand, leaving in the air a slight scent of censorship. Dr M could have gone against the big multinational corporations, as well as giant banking conglomerates, which for him are to blame for the illegal status that actually possess the hardest types of cheeses, fact that keeps their price on the rise given their illegality.
(6) The Spanish philologist Rubén de las Moras, inspired by his trips around the Río de la Plata, proves to be a great champion of Ernst’s cause in his book Sexualidad y lunfardo rioplatense when he observed that in the typical Buenos Aires slang, a cat or gato is a woman that inspires – among other things – certain sexual fantasies within the masculine mind. This, written in rough Spanish is hacerse los ratones; to have sexual thoughts or fantasies about, for instance, this cat-prostitute-woman. Apparently, the aim of this gato is not only to leave the innocent man penniless, but also to destroy those little mice (fantasies) that have arisen in the poor aroused manly victim’s mind; the control executed by the feline woman over our very own ratoneada is the one cause of masculine feebleness faced with the potential copulation. One could also imagine how sexy would be to watch cheese being made in the woman-cat’s mouth, with our own dairy ingredient.
(7) Dr M would surely feel delighted by the name of that little device that helps out in computer usage. In what could have been his own words, it is indeed a beautiful metaphor to call mouse to what ultimately launched mankind into the computerized Internet era. (Ed.)
(8) Filmmaker and eccentric American Tim Burton claims to ignore all possible connections between his unnecessary remake of the Planet of the Apes and this matter.
(9) By now, it might be fairly clear to the reader that Dr. M’s obsession inspired the famous Monty Python sketch about mice and men, and also the well known novel by John Steinbeck.