Magwar and other stories

Part one

Have you heard the story of Magwar?
I think his name is pronounced like Jaguar,
two syllables, but I digress,
and besides I never was one to pronounce
names correctly.

Magwar one day was watching TV
such is his lack to do,
and he saw on 60 minutes or FOX news
a special about Harvard, how it was
the best school, and this intrigued Magwar
so much so that he decided he would apply
to study there as an undergraduate.

Now the key to this entire story is to know
one simple thing about Magwar:
he is an idiot. You can also make her
a woman, the gender isn't important,
but his un-redeemable idiocy is,
and what's more, Magwar didn't know,
nor could ever understand his predicament.

As you, along with me, will imagine,
his application to Harvard was a mess.
The SAT and ACT scores alone would
of qualified Magwar for state-sponsored
sterilization; they were incredulously low,
lower than 400 (he must of misspelled his name),
and his essay, oh his essay, that brought
chuckles to the selection committee.
One fellow even brought it to an open mic
and read it aloud, not one in the crowd
could catch their breath from all the hooting
and howling that was had.

Well, obviously, Magwar's application
was on its way to the ignominious rejection pile,
as insulting as that may be to the other losers,
when another fellow, she had been among
the red-faced and the slightly buzzed
that prior and infamous evening,
mentioned what a gas it was,
how everyone there enjoyed themselves immensely,
and this caused a bit of a stir
and demands for another impromptu performance
and that's when something astonishing, even magical
happened in the committee lounge
among the haze of cigar smoke and afternoon cognac:
the genuine pleasure of humor.

After wiping away the tears the committee hatched
a plan worthy of Magwar's ingenious application.
Let us accept him, we will give him full honors,
place him among the best and the brightest
the world has to offer. Logistically,
this was a nightmare, and worthy
of a Nobel in economics
or complex system dynamics, I don't know,
because for this to work they had to get everyone
at Harvard in on the Joke. There was some hand-wringing,
and a little soul searching while on the loo for the Dean
considering the possible cruelty, but it was argued
this could only be for Magwar's benefit
and would help foster a sense of community
among the disparate freshmen while providing
everyone with a little relief that they weren't,
couldn't possibly be, the worst student at Harvard.

Magwar was given a full load, the psycho-
linguistics of Chaucer's middle English,
differential geometry of N-dimensional manifolds,
Ancient Greek chorus translation and performance,
post-Heideggerian discourse using modal logic,
theoretical Physics: a survey toward unified theory,
along with being steered toward the proper
extracurricular activities such as polity, journalism
at the Harvard Crimson, and an avant-garde
musical collaboration (invitation only),
careful to avoid keening Magwar's interest
in any sort of athletic excellence
worried that even the densest dunce
would manifestly acknowledge physical ineptitude.

In each of these pursuits Magwar gave
a stellar performance, far better than predicted,
far better professors thought than any fool
created by Shakespeare could of done,
such was the amount of levity, comedic gold,
sheer joy brought about by Magwar's
inglorious ability. Oh my heart aches
over the delectable ruminations.
The only difficulty during those heady years
were for those fortunate enough to witness
first-hand the occasional performance
or presentation of Magwar,
be it the live interview in the Starr auditorium,
“tell me Madam President, you look so beautiful [sic]?”
or when he took command of the Prof. M's blackboard
to demonstrate his two minute proof that NP=P,
it took all of one's might not to break out
with thunderous cackles during these momentous occasions.
And it is impossible to comprehend much less convey
the perfection, nay the Shantih, of Magwar's
Xanthias (in the original Greek), it took
one luscious coed to the hospital for asphyxiation
after hyperventilating, “the spiritual orgasm”
she said, afterwards, “Mary's divine insemination”,
an orgy of the Trinity, you get
but the shadow's shadow of the idea.

It was with increasing sadness and despair
that Magwar sailed, Captain-like, through his fourth year,
with many at a loss of how they could ever
go on living after Magwar's graduation
and departure. It was with one momentous
announcement right before Christmas break
when Magwar declared his intention
to continue his education
with graduate study in theoretical physics
(by far the greatest of his loves, and,
arguably, the muse of his greatest gifts,
ancient Greek theater notwithstanding)
that Harvard breathed a collective sigh
of relief, “why a PHD would take him 5 years!”,
“No, no, nothing less than 10 would be proper!”,
“Why stop there, he could lecture until the day
he dies!”, and so on ran the general discussions
among the students, faculty, and administration.

Yet one difficulty remained, for the premise
to continue, for Magwar to be
an outstanding, extraordinary, insurmountable
graduate student, he would have to be published widely,
and be invited to lecture far and wide,
which would require not just Harvard's involvement
but Princeton, Yale, Berkeley, etc,
which was nearly enough
to convince Harvard to give up
such a delightful dream-
what use is an inside joke
if everyone's in on it?
Besides, the inevitable Harvard
amour-propre was siring many doubtful
broodlings of the “they won't get it” variety,
along with many contrarian siblings;
however the eldest and strongest of these
little monsters is always the golden-child
optimism, better known as the can-do
can-doer, and
after exhibiting one youtube video
of Magwar's Xanthias with
the hyperventilating coed
the entire academic world was sold.