White Asparagus. D. R. Belz

Hamlet. Of course, no extraordinary breakthrough is without its kinks, and this one is no exception.

      The “Foggy Bottom Hamlet,” as we have dubbed this manuscript, unfortunately, lacks the letters “l” and ‘t” throughout. For a reason we are still investigating, Monkey #671,876 simply did not use those two keys at all in the text. Undaunted, our team of handlers is standing by, placing dabs of peanut butter on those two keys at Monkey #671,876’s typewriter.

      At any rate, here’s an amazing sample of this history-making text from Act III, scene iv after Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius in Queen Gertrude’s closet and tells her of Claudius his uncle’s vile crimes. Her response, according to Monkey #671,876?

      “O Hame, speak no more:

      hou urn’s mine eyes ino my very sou;

      And here I see such back and grained spos

      As wi no eave heir inc.”

      The Million Monkey Room next tackled—at the request of Congress—several more test projects of national security importance, including The Constitution of the United States (Sadly, the simian typist on the project, Monkey #143, inadvertently left out the Fourth, Sixth, Twelfth and Fifteenth Amendments; we don’t see as this as a fatal flaw, however, unless someone reading closely at Justice notices the omissions.)

      In addition, at your request, the Million Monkey Room typed valiantly around the clock the dozens of pages of text for the recent Economic Stabilization Act itself. Admittedly, because of time constraints, they could not get all the provisions into standard English, which is why some of the Act appears to be written as Euclidian geometric postulates, a lost Cajun dialect, and a form of Mayan haiku.

      But despite this dedicated service, the Million Monkey Room Project now verges on insolvency. Today your Committee moves to slash The Million Monkey Room’s appropriation, contending that our funding was somehow a “pork barrel” mistake.

      We question this, since from the beginning, the Project was designed to be self-sustaining. The Million Monkey Room was scheduled to begin work on a number of historically and culturally useful texts, including the New Testament, the Koran, and the Talmud in their entirety; The Joy of Cooking; the Los Angeles County Yellow Pages; and every song ever covered by Nat King Cole.

      Granted, we could not have foreseen this quarter that global markets for recycled monkey scat would collapse, leaving the Project with no way to generate supplementary self-funding. On the contrary, we ended up with tons of material we could not unload on the markets—having had to store it in the basement of The Congressional Record offices.

      We will leave you with what we clearly see as our only alternative to keeping the Million Monkey Room operating absent continued federal funding. Our three-part solution, while workable, is dire, and certainly not the most desirable:

      —Sell off the entire Room of one million monkeys to online political blog sites.

      —In their place, employ one million GS7 grade government workers.

      —Sell shares in a privatized Project to the Book of the Month Club. The choice is yours, Senator. We await your decision. Do your duty.

      Hand Jive

      As an urgent matter of public policy, Americans need to learn to talk better with their hands.

      Italians, of course, have long been the experts in the art. And if you’ve been watching the news coverage from the Middle East, you know that Arabs and Jews dialogue with their hands famously. (Strange that they don’t get along better.)

      In our own culture, people who digitally dialogue well include TV meteorologists, quiz show models displaying prizes, the guy on the airport tarmac with the earmuffs and batons, and, of course, sports referees. But necessary professional hand-talking aside, Americans tend to be woefully illiterate with their hands.

      We have, if you will, a “hand jive gap.”

      When was the last time you saw two people really going at in public, gesticulating and working the air between them? We’re not talking American Sign Language here, either.

      Sure, we all can talk with our hands when we absolutely need to, like when we order four hot dogs, three beers, and nachos with cheese at the ballpark. Hands also blaze when people get cut off in the car, racing someone else to the next red light.

      But why do Americans suffer from such a general hand-vocabulary malaise? We sent a man to the moon forty years ago, but we can’t make ourselves understood in a loud, crowded cocktail party?

      Notoriously bad hand talkers, Americans are more finger-lingo handicapped since everyone had give up smoking and found they needed something to do with their hands. Bored digits cried out mutely for some employment. And you can only chew so much gum.

      So we invented cell phones and text messaging.

      Now we can do something in public that looks almost as cool as smoking and probably still gives us about the same amount of cancer— only more slowly and on only one side of our brains. You can walk along and talk to someone you’re going to see in about fifteen minutes anyway, but you just wanted to say “Hey” to. Or, you can browse through the online movies, rattling off titles to your partner because you better not download another dog like the re-make of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Or you can look like you’re putting together an important business deal at your kid’s soccer game, when actually you’re listening to your voicemail from people you saw about fifteen minutes ago who just called to say “Hey.”

      But what has caused this digital linguistic gap to begin with? How did the Russians, for example, get so far ahead of us in talking with their hands and owning overpriced neighborhood grocery stores? The answer is simple: Americans have been underexposed to the art of speaking with their hands.

      I propose that we Americans take the time to rediscover hand vocabulary and to talk more with our digits. Here is some basic hand language to get started on the path to speaking clearly.

      1. “I’m telling you the truth; believe it.” Take five fingers of one hand and point them together in a wedge, like your trying to pick up a grain of cooked rice. Then, drive the point of the wedge into the outstretched palm of the other hand like a bird pecking seed. Hold this up in front of the face of the person you are speaking to. (Rice and birdseed are optional.)

      2. “I’m not having any of that.” Hold the of both hands palms up, facing out, and wag your hands back and forth as if you are wiping condensation from the windshield of your SUV. Do not do this while driving.

      3. “You and I think much alike. We are simpatico.” Point your elbows out, put your hands in front of you, thumbs up and palms facing your chest, one in front of the other. Then, like a Ferris wheel, rotate your palms around one another, creating a circular motion. Move this manual vortex up and down for emphasis. Do not do this near the court during a professional basketball game.

      4. “I understand. I am in agreement.” Form a circle with the thumb and index finger of one hand and splay the other fingers out in a fan. Raise this circle to eye level and bounce it in the air three times. Since a European will probably punch you when you call him or her this body part name, only use this gesture inside the U.S.

      5. “That makes no sense. You are crazy.” Point the index finger of one hand at your temple and draw quick circles in the air. Alternatively, tap you forehead while extending your tongue out the corner of your mouth. Then be prepared to execute #2 above, quickly.

      Finally, remember, if you want to erase the hand sign you just gave someone, touch the bill of your cap, drag your hand across the letters of your jersey, and vigorously rub your forearms. Failing that, a good shrug should do just fine.

      What Things Cost

      Some things in life cost way more than you’d expect.

      I’m not talking here about the nine dollar and fifty cent hospital aspirin or the cost of any part even remotely associated with your automobile’s