Prof. Bean

Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble,” was all he really said. If not that, then it was all you could make out from the utterances which issued forth from his mouth, this sound accompanied by the most emphatic contortions of his face, eyes bugging out, cheeks puffing. And when he was particularly piqued, his eyebrows conjoined to form the letter V over his eyes. Through gritted teeth a wet gurgling sound accompanying the expanse of his oral vocabulary, “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble.” And then you always understood his ire.

Mr. Bean has become the main character in the Maker’s dream, that same night after the afternoon he picked up his kids from school and ate too much ice cream on the way home. Picture him watching from across the street, right on time for dismissal. A smile crosses his face as he espies them in the distance, his kids walking down the ramp with their heavy bags. He sees they are quite loving and caring of each other when he is not close. Near him, they are cats and dogs quarreling, competing for attention. People always behave differently when you watch. From all these, he wondered how their school day went, if they had been taught well by their teachers. But that same night he had a dream. He has been a teacher more than a quarter of a century now but in his dream he was once again a student in art class. And his teacher was no one you know in real life. He was television’s Mr. Bean, Prof. Bean if you please. And all he could hear from him was,”Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble.”

Okey, let’s grant that artists are not expected to be too articulate. So let’s reduce the standards for articulation a bit even when they are art teachers. But, “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble”? The Maker should have suspected immediately this was only another one of his absurd hyperglycemic dreams. This should have roused him immediately from sleep. But no such luck. He looked at his classmates all about him, and they all seemed not to mind. Prof. Bean expounded on his expectations for the next art-plate, some abstract composition of a sort, and all he said was “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble.”

And truly when the plate came due, everyone had their works all perfectly made to Prof. Bean’s expectations. They all looked liked recycled progressions from the American abstract expressionists. But even so, “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble,” he said, smiling and nodding his head in mimed approval. All for but a few students who could make no sense at all of what transpired. And so they turned in canvases absolutely disconnected from the syllabus. A surrealist composition here. A dadaist object there. And all the Maker could present was conceptual art, which was of course invisible. But explain as he would that it was the nature of conceptual art to be invisible, he could not make a dent on the armor of Prof. Bean’s self-contained certainty of the world. “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble,” he angrily shouted at all who would not understand. Taking out his blue record book and twirling his ballpoint pen once over his head obviously to say, “Your fate at the point of my pen!” he crashed it, “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble”, straight down into the block right next to their names: 5.0!

It took a while for the Maker to come to grips with this nightmarish classroom environment. He should have been surprised why he even felt the urge to pass the course. For if this were truly reality he would simply just have walked out of the room ostensibly right after calling his professor the fool that he was. But instead he learned to adapt. When the next plate came due he presented it to Prof. Bean this way: “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble.”

Haha! “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble.” Prof. Bean replied, nodding his head and patting the Maker on the back in a mime of effusive approval. He could almost hear him say, “Brilliant!” or “Excellent!” and “Bravo!” But all he heard was really, “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble.” And the whole class repeated it in rough unison, “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble.” It became a buzz in the classroom, its main tenor of ambient sound, its chorus: “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble.”

And the dream continued. Prof. Bean became immediately a famous artist whose fame incorporated not just his art but also his unique pedagogy. The best art critics wrote about him. They wrote: “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble.” And the art collectors bought his works. “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble,” was all the reason they needed. He was published in books by the same title and with the same general content. “Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble.” Prof. Bean had arrived!

And when the Maker finally awoke, his bladder had filled almost to bursting. He stumbled groggily to the bathroom and unloaded himself, saying under his breath: “I have to watch what I eat from here on. Harrummph, **@!, mumble, mumble.”