A Special Day

Happy Birthday, Gottfried Wilhelm, and many happy returns. We'll eat butterkeks to commemorate the occasion.

I fear that the Projekt has stagnated. Midterms now engulf us, and the Leibniz sits unopened in the larder. Well, the plain Leibniz at least. Sam has managed to consume yet another box of Choco-Leibniz. If only his hunger for photographs of professors matched his hunger for chocolate-dipped butter biscuits! We must not let this endeavor flounder and expire. We shall prevail.

A new box of Leibniz has been purchased from Wegman's today. The last one was getting stale and rather crumbly.
A new box of Choco-Leibniz was also purchased from Wegman's. The last one was getting acquainted with Sam's innards.

Garber, Schwegman, and Byrne still evade us, mostly by sitting placidly in their offices and relying on our deep and abiding laziness to protect them. Their tactic has mostly succeeded, but the winds are changing. The time draws nigh when they shall all be sanctified by the benediction of the butterkeks.

February 20, 2007 (A Reminiscence)

We have been remiss in recounting the first triumph of the Projekt: winning the approval of Program Head Professor Michael S. Mahoney. On the Monday of the Projekt's inception, we cornered Professor Burnett in his office after class, but he was quite unwilling to "humiliate himself on the internet" until we could prove that Professor Grafton was willing to do the same. As he spoke these words, however, Professor Mahoney happened to be walking past.
"Professor Burnett could use some humiliation," he quipped as he strolled past.
We pounced.
"Ah, Professor Mahoney! Would you be willing to set a precedent for your fine colleague?"
He was more than happy to oblige, posing for not one, not two, but three photographs with the Leibniz.
Burnett steadfastly held out for Grafton, and the results of this particular adventure have already been related.

February 26, 2007

A great victory has been won today. Presented with the hard evidence of Grafton's cooperation, Professor Burnett happily agreed to comply with our requests. He was a good sport about it (not in the Darwinian freakish-outlier-on-the-bell-curve kind of way), and began to study the Leibniz intently.
We would like to thank Burnett, and all those who have so far participated in our mad venture, for their cooperation and resignation to the insanity of the undergraduates. To those Historians of Science who have yet to encounter us in the bowels of Dickinson, bearing our fell packet and its baleful annunciation of doom, we say "Prepare yourselves" and "Do not attempt resistance." The Leibniz Projekt is as inexorable as the transit of Venus across the solar disk every 113 years or the eventual displacement of phlogiston theory by Lavoisier and his oxygen chemists. You all are well aware of these precedents. We trust you will act accordingly.

February 21, 2007

Truly, (Watchmaker) God smiles upon our enterprise! Today, the Leibniz Projekt has encountered success to match our loftiest aspirations. We will prevail.
At History of Science lecture this morning, I discreetly placed the box of Leibniz on the table in front of me as the other students entered 211 Dickinson and prepared for their imminent edification. Burnett would see it. Burnett would know what it meant.
Flipping aimlessly through my course packet, I chanced upon Jonathan Swift’s chapter on Laputa in Gulliver’s Travels, and his diagram of the scientists’ frame-and-crank device, a parodic sort of analytical engine. Turning to Sam, I attempted to engage in one of my favorite pastimes: baiting him about Charles Babbage, the subject of his Fall Term JP. He swiftly reminded me that Gulliver’s Travels had been published nearly a century before Babbage or his ür-computer had appeared in England. Set back but not daunted, I pressed on, chiding him for not seeing who else Swift might be lampooning.
“It’s not…” he replied hesitantly, “is it that shitty computer built by Leibniz?”
Just as Sam dropped the L-bomb, Professor Burnett’s head snapped up from his lecture notes and fixed us with the stare of Thor hearing someone say that the Jormungand serpent had been spotted in his neighborhood. His eyes flitted from Sam’s face, to mine, to the box of buttery biscuits before us, then back to Sam.
“You’re… you’re still trying to…”
“Yes,” we replied in concert.
“Grafton is in today,” I added with a grin. Burnett merely shook his head, but doubtfully or worriedly I could not say. I returned the Leibniz to my bag and opened my notebook. Gottfried’s work was done. For the time being.
***
After lecture, Sam and I swung by Grafton’s empty office to check on the status of his office hours sign-up sheet. To our delight, his 4:00 appointment had cancelled, and we quickly scribbled in “Daniel Eison and special guest G.W.L.” A warning, yes, but a warning is only fair when dealing with a luminary of Grafton’s wattage.
One problem was posed in the timing of Peter Schäfer’s Religion seminar, which I attend from 1:30 until 4:20 every Wednesday. Should I wait, and trust to hope that I could waylay the wily humanist as he exited Dickinson? Nay, it was decided, Fortune favors the bold. A meeting with a professor was as valid an excuse as any to leave class a few minutes early, but the plan hinged on Professor Schäfer’s compassion for the plight of an over-booked pupil. This was important, right? I mean, who knows when Grafton will come back to campus again, and his photograph would be the key to unlocking Burnett’s portcullis of resolved opposition. Sam and I wandered off to our respective seminars, giddy with hope and anxiety.
***
“Professor Schäfer, I’m very sorry, but I have a meeting with another professor at four o’clock, and…”
It worked.
***
Entering Grafton’s office, I noticed that I was still nervous in this imposing man’s presence. His beard had grown longer since I’d seen him last. I spoke rapidly at first about John Henry Pepper, a Victorian scientist who had recently caught my scholarly attention, hoping desperately that Grafton would not realize that I had come for other, more eccentric reasons.
“Ah, Professor, Grafton… have you, ah… Sam Zeitlin and I have conceived of a project.” His bushy eyebrows shot up in curiosity; I forged ahead against the rising tide of nervous energy. “We have found these…” and here, I produced the Leibniz, “and they seem to hold a special attraction to historians of science.” Encouraged by Grafton’s smile, I continued: “And, you see, our project is an attempt to photograph the entire faculty of History of Science with… ah, with the Leibniz. So…”
He told me to go on YouTube.
This was puzzling. Could he be refusing? Was the entire initiative crashing to my feet?
He told me to search for the Athanasius Kircher Society, where I might find Grafton and several other individuals who would probably be willing to pose with the Leibniz. He threw up his hands, declaring, “I’ve already made a fool of myself on YouTube, so why not?" He picked up the box of Leibniz and posed for the photograph. Every monad of my soul wanted to sing for joy. I assured him that I would keep him posted on further developments in the Projekt, he wished me good luck (I think it was good luck) in German. I said “Danke” and ducked out.
I ran upstairs.
***
When Professor Burnett next looks on his office door, he will see that signed up for his 12:30 PM slot on February 26 is Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. He will know what this means.
***
On my way out of Dickinson, who should I encounter but Professor Michael Gordin! I told him I’d been looking for him. He looked surprised, but not as surprised as I when an etiolated graduate student did emerge, like Nosferatu, from the shadows behind me.
“You’re not seriously…”
“Yes. Yes I am. Professor Gordin, are you acquainted with Leibniz?” I asked, producing the biscuits. He was, and said as much.
“He’s going to want a photo,” the grad student chimed in.
“Indeed I am,” quoth I, unabashed. After all, I had just faced down the greater bugbear of my confidence; not to diminish Gordin at all, but his beard isn’t nearly as long as Grafton’s. “Would you like to try one of the cookies?”
“No thank you. I would actually rather have Choco-Leibniz.”
I snapped one picture of Gordin with the Leibniz, and made my escape.
***
I pumped my fist in the air as I walked away from Dickinson. Two squirrels and a freshman wondered why.