It's a tough assignment, explaining the circumstances behind the last post. I know of only two people unconditionally willing to talk with J--blon, one because she is unfailingly polite, the other because he has an obsession with the weird. Neither of them have coherent theories of J--blon's mind. In general, people say he is intelligent in the sense that he could win a chess game or follow a Newton proposition, but not in the sense that he has an understanding of reality or is capable of meaningful interractions with people. His presence makes people uncomfortable, and it's hard to tell just why. He assumes friendship with anyone he speaks to, friendship of a very idiosyncratic nature. He essentially seems to want to play the role of a beloved child of the person he's talking to. He is one half demander, one half critic. Demander in that he just oozes with the desire to be accepted. Critic in that he nevertheless makes fun of people, although in odd and illogical ways. Most people diagnose a strong desire for attention, to be present in people's minds. He is very rarely silent, whether he's in the library, the computer lab, the dining hall, outside, anywhere; and he doesn't seem to care who it is he's talking to. I should mention at this point that he's well into his thirties.

J--blon has a different routine with each library worker. With one person, he every day asks for a call number he could easily get on the public computers. With another person, he asks for help with homework. With a third, he incessantly talks to the worker until he has to find something to do. With a fourth, he will stay until past midnight so that the worker has to request that he leave. With a fifth (and this is the origin of the incident), he checks out a senior essay, takes it to the couches, and ten minutes later gets into a discussion and forgets that he has the essay.

This fifth iteration occurs, or I should say used to occur, on Max and Cory's shift. It particularly angered Cory, the supervisor, because J--blon would check out essays the day before the student's oral, keeping others from reading it. On the night in question, Cory said to J--blon that he better actually read the essay, or else he wouldn't give him any more. Ten minutes later, he was sitting with the essay in his lap and talking loudly with whoever was next to him. Someone came to the desk asking for the same essay, and Cory directed him to J--blon. A few minutes later, he then returned and asked for another essay, saying he wasn't sure if he should read it now or in the morning. He was planning his time for the week, it might be better to do homework, etc. Cory said, Steve, what do you mean planning your time? You only read for ten minutes and then you just talk to people.

It was at this point that J--blon went into hysterics, waiting about a minute to fall to the floor. Now, if you consider this an explanation, perhaps you can explain it to me.

Obviously, the joke wasn't that funny. The common theory is that he honestly found it funny at first, for an unknown reason, and decided not to stop because people were looking at him. I did hear him boasting later that he had gotten the whole library laughing, so this makes sense . . . in a way. I mispoke when I said that I found out what caused it, because I could only say that the phenomenon "J--blon" caused it. If my account doesn't make sense, you could blame my writing for failing to coherently explain, or you could blame the J--blon for being irreconcilable with normal reality. You'd be correct either way.