FM: Fellow Jester hat wearer, why do you wearthe hat?

Ominous Silence.

FJHW #2: Look, if you really want to know, Iwear it to compensate for my own personalinadequacies. Inadequacies which I cannot name,express or even understand.

FM is devastated. No movement seems to beafoot, no spiritually uplifting subversivecrusade is under way, no ingrained culturalconventions arwe being over-turned. A possibility,however, remains--perhaps FM has been talking onlyto ignorant and benighted pawns.

In desperation, FM turns to Harvard'smaster-hat-maker-in-residence, Dave Blumenthal'94. "No, it's not political and it's not amovement. If you want to make some sort ofstatement through clothing, the jester hat isbasically the sillest and most extreme hat you canwear. Also, I suspect that the fleecy material ofthese Jester hats, suggests that the jester hatemergence is an outgrowth of the grunge, style aswell as a manifestation of the increasing interestin outdoor related sports."

Dejected, FM runs into Matt Boyle `94, owner ofa Jester-like hat with one long tail and no bells.FM explains the follies and disappointments of theday. Nodding sympathetically, Matt has thisexplanation to offer: "You see it's like this.Everybody has a certain life force within--call itchi. Well, two weeks back I read in FM that we'renow all wearing shoulder satchles. That means thatwe now have one free shoulder, and thus lessstraps on our life force. It's the same thing withthe Jester hat. The extra space in the floppytails of that hat also give more room at the innerlife force. As a result, these hat wearers nowhave a much more liberated life force. It's a newkind of synergy. It's physics. No, it's more thanphysics. It's a defiance of physics!"

A thumbing of the nose at the nose of the lawsof the universe, perhaps. But the truth is ugly,the reality nasty, brutish and short: there is noorchestrated Jester hat movement afoot, nosalvation for the downtrodden. As the highpriestess of hip fashion, the Style section of TheNew York Times, out it last week: "Hats havebecome a tease, a joke, a flamboyant gesture, anirreverent comment--an aside from straight up anddown fashions in clothing. Hats do not correspondwith wardrobes but with the spirit of thewearer....A surreal hat is just a quizzicalcommentary on the world--a mental shrugging of theshoulders."

One spirited wearer, Diana Gibson `96, who ownsa blue and pink Jester hat, says her hat serves auseful purpose in her daily ritual. "The bellsanoy the people on the shuttle bus in the morning," she says.

Alas, the wide array of reasons for whystudents don Jester hats can mean one thing andone thing only: there is no Jester hat conspiracy.For now, at least, it seems Jest is just hip