JANUARY 2005 WINNER

Please welcome David Fick, PhD, to the Lost Genius Fellowship. The name "David Fick" may not ring for many of our readers, but perhaps they have heard of Monsieur leFick, the penname ubiquitous among unpublished philosophy texts. If his self-important psuedonym didn't give it away, it must have been the following quote from his personal journal (snatched and subsequently submitted by an anonymous student with the initials Q.L.):

"December 4th, 2005

Today a student forgot to address me by 'Dr.' . That little punk, that little f***ing punk. I'll show them. I'll show them when I've compleated [sic] the 'Clapprations'..."

According to those around him, Dr. Fick has been skipping classes, meals, sleep, hygeine habits, and thankfully social engagements for the last fifteen years under the pall of an ambitious philosphical project, the multi-volume Clapprations. Fick hopes this seminal work will "destroy everyone around [him] and reduce [them] to the pegs of that triangle puzzle game at Cracker Barrel for [his] bemusement" (November 15, 2005).

This is surprising, since Fick has eschewed reading any textbook on philosophy throughout his 16-year career as an associate professor. In fact, he teaches his courses on 20th-century philosophy at Iowa State entirely by astute observations he makes earlier in the day, saying the current texts are "inadequate at best" although, he admits, he hasn't read any of the items on the department syllabus. Clapprations, on the other hand, will weigh in at a whopping 17,040 pages once his notes have been consolidated (which Fick assures students to be the "easy part") and simulatneously wipe the philosophical slate clean while serving as an indispensible source for students in all fields for the next 40 years. The best part? Of those 17,040 pages, none has been read by a single human being other than the author, and even that is in question! In Dr. Fick's own words, the Clapprations "will ignite a singularity of thought -- my thought, mind you -- that will shred the bodies of those around it as it goes supernova."

As you can imagine, our jaws hit the ground.

But Dr. Fick has enough other near-laurels to stand their own. Fick filled out a form once nominating him for the Pulitzer, if only he didn't have to go out and buy stamps. Dr. Fick nurses a large cup of coffee everyday for class, to keep his senses attuned (although, students have discovered, to their horror, that the coffee is luke warm and hasn't been refilled for two weeks). His reliance on psychoactive drugs almost made him a sage until he found out that he was merely becoming nausious on nutmeg. Dr. Fick rails against perceived anti-Semitism even though he is reluctant to indicate his own leaning. And he has proven to be such a revolutionary figure in the philosophical world that his contract has been cancelled from excessive absences!

So please welcome our most pathetic entrant to the Lost Genius Fellowship! May the name Monsieur leFick ring forever unheard in the annals of his basement!