Sug-Jest (er)-tions

The Court of Fools convenes once annually on All Fools Day, which is the first day of the Court’s judicial year, and then an unlimited, unscheduled number of times throughout the year thereafter, to be determined by unspecified agents with unlimited authority to conduct such proceedings under the unwritten statutes of uncommon law.

The Judge is the Village Idiot, ipso facto, and is traditionally and often forcibly clad in the classic jester’s motley (though in some jurisdictions it is customary for them to perform their duties stark naked). The jury, being of variable size and number, is known as the Gallery, for that is where they sit–so long as they are able to keep their seats–wherefrom they are like to throw food and other things down at any orator who says something they don’t agree with–unless the speaker can make a jest of the offending opinion and succeeds in being FUNNY.

You see, the Court of Fools is egalitarian in almost every conceivable respect. Everyone who participates in the proceedings, even those who are merely onlookers in a makeshift crowd, are judged Court Jesters. Thus anyone can become a Court Jester for the entirety of the proceedings. However, anyone who disrupts the proceedings is liable to summary action the moment their shenanigans become NOT FUNNY.

For in the Court of Fools, you’re funny or you die–metaphorically speaking, of course. Death can be funny, but life offers a far more durable entertainment. Hence the worst sentence the Court of Fools would ever pass is a kind of reverse shunning, wherein the victim (or victims as the case may sometimes be) is designated THE BUTT OF ALL JESTS for an unspecified period of time (usually until everyone gets bored with roasting them, or it’s just not funny anymore).

The Court of Fools thrives on chaos. By its very nature it creates an atmosphere almost impossible for truly lawful types to bear. And yet “Greyfaces“, as they are called, do sometimes succeed in worming their way into the proceedings, for 100 d100 nefarious purposes. Assuming these are not eventually unmasked, they either go native, or quite insane. If they are unmasked they are summarily issued the sentence of being THE BUTT OF ALL JESTS IN PERPETUITY FOREVER AND WE DO MEAN FOREVER AMEN.

Nobody likes anybody with no sense of humor, except insofar as they provide entertainment to those who do. But the Court digresses. Would-be infamous bards and jesters fret and strut their hour (or more) upon the stage as they step up to defend or attack this or that (it doesn’t really matter what) in an animated (and often itself hotly debated) injurious system that inevitably devolves into a free-for-all which can sometimes turn hilariously violent–though never in the written history of the Court has anyone been permanently killed during these proceedings.

Yet there is, in fact, no written history of the Court beyond what you are reading now. In fact, it is considered an outrage for anyone to write anything down about it (I’m literally quaking in my boots right now). An immediately actionable offense, it calls for copious book burnings in effigy (any effigy of any book will suffice), the summary convening of Court in order to try the perpetrator(s) by any means necessary, and the inexplicable distribution of nonsensical pamphlets on every street corner.

Of course, in the midst of such frenetic argument, in which the subject of the matter is not strictly held to in any sense of the word (or words), and is in fact itself up for infinite debate, the perpetrators are often summarily forgotten, usually thence to make their way into the slavering crowd, or even up into the Gallery to become jurors at their own trial.

As for the advocates and the adversaries, often referred to as Counselors–in order to qualify, they must pass the bar, but not without having a drink. The bar is to one side of the Courtroom, and whoever is on trial at the moment are the ones who tend it. Some choose to give their advocates virgin drinks, to which the imbibers, if they suspect such to be so, may raise an objection.

Le rêve de Pierrot / Pierrot’s Dream. Oil on Canvas. 38 x 55.5 cm. (14.96 x 21.25 in.)