Spoken storytelling alternates with sung refrains and a relay of place names. The author's prefatory note explicitly says these fictional misdeeds are not historical claims about the real mathematician. This edition retains the complete two-page script, including its spoken passages. Two bracketed editorial cues mark the source's unspecified Russian ad-libs; no recording-specific words have been invented for them.
(spoken) Who made me the genius I am today,
The mathematician that others all quote?
Who's professor that made me that way?
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat.
(sung) One man deserves the credit,
One man deserves the blame,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach ---
(spoken) I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:
Plagiarize!
Plagiarize!
Let no one else's work evade your eyes.
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize ---
Only be sure always to call it please "research".
(sung) And ever since I meet this man my life is not the same.
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach ---
(spoken) I am never forget the day I am given first original paper to write.
It was on analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidean
metrization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold.
Bozhe moi!
This I know from nothing.
But I think of great Lobachevsky and get idea --- ahah!
(sung) I have a friend in Minsk,
Who has a friend in Pinsk,
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk.
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk,
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk.
And when his work is done ---
Haha! --- begins the fun:
From Dnepropetrovsk to Petropavlovsk,
By way of Iliysk and Novorossiysk,
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk to Pinsk to Minsk
To me the new will run,
Yes, to me the news will run.
And then I write
By morning, night,
And afternoon,
And pretty soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed,
When he finds out I publish first.
And who made me a big success and brought me wealth and fame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach ---
(spoken) I am never forget the day my first book is published.
Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.
Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.
Thie book was sensational!
Pravda --- well --- Pravda --- Pravda said:
[Spoken Russian ad-lib; words not specified in the source]
"It stinks!"
But Izvestia --- Izvestia said:
[Spoken Russian ad-lib; words not specified in the source]
"It stinks!"
Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys movie rights for six million rubles,
Changing title to "The Eternal Triangle",
With Ingrid Bergman playing part of hypotenuse.
(sung) And who deserves the credit?
And who deserves the blame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!