The Idler, Monday, June 27, 2011

No headline necessary

 

ST CLEMENTS again tonight for the reading of the balance of the 100-worder short stories. The place is becoming a mini-hub of Durban art and culture, and it was there last week that I got into conversation with the vivacious Hannah Lurie, who sculpts and does all kinds of other artistic things as well.

 

The latest is a book of her poems, titled No Title Necessary. It's a compendium of wit and feeling, across the widest range, and what strikes me is a poem dedicated to Douglas Livingstone, a Durban scientist/artist who is sadly missed.

 

Doug was a wonderful character. Apart from being one of South Africa's most important poets, who honestly explored that mysterious interface between life and the cosmos, he was also a delightful character, full of fun and unassuming. Not too many people have a doctorate in microbiology as well as in English literature, yet Doug wore it oh so lightly.

 

He would describe the process of writing a poem. "The idea surges around in you for weeks, months. Then one morning you wake up and there are a whole lot of empty wine bottles and there's an ashtray full of stompies – and there's a poem."

 

Hannah describes one of the worst days of her life being when the brass bust she made of Douglas was stolen from where it had been placed in the Kwa Suka theatre, obviously to be sold to a scrap metal dealer and melted down. This was a few years ago. There was a big hoo-ha and a reward was offered.

 

But then a tramp arrived, wheeling a barrow covered by a sack. He whipped off the sack. There was Doug's bust. The tramp gave no explanation and would accept no reward. There was a fittingness. Doug was the kind of man who would respect a tramp for being human and interesting.

 

Hannah's closing lines on Doug:

 

Rest in your poets Paradise

Sorcerer of science and language –

How fitting that your stone

Will always be living.

 

No club for him

 

MORE emerges from the story of the photographer who fell out of a Harvard trainer off Durban and survived after parachuting into the sea. It seems this happened some time in the 1940s rather than the 1950s, as originally thought, but that's not the point.

 

Two Pirates lifesavers paddled to the assistance of Stan Gee, not just one. As related in an earlier column, Les "Rubber" Robinson took Gee onto his paddleski and transferred him with difficulty to a harbour tug. They were about three miles out to sea.

 

But not before Gabie Botha – who had followed Rubber from the beach – had dived about a dozen times to free Gee from nine parachute cords in which his leg was entangled.

 

An interesting conversation preceded this effort. Robinson said: "You dive, Gabie, you've already been bitten once by a shark. Nobody gets bitten twice."

 

In fact he was wrong about that. Botha was to be attacked by another shark, and again he survived.

 

The first time was while body-surfing off Country Club beach in 1944. The second was three years later, also at Country Club, again body-surfing.

 

In the first attack he got a huge bite on his left thigh, which just missed a major artery, He made it to the beach bleeding copiously and was rushed to hospital, where he was delirious for two nights and a day and his shocked parents at his bedside discovered the depth of the vocabulary he had acquired in the Pirates clubhouse.

 

In the second attack he felt something tugging at his foot – "probably just tasting" - and he pulled free. The shark then bit him on the backside, nothing like as seriously as before. Again he made it to shore, trailing blood.

 

Stan Gee got membership of the international Caterpillar Club for successfully baling out of an aircraft. For Gabie Botha – today a perky 86-year-old – there's no club. There just aren't any others who've survived two shark attacks.

 

l

 

Tailpiece

PADDY and Mick are ploughing a potato field when the plough turns up three unexploded hand grenades.

Paddy: "We must take dese to de police."

Mick: "What if one explodes?"

Paddy: "Den we tell dem we found only two."

Last word

Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.

Alfred Hitchcock

 

The Idler, Friday, June 24, 2011

In his best suit too

 

MORE information comes in about that long-ago incident when a photographer fell out of a Harvard trainer aircraft and parachuted into the sea off Durban. The photographer definitely was Stanley Gee, as recalled by the family of Graeme Schwikkard, who piloted the aircraft.

 

There had been a suggestion that his name was in fact Stan Bunn. There was indeed a Stan Bunn who was a photographer in Durban at the time. Bill Daly, a sprightly 85-year-old, knew them both. It definitely was Gee who fell out of the Harvard, he says.

 

What's more, Daly was in another aircraft with Stan Gee just weeks before this incident. He could have fallen out that time too.

 

They were in a Sunderland flying boat and they flew up the coast to Zululand for Gee to do some filming for the newsreel, African Mirror. (He was a highly competent all-rounder). Daly went along for the ride, the jaunt organised by his brother, Dudley, who was with the Sunderland squadron in Durban harbour.

 

The Sunderland fuselage had a "blister" where the machineguns had been housed. The aircrew removed the blister, leaving an open space through which Gee could film.

 

"It was quite frightening. I thought he was going to fall out so I grabbed him by the belt and held him."

 

Oh boy, the blood runs cold.

 

Daly had with him a new cine camera which Gee showed him how to operate to best effect by slowing down the film. He got some splendid footage, especially of the two Spitfires which escorted them as far as the Tugela River. They flew on to Richards Bay and landed on Lake Msingazi, an air force launch having to chase away the hippos.

 

"I saw Stan parachuting into the sea that day. My mother called me to watch from our balcony. Of course, I wasn't to know at the time it was him. He ruined his suit. He was all dressed up to go to a wedding afterwards to take photographs."

 

Wow, them were the days!

 

 

Caterpillar Club

 

MEANWHILE, reader Colin Camp says he also knew Stan Gee who in his later years worked as a photographer in the land survey section of the City Engineer's Department. He often spoke of the Harvard incident and was proud of a lapel pin signifying membership of the international Caterpillar Club – available to people who have parachuted to safety from an aircraft. (The caterpillar is in fact a silkworm, signifying the silk of the parachute).

 

No more stripping

THE MALE STRIPPER chucked it up. "I just couldn't bare it any more," he explained.

Frame-up

THIS off-beat limerick by Kirk Miller was supposed to appear last Wednesday. But some production gremlin had it set as prose. In that form it didn't make much sense. To resolve the bafflement of readers, here it is again:

The painter had falsely been blamed

For forging some pictures. He claimed

That the charges weren't true.

When in court, the judge threw

Charges out 'cause the painter was framed.

Tailpiece

 

IT'S THE LAST Chance saloon in Dodge City. A pianist is playing in the corner. This dude from out East is there, wanting to become a gunslinger. He's clipped a coupon from a newspaper and done the course by correspondence. He's dressed for the part – buckskins and all. He accosts an old-timer at the bar.

"How do I become a gunslinger?"

"Waal, sonny, ya got the right gear but can ya shoot?"

At which the dude draws his Colt 45 in a split second and shoots off one of the pianist's cufflinks.

"Sonny, ya sure can shoot with ya right. But can ya shoot with ya left?"

At which the dude's left hand drops for another split second draw and he shoots off the pianist's other cufflink.

"Sonny, ya sure can shoot. Now some advice. Take those pistols o' yourn round back to the kitchen and get the cook to dip 'em in a tub of lard. Get 'em nice an' greasy."

"Why?"

"'Cos when Wyatt Earp finishes playin' that piece on the piano, he's gonna ram them pistols where the sun don't shine!"

Last word

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

Oscar Wilde

 

The Idler, Thursday, June 23

Durban's winter games

THE WINTER solstice – shortest day of the year – was approaching earlier this week as a fair crowd crammed into St Clements restaurant, on the Berea, to celebrate International Short Story Day and take on board a glass or two of claret to keep at bay the chill.

The St Clements mob – mainly folk involved in wordsmithery, music and the arts generally – had staged a short story competition with a difference. These short stories had to be 100 words or less – roughly three paragraphs. It is a hard discipline.

Organiser Pieter Scholtz (formerly of the Drama Department at UKZN, Durban) had put the thing on the internet and entries came in from as far afield as Nigeria. There were more than 100 and adjudicator Kobus Moolman (English Department, UKZN, Maritzburg) had bitten off more than he'd bargained for.

But what a great evening. Lots of red wine, nosh and hilarity. A whole lot of entries were read out loud and the rest will be read next Monday. Inevitably, many entries were poetry disguised as a short story but this in no way detracted from their quality.

Winner was local advertising personality Brett Beiles. His story – Doing the Maths – has a bit of robust language, which unfortunately has to be blanked out by this family newspaper.

·         Me and my minder had become tjommies. So I took him a half-jack to say thanks for going easy on me. It was my last shift of 96 hours' community service – gardening – at the local cop shop.

 

I gave him the bottle before I started grafting. He downed the whole blerrie lot in one shot – at nine bells! Then he f****n passed out – right there – in my poppies. So the kolonel tuned me to f***f home cos there was nobody to watch me.

 

S**t, now I must go back next Saturday to do my last eight hours. Blerrie meths!

I also liked Scholtz's own contribution, Repartee.

·         Don't you wish you could say something really clever? Just once? I do.

I once encountered a man. We were walking towards each other. Both in a hurry. I stopped. So did he. I stepped aside to let him pass. So did he. Simultaneously. I stepped aside again to let him pass. So did he. It happened a third time. All in the blink of an eye. No three blinks! We stopped face to face. He smiled. "Just once more then I really must go". He walked past me and away.

I wish I had thought of that.

Plus Andrew Verster's Letter From An Uncle.

·         When you read this I'll be side by side with your Aunt, though whether she will talk to me is another matter. Already they will be saying, poor thing, he didn't see the bus, always thinking of something else. When she died, my world stopped. She was my moon and stars, my laughter and tears. Without her, life had no sparkle. I've decided to leave now before I become bored while life still has something to offer. I am not sending this by fastmail in case it should arrive at an awkward moment and cast a shadow over the funeral.

Great stuff!

 

Traffic scenes

 

THE SCENE is morning rush hour at the Tollgate bridge. The traffic lights at both ends are in flashing malfunction mode. Yet the traffic is moving briskly. At each intersection a metro police officer is on point duty.

 

The scene is evening rush hour on the same day at Tollgate bridge. The traffic lights at both ends are still in flashing malfunction mode. The traffic is chaotic. It's 6pm and the metro officers have knocked off.

 

Gallantry beyond the call of duty.

 

Blue Bulls

 

APPARENTLY there still is a possibility of the Blue Bulls going to the play-offs of the Super 15 rugby. That's if they pay for their own tickets and sit in the grandstand to watch.

 

People can be so cruel.

 

 

Tailpiece

AN ATTRACTIVE girl goes into the doctor's rooms, chaperoned by an old crone. "We've come for an examination."

The Idler, Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Monkeys, monkeys everywhere

 

WE NEED to be reminded from time to time of the economic forces that drive our society. Reader Eric Hodgson sends in an instructive little account.

 

Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and announced  that he would buy monkeys for R10 each.

There were many monkeys about so the villagers went out to the forest and started catching them.

The newcomer bought thousands at R10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He then announced that he would pay R20. This revived the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

But soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The price was increased to R25 and the supply of monkeys became so scarce that it was difficult even to see a monkey, let alone catch it.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at R50. However, as he had to go to the city on business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf.

In the absence of his principal, the assistant told the villagers: "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at R35 and when the man returns from the city you can sell them to him for R50."

The villagers squeezed together all their savings and bought up all the  monkeys. But they never saw the man or his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere.

I must say I'm slightly puzzled. Was this a ponzi scheme or was it the normal workings of the stock exchange?

 

Strawberry time

 

WIMBLEDON again ... strawberries, cream, scudding rain clouds and the occasional burst of sunshine.

 

The man to watch is Andy Murray. When he's on top he's British. When he loses he's a Scot again. At the moment he's British. How long does the Britishness last? Right through this time?

 

First service!

 

Dumb stunt

IS THERE no end to these more absurd Guinness records? A manufacturer of branded T-shirts in the United States has produced one almost the size of a football pitch. It measures 180 feet wide and 281 feet long. It took six weeks to make and weighs more than two tons. It was rolled out by 100 volunteers at a country music festival in Nashville, Tennessee.

But is it really a T-shirt? Who will wear it? When they bake the world's biggest pie or make the world's biggest hot dog, at least it can be cut up and eaten. But what's the point of a T-shirt the size of a football pitch?

The aim, of course, is to get into the Guinness Book of World Records but Guinness should surely draw the line, the way they do when an exploit is dangerous. Ditto absurd. The alternative is to open a category for the world's most embarrassingly dumb publicity stunt.

Voicemail

ANSWERING machine message: "We might be in, we might be out, but leave a message and you might find out."

Rich bear

DEFINITION of a rich bear: Winnie the pools.

Frame-up

ANOTHER off-beat limerick by Kirk Miller:

The painter had falsely been blamed

For forging some pictures. He claimed

That the charges weren't true.

When in court, the judge threw

Charges out 'cause the painter was framed.

Tailpiece

A PASSENGER in a taxi leans over to ask the driver a question. To get his attention, he gently taps him on the shoulder.

The driver screams, loses control of the cab, nearly hits a bus, drives up over the kerb and stops just inches from a large plateglass window.

For a few moments everything is silent. Then the shaking driver asks: "Are you OK? I'm so sorry, but you scared the life out of me."

The shaken passenger apologises and says: "I didn't realise that a tap on the shoulder would startle someone so badly."

The driver replies: "No, no, I'm the one who's sorry, it's entirely my fault. Today is my very first day driving a cab. I've been driving a hearse for 25 years."

 

Last word

A girl phoned me the other day and said "Come on over, there's nobody home." I went over. Nobody was home.

Rodney Dangerfield

 

The Idler, Tuesday, June 21, 2011

A night for lovers

IT'S THE WINTER solstice – shortest day of the year, conversely (and significantly for those smitten by love) the longest night. After midnight we'll be moving incrementally toward spring.

The winter solstice isn't such a big deal here in the southern hemisphere. In the northern hemisphere they celebrate it with choirs of angels, holly, snogging under the mistletoe, log fires, turkey, pud, loads of booze and loads of good cheer. It's also known as Christmas.

But some of us do our sub-tropical best, gathering in various hostelries to huddle round the charcoal braziers. In fact many of us think it the nicest time of year in Durban. We'll never match the northern hemisphere, but tonight we can at least raise a glass of claret to the turning of the seasons in our little part of the cosmos.

 

More fall-out

RECENTLY we carried an item on the photographer who fell out of a Harvard training aircraft and parachuted into the sea off Durban. Eighty-two-year-old Jean Robinson, of Uvongo, writes in to say it was her late husband, Les, who rescued him.

Les – known to his fellow lifesavers at Pirates as "Rubber" - was out on his paddleski when the photographer fell out, and he went to his assistance.

"A tugboat arrived after a while and what a job it was getting Gee (the photographer) onto the rescue boat. When the boat swelled up, the paddleski went down.

"A while later I read in a London paper, the Daily Mirror, that this lifesaver rescued the photographer and had his time cut out hitting sharks with his paddle. There wasn't a shark in sight."

"In appreciation Gee gave Rubber a pair of gold cufflinks and took our wedding photos for free."

Yes I'm afraid that for papers like the Daily Mirror, Africa is all shark-infested seas and crocodile-infested rivers. If the photographer had come down on land, they'd have been fighting off lions, pythons and wildebeest.

Still more fall-out

MEANWHILE, there's now some doubt about the name of the photographer. The family of the pilot of the Harvard – Captain Graeme Schwikkard – remember it as Stanley Gee. But former Durban councillor Arthur Morris – who was also a keen pilot - says he remembers the incident well and he's sure the photographer's name was Stan Bunn.

Perhaps he was Stanley G Bunn and Schwikkard used to call him Stanley Gee? That might explain it. Can anyone out there help?

Grand old Duke

THE DUKE of Edinburgh turned 90 recently. The consort to the British throne has been known over the years for his blunt and often politically incorrect contributions to the national discourse.

Satirical magazine Private Eye celebrates the occasion with another classic front cover. Under the headline "Duke's birthday gaffe", he is seen with his son Charles, Prince of Wales, who is beginning to show his years.

A speech bubble from the Duke: "Bloody hell, you look ninety! Have you thought of retiring?"

Freak bunnies

RABBITS are suddenly being born without ears at a village in Chengkou County, south-west China, according to this news snippet. It is causing great puzzlement among the local people.

How do you pick up a rabbit without ears? If you pick up a guinea pig by the tail, its eyes fall out, as we all know. Does this apply to rabbits as well?

Perhaps it's a question best addressed to the Beatrix Potter Society. It seems unlikely to affect the local bunnychow industry.

Good ol' Mac

MACHIAVELLI, the Florentine who gave his name to everything cruel, cunning and devious was actually quite nice, according to a new biography.

All right, he did write The Prince, a manual of political skullduggery based on the life of Cesare Borgia, a son of the Pope (things were hectic in 16^th century Italy), but it was just something to impress his boss, says biographer Miles Unger.

In real life Machiavelli was devoted to his wife, Marietta Corsini, and their children.

I suppose that's nice to know. But it does weaken our vocabulary of denunciation. Let's stick to the Machiavelli we are familiar with.

Tailpiece

HE GOT LOCKED up for assaulting his wife with a jelly. The charge was one of using a congealed weapon.

Last word

 

A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience.

John Updike

 

The Idler, Monday, June 20, 2011

Tolstoy and the Super-15

 

OUR RUGBY takes the twists and turns of a Tolstoy novel. Who could have predicted just a few weeks ago that at Loftus we would rediscover the elan last shown at Twickenham? On this showing, anything can happen.

 

What strange chemistry is it that can so transform a team? Passes are held on to, tackles are made that would not have happened before. There is a zest that previously was lacking. Was Frederic Michalak the catalyst? Does the presence of two game-breakers in the backline – the other being, of course, Patrick Lambie at fullback – make the difference?

 

It certainly seemed to. But it doesn't fully explain a transformation of the entire side. Tolstoy understood the phenomenon – but it would be silly to compare the Super 15 with War and Peace. The Super-15 is much more important.

 

Anything can happen – and it probably will.

 

Zebra stripes

 

RECENTLY we discussed the way the black and white stripes of the zebra cool him down, the black stripe absorbing heat and the white stripe reflecting it, this setting up tiny air currents across his whole body.

 

Neil Abbott, of St Lucia (see photograph), says he has heard the same but believes the real colouring basis of all wild animals is camouflage and survival.

 

"Predators - lion, hyena and wild dog - when running into the herd, which is now scattering in all directions, get confused in trying to concentrate on one animal, with the blurring of the stripes and shapes.

 

"Zebra are also very difficult to pick up in the distance, as the stripes tend to merge, giving a fuzzy outline, and taking on the colouring of the back ground. Zebra standing under trees and behind bushes blend very well into the light and shadows  through the branches."

 

Neil says zebra in Kenya and surrounding countries tend to be cleanly black and white. Further south, shadow stripes appear between the black stripes (as on the rump of the two zebra in the attached photograph. Also, some of the zebra in Zululand are losing their stripes on their hindquarters and back legs, many of them starting to resemble the extinct quagga.

 

Yet this coloration is reversed in the Eastern Cape, where the mountain zebra is totally black and white - no shadow stripes - like its cousins of the Kenyan plains.

 

I still feel it's got something to do with football jersies.

Tiny fellas

A TEENAGE boy the size of a one-year-old toddler has been declared the smallest man in the world. Filipino Junrey Balawing was recognised in the title by the Guinness Book of World Records when he turned 18 and became officially a man.

At 23 inches (58cm) tall, he is about three inches shorter than the previous record-holder, Khagendra Thapa Magar, of Nepal, who is 26.4 inches (67cm) tall.

What do people like Junrey Balawing and Khagendra Thapa Magar do next? Could they have a future in the ANC Youth League?

 

 

MARGARET Thatcher's handbag, Winston Churchill's half-smoked cigar ... all kinds of odd things are fetching huge prices at Christie's, the London auctioneers. Next it will be Al Capone's handgun, which is expected to realise £60 000 on Wednesday.

The Colt .38 was made in 1929, after the St Valentine's Day Massacre the same year.

 

Capone – also known as Scarface - who ran the bootleg liquor trade in Chicago during the Prohibition days, was America' most notorious and violent gangster. He became the model for Hollywood's pinstriped, fedora-hatted, cigar-smoking mobsters.

Yet in spite of his violent criminality, he got nailed by the authorities only on tax evasion charges. He died of natural causes on his release from prison. But before he died he did arrange the killing of the man who had ratted on him to the internal revenue people.

 

Those involved in the sale of the gun had better make sure the VAT and other tax requirements are complied with. You never know, history could repeat itself.

 

Berlin scientist

 

ANOTHER Kirk Miller limerick:

In Berlin, there's a scientist, Dan,

Who has studied bacteria. An

Appropriate nickname

In honour of his fame

Has been given to him; it's Germ-man.

Tailpiece

 

HOW DO YOU make anti-freeze? You steal the old bag's blanket.

 

Last word

 

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.

Thomas A. Edison

 

The Idler, Friday, June 17, 2011

Home-owner forecloses on bank

POSTMAN bites dog. An American home-owner has foreclosed on a bank. It happened in Collier County, Florida, where the Bank of America – based in North Carolina – tried to foreclose on a Mrs Maurenn Nyergers.

When it got to court it turned out that Mrs Nyergers didn't owe a dime on the house. She'd bought it for cash in the first place and never had a mortgage.

Embarrassment for the bank? You would think so. But the Bank of America were in no hurry to repay Mrs Nyergers's legal fees, as the judge had ordered. Five months dragged by.

Then Mrs Nyergers's attorney did exactly what the Bank of America had tried to do to her home.

Sheriff's deputies, movers, and Mrs Nyergers's attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it, locking out the manager and staff. The attorney gave instructions for desks, computers, copiers and filing cabinets to be removed, as well as any cash in the tellers' drawers.

Banks are not used to being treated that way. After about an hour of being locked out, the bank manager handed the attorney a cheque for the legal fees.

Oh, lovely stuff! Standard, FNB, Nedbank, Absa and the rest of you – pas op!

 

Poetic puzzler

READER Hughbythesea, of Pennington, sends in some puzzling lines.

Frack them all, frack them all,

The long and the short and the tall.
Frack all the Sasols and Chesapeake Corps
Frack all the Staoils who're messing up our dorps,
Let's be waving goodbye to them all
As back to their countries they crawl.
Let's make lots of commotion this side of the ocean
So cheer up my lads, frack them all!

Whatever can he mean? It appears to be some sort of commentary on proposals for natural gas exploitation by "fracking" in KwaZulu-Natal and elsewhere, while the cadences and phraseology recall a well-known army song.

There must be some deep, underlying message.

 

 

 

Mile high transparency

AIRBUS has designed a passenger aircraft of the future whose outer fuselage will change colour and even go transparent.

Will this inhibit the activities of the Mile High Club? Er … probably not. The only onlookers at that altitude are likely to be the crew of Venusian and other spacecraft, and they don't have access to Twitter.

 

Be afraid ...

A COUNCIL in England has been found wanting in its contingency plans to deal with an attack by zombies.

The news comes after a "concerned citizen" made a bizarre request under the freedom of information laws. He asked Leicester City Council to explain its emergency plans to counter such an attack.

He wrote: "Can you please let us know what provisions you have in place in the event of a zombie invasion?"

He added: "Having watched several films it is clear that preparation for such an event is poor."

The authority has 20 working days in which to answer but a council spokeswoman admits there are no specific plans to deal with zombies. However, she says she is sure the overall emergency plan could be used to fight them off.

 

Hijacked corgis

 

THE KLOOF and Highway SPCA appeals for anyone who spots two cross corgis running about the place to get in touch. They are victims of a hijacking at Waterfall last weekend, who were driven away in the stolen car It's believed they might have been dropped off later at the Pavilion.

 

Anyone who spots a couple of distressed corgis on the run is asked to phone Barbara Patrick at 031-7641212.

 

Hillcrest hots up

THE MUSE is stirring like crazy in Hillcrest. Mike Dunleavy, who describes himself as aspirant Deputy Bard to the actual Bard, Ian Gibson, sends in some lines on Speaker Logie Naidoo that directly contradict his superior.

Hands off our oracle Logie

He's not just a smiley-face fogey

Who parties and poses

With socialite roses.

 

He's a Speaker of note

Who now has the vote

To put into word

Truths erstwhile unheard.

 

So listen up folks,

No more million rand jokes.

From Logie the Logos

Expect no hocos-pocos.

 

 

 

Tailpiece

THE ROYAL Navy is developing computer chips that store music inside women's breast implants. This is to counter complaints that sailors stare at women's breasts instead of listening to them.

Last word

Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.

Bernard Berenson