The naked prof
SOME weeks ago, retired drama professor Pieter Scholtz gave a reading at the St Clement’s arts soiree from a book of his that was approaching publication. The reading recorded an episode on a canal towpath in England where Pieter ran about one night, stark naked.
We wondered at the time whether the fine claret of St Clement’s had prompted some spur-of-the- moment exaggeration, but now I see it in black and white. Mountains Of The Mind (Horus) confirms the towpath incident, putting Pieter in a class of his own among drama professors and possibly most academics.
It happened at Stratfordupon-Avon, where Pieter and a girl named Maggie had gone in a narrowboat to stay for a full season of Shakespeare’s plays.
One night they awoke to a sensation that the narrowboat was drifting. Somebody had untied them from the quay and they were drifting downriver towards a weir. Pieter managed to start the engine mercidler@inl.co.za
and get back to the main canal, where he tied up again.
Maggie was half-hysterical on the deck. Pieter leaped ashore in a fury, taking with him an axe, and set off to confront whoever had untied them.
The towpath was crowded with people. It has pubs and coffee shops and things and people stay out late during the Shakespeare season. They ran off screaming at Pieter’s approach.
To quote the Immortal Bard: “Oh, horror, horror, horror! This is beyond words and beyond belief !” Pieter had no pyjamas. (He doesn’t say if Maggie had pyjamas.)
This is only a small part of the book, which also covers such things as Jungian psychology and metaphysical poetry. But it’s an arresting part.
Pieter includes photographs of the narrowboat. I really think he should also have included a photograph of Maggie.
Another twist
THE American election campaign suddenly takes another twist. A Republican Party worker named Evan McMullin, once a CIA agent, has suddenly emerged as a lastminute independent candidate for the presidency. Apparently he is backed by an anti-Trump faction in Congress who cannot bring themselves to support Hillary.
McMullin joins three other candidates from outside the two main parties – Darrell Castle (Constitution Party), Dr Jill Stein (Green Party) and Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party).
It’s not clear whether he will run on his own or cobble together a party for the occasion, but it seems anything goes. The mainstream Republicans can’t strand Trump, but they gag on Hillary.
What next? Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck as running mate? They could just make it. Democracy is wonderful.
Creepy clown
A MYSTERIOUS and creepylooking clown who carries a bunch of black balloons as he prowls the streets in the dead of night is giving folk the heebie-jeebies in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in the US.
The clown, whose face is done up in the traditional way, is otherwise very shabby in appearance. People have complained to the police, according to The Huffington Post, but they say there’s no law against walking the streets at night carrying black balloons.
He’s not Donald Trump, but the creepiness suggests this has something to do with the presidential election campaign. Either that or he’s a Mexican.
Economics
MEANWHILE, The New Yorker goes into raptures over Trump’s setting out his stall this week on the economy.
They quote him: “A man with zero dollars who inherited forty million dollars from his father would become forty million dollars wealthier.”
Trump laments that the Chinese are these days inheriting more from their fathers than Americans are.
Yes, this is satirist Andy Borowitz again. This one will run and run.
Amandla!
MORE commentary on the local government elections. This limerick was trawled from the internet:
There was once an old man from Nkandla, Who led all his voters asunder; He thought it was funny To not #PaybackTheMoney, Now the people have spoken! Amandla!
Tailpiece
“HEAVENS, Paddy, what happened to yez? Looks like yez ran into a train!”
“Sean O’Connor gave me a lickin’.”
“Sean O’Connor? Dat little squirt?” “He had a shovel in his hand.” “And did you have nothin’ in your hand?”
“Mrs O’Connor’s left breast, and it’s a ting of beauty to be sure, but it’s not much good for foightin’.”
Last word
WE LEARN something every day, and lots of times it’s that what we learnt the day before was wrong. – Bill Vaughan