Day after day, alone on the hill, the man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still.
A long, long time ago human folly had a noble face. There was a tall man on an old horse; a servant on a donkey. Indeed, Cervantes’ Don Quixote (and Sancho Panza.)
There have been operas and ballets, poems, songs and plays. Asterix meets him in Spain. Picasso and Doré have done the Don proud as well.
Today though, most folly is just crass, and ugly – sometimes, extremely so:
A Fort Walton Beach woman was arrested last week for beating up a pregnant woman over a beach towel.
Mary Riley, 45, was charged with aggravated battery for attacking Lauri Kortum Thursday behind El Matador Condominiums on Okaloosa Island.
Kortum and witnesses said Riley wanted the beach towel Kortum was sitting on, according to the arrest report from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.
We also have mass folly – people following religious and/or political crooks and dumbbells, and always coming back for more…
Some of it can be entertaining – like those complaints by Australian TV viewers of the Concert for Diana, about two TV commercials, directly following the performance of US rap artist P Diddy:
Diddy’s set ended with an ad break that opened with a promotion for White Lady Funerals, with the slogan “A woman’s understanding from very special women”.
That was followed by a road safety ad, which warned that “speed limits are there to save lives”.
The unfortunate sequence seemed particularly out of place during a concert to commemorate the life of Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris 10 years ago.
Quite. And talking of road safety – and folly, obviously:
A bus driver in England has been fired for playing the computer game Grand Theft Auto — while at the wheel.
Steve Allcock was reported by terrified passengers who heard the screams of characters being butchered as he drove between stops.
Bosses fired him after on-board CCTV footage showed he had the handheld device on his knees.
Still, individuals always loose out against institutional or bureaucratic folly:
After nearly two years, thousands of truck miles and $12.5 million in storage costs, a cold relic of the flawed Hurricane Katrina relief effort is going down the drain.
The federal government is getting rid of thousands of pounds of ice it had sent south to help Katrina victims, then north when it determined much of the ice wasn’t needed. The Federal Emergency Management Agency had been hanging on to the ice in case it was needed for another disaster, but decided to get rid of it because it couldn’t determine whether it was still safe for human consumption.
“We just didn’t take any chances,” FEMA spokeswoman Alexandra Kirin told the Gloucester Daily Times.
Indeed, Heaven forfend you would – or would have used your bloody brains before you started out on this demented Odyssey.
Ah, for those good old days of Don Quixote – but they are gone and we are left with modern horrors, like children’s TV programmes, featuring murderous mice and killer bees.
So, no more noble knights, or brave and foolish quests. It’s like the poet says,
No more giants
Rossinante,
take me to a hospital,
muffle-hoofed
and not too eager to oblige.
It will be my final stay,
my final stage.
The crazed man fighting white-coats:
it’s not the noblest of quests
but one of means,
one that will do;
a grinding to a halt,
not worthy of a song.
Rossinante,
having borne my lonely madness
for so many years,
my friend,
deliver me from dreams and longing:
this puppet’s work is done.
Take me home,
Rossinante,
just take me home.
If you enjoyed this post, subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.
