Page 43 - Silver Lakes April 2021
P. 43

HUMOUR




































                            THE NEED FOR FAILURE



                                                   By James Clarke

              or 30 years (I’ll have you know) I was   were purely coincidental). Pile agrees with   Pile cites an instance in Pillsbury, North
              President-for-Life of Densa, the club I   me that failures play an important role in   Dakota, where on Election Day for the six-
           Ffounded for those of us too stupid to   society.                    person council nobody voted, not even
           pass the IQ test to qualify for Mensa. Mensa,                        those manning the booth.  The mayor, a
           as everybody knows, is the international   Some years ago, I was invited to deliver the   farmer, had been too busy in the fields to
           society for the unusually intelligent.  after-dinner speech at Mensa’s national   attend and his wife too busy running her
                                              annual gathering. ‘The Need for Failures’   shop.
           And  for  30  years  I  tried  to  organize ‘the   was my theme.
           Great Densa Congress’.                                               So the county auditor ordered the
           I failed. But failure is Densa’s code.                               defunct council to appoint six people.
                                              The problem with intelligence (I told them)   They  appointed  themselves.  They  were
           I was planning to feature some of this   was that it was limited. Mensans have   each paid about R400 a year which, they
           country’s greatest and most glorious   to have an IQ of over 135 and I have met   said, went mostly on doughnuts for their
           failures. I was going to ask the fellow   one with an IQ of 185 – the absolute limit   meetings.
           in charge of Johannesburg’s potholed   of intelligence. But stupidity, note, has no
                                              limit.
           suburban roads and the municipality’s                                Pile recounts a failed stage production in
           chaotically dysfunctional traffic lights to                          Frankfurt’s prestigious Schauspielhaus
           deliver the keynote address.  The theme:   I gave an example of the economic value   where vodka, as an experiment, was used
           “Failure as an Art” but, unsurprisingly,   of what we mistakenly regard as ‘failure’. I   as a prop instead of water. After all, the
           nobody knew how to get hold of him.  said how a supposedly successful waiter   production was about binge-drinking
                                              would never drop a tray or spill soup.   Russian workmen.
           I also had in mind an Italian barber in   Yet a waiter who trips over his own feet
           Pretoria who spent three years in the   would create jobs. Carpet cleaners and   At first, the audience enthusiastically
           Italian Airforce during  World  War 2 – in   dry cleaners would have to be called in;   applauded the acting.  Then the actors
           command of a large anti-aircraft battery.   more food would have to be cooked; more   began falling about and forgetting their
           His unit shot down only one plane in the   plates bought.            lines. One, unaccountably stood on a table
           entire war – an Italian Airforce plane. On                           and then fell off. Another fell off the stage.
           board was the chief of the Italian Airforce.  Minutes later, after I had sat down, a   The star of the show began ranting and
                                              waiter waltzed in bearing above his head   raving like King Lear. The backstage crew
           But I have now come across a whole   a tray of really expensive liqueurs. And,   had to call for an ambulance. The actors
           catalogue of new failures: Stephen Pile’s   I kid you not, he tripped over the carpet   objected, so the ambulance crew called
           The Ultimate Book of Heroic Failures. Pile,   with spectacular results and, to his utter   for police back-up.
           a fellow journalist in London, was self-  puzzlement, received a spontaneous
           proclaimed president of the Not  Terribly   standing ovation. Failures, you see, at least
           Good Club in Britain (our similar roles   help the world go round.






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