Our class last night was about Russian avant-garde poetry, and fun stuff it sounds, too. The goal was to upset everybody, by all means possible, whether it meant flinging cups of tea into your audience, or stolling the streets wearing a top hat without the appropriate neck ornamentation.

Vladimir Mayakovsky, a leader in as much sense as such a movement of stray cats can be said to have one, was also afraid of death and sought to evade this by always paying his rent well in advance. I pass along this sensible tip.

(Image: tango.cows.jpg.)