Saturday, November 14, 2026

do not be coy / a mendicant professor's error

© Roy R. Behrens 2026
Above
Band Wagon. Digital collage (2026). © Roy R. Behrens.

•••

D.J. Enright
, Memoirs of a Mendicant Professor (London: Chatto and Windus, 1969), p. 18.

In one bar, I remember, I was I dancing with a handsome and unusually well-built girl, who asked me, "Kohi shimas' ka?"—Shall we make coffee? Her intention was so patently goodhearted that I was quite moved, and went to some trouble to explain that, much as I liked the stuff during the day, I found that I couldn't sleep after it in the evening ... "So?" she responded sympathetically, and we continued to dance. Fondly recalling the girl's considerateness the next morning, it suddenly struck me that it was not kohi she had proposed to make, but koi, a word rather similar in pronunciation but having the meaning of "love between man and woman."

ArtStart Exhibit / November 2026-January 2027/ Rhinelander WI