I suspect that Somalis around the country – especially, but not exclusively, in Minneapolis – wish about now that they had spent more time studying the wit and wisdom of Gertrude Stein.
Stein, had she lived in our own day, might well have become commissioner of New York City’s Fire Department. She had the one qualification that Zohran Mamdani seems to deem essential to the post.
Sadly, that was not to be. But there is no denying that, on certain matters, Stein was a font of practical wisdom that remains as pertinent today as it was when she was pontificating in Paris a century ago. It is important, Stein warned those aspiring to be part of the avant garde, “to know how far to go when going too far.” This is true of all the arts. It is just as true of fraud as of painting, poetry, dance or music.
