Shtot meshugener, Mozyr

The shtot meshugener (town fool) of Mozyr, Belorussia, 1912-13. First encountered this as a photograph on the wall of the Jewish Museum in New York. What struck me was the man's face, and the gesture of his pose--something essential, as if known--and then (from the caption) that he was from Mozyr (my father's birthplace) and that the period in which it was taken would have also been while my father was still living there, eight or nine years old--all of which which meant that he probably knew this man, too...