Some claim that Gurdjieff once crossed a desert, with a caravan, on stilts -- camels and all. He himself claimed to have once made a living painting birds yellow and selling them as exotic. His book Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson -- long, dense, and full of made-up words -- presents a serious reading challenge to all but the most dedicated or masochistic. It took me three years, and that was the GOOD translation...