You Are Disturbing Me. I Am Picking Mushrooms.

Grigory Perelman does not want our attention but he may merit it. He offers a model of behavior which very well may be foreign to our time, but, still, we ought to know that it's an available option: grumpiness, misanthropy, and a radical lack of interest in publicity -- and, it seems, money, too.

To be able to close the door. To slam the door.

Perelman is a mathematician from St. Petersburg, Russia -- where he lives with his mother and sister -- who, a few years ago, solved a century-old math problem, Poincaré's conjecture. This is one of seven fabled math problems, the solution for which the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass., has offered $1 million -- for each solution.

Perelman has not only so far shunned the dough, but when reached by a reporter said, with fabulous succinctness and practicality: "You are disturbing me. I am picking mushrooms."

My modest proposal is that we should all start to say this, to phone solicitors, spouses, and certainly to the media. This can be the universal mantra for a new right of peace and quiet.

In 2006 Perelman apparently declined, or just didn't show up to collect, the Field Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics--its Oscar. (Indeed, there once was a time, almost impossible to believe, when actors of a certain stature and mien didn't show up for their Oscars.)

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