I loved Ingo Maurer.

I met him once, long ago. He was truly a charming man.

He revolutionized lighting design and made his name around the world. Yet that title alone could never quite contain him. He gave lights wings; he put a light bulb inside a light bulb. A mischievous poet — that, somehow, fits him better.

On a whim, I set the Maurer Don Quixote I own beside an Ayamaki floor lamp and took a photograph.

Don Quixote, stretching out his lanky neck as if about to leap forward. Ayamaki, round as a little Martian, perched daintily on three slender legs. They look as if they were whispering secrets to each other, and I cannot help smiling.

To play with light and make people smile: Maurer made that his serious work. A designer like him will never appear again. Even so, the playfulness he lit still glows all around the world.

Today, October 21, is the anniversary of Maurer’s death.