Wednesday, April 19, 2006
J- & I've been watching "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" every day for around a week now, after I showed him the "Black Knight" clip from youtube (you can watch it yourself at the bottom of this post, if you don't have it embedded on permaplay in some deep recess of your cranium already). He loves it, and there's nothing like a 6-yr. old telling you that your mother was a hamster etc etc over and over to get your teeth grinding under your smile. I thought it was pretty precocious of him, and all, and I'm running over what I can and can't show him (most of Meaning of Life is out for a few years, except for Mr. Creosote and I suppose the tiger skit; but Life of Brian should be ok). Then over the weekend he was at his friend's house, and her mother calls and asks "is it ok if J- watches "The Holy Grail"?" "Sure," I say, thinking J- suggested it, "should I drop it by?" "Oh no, we have it. I just wanted to check if there're any scenes you wanted fast-forwarded." "Nah," I said, "the Castle Anthrax scene more or less goes over his head. Are you going to fast-forward it for Minnow?" "Oh, we do, but I guess we won't this time." "Minnow likes it? Did Jonah tell her about it?" "Nah, she was at Gretta's and watched it with her around a week ago, and since then, that's all she'll watch." I was flabbergasted, but I guess a bunch of parents who got turned on to Monty Python in their early awkward teens now have companions of the apparently-appropriate age to watch it with, so we are. And now there's a band of little people tromping around during recess across town yelling "Blue . . . no, yellow. Aaaaggghhhhh!" How strange.
(Aside: I found 9th grade english so minddeadly I spent the year in the back row with a friend reciting entire Python movies line for line back and forth. This was because I disliked my 8th grade english teacher so much, and she was going to be my 9th grade english teacher as well, so I opted out of honors english to avoid her. She used to give letter grades on our stories and poems, accompanied by personally judgemental and belittling comments . . . I have had the chance to get to know her as an adult, oddly enough, and she is a perfectly nice person from this side of the power divide.)
Anyway, watching this movie is a better critique of the Bush Administration than any else I've seen. And, along those lines, probably a better and more honest appraisal of how most history gets made than most more serious attempts at the subject. Coconuts and self-deceptive logic underpins it all, urges of ego, myth, self-representation, all smoke-and-mirrors (not that there's smoke and mirrors in the movie, I'm just using a cliche). Just imagine Rumsfeld's or Cheney's face under that black helmet . . . unfortunately, the Democrats aren't Graham Chapman, they're Brave Sir Robin. Also unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any paddywagon at the end of the movie.
Umm, the embedded html isn't working, so the link is here.
.
(Aside: I found 9th grade english so minddeadly I spent the year in the back row with a friend reciting entire Python movies line for line back and forth. This was because I disliked my 8th grade english teacher so much, and she was going to be my 9th grade english teacher as well, so I opted out of honors english to avoid her. She used to give letter grades on our stories and poems, accompanied by personally judgemental and belittling comments . . . I have had the chance to get to know her as an adult, oddly enough, and she is a perfectly nice person from this side of the power divide.)
Anyway, watching this movie is a better critique of the Bush Administration than any else I've seen. And, along those lines, probably a better and more honest appraisal of how most history gets made than most more serious attempts at the subject. Coconuts and self-deceptive logic underpins it all, urges of ego, myth, self-representation, all smoke-and-mirrors (not that there's smoke and mirrors in the movie, I'm just using a cliche). Just imagine Rumsfeld's or Cheney's face under that black helmet . . . unfortunately, the Democrats aren't Graham Chapman, they're Brave Sir Robin. Also unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any paddywagon at the end of the movie.
Umm, the embedded html isn't working, so the link is here.
.
