Bend it like....erm.... Teenage Rock Opera!

It was about now that I really started to get into Monty Python in a big way, dedicating my Thursday evenings to being glued to the TV set and what I think were the BBC repeats of the show.

I think it's difficult for younger generations to fully comprehend the enormous impact that Python had back in the seventies. As countless other people have commented over the years, they really were to comedy what The Beatles were to music. There is just so much comedy about nowadays that would not exist if it weren't for the early stylings of  Messrs Cleese, Jones, Palin, Chapman, Idle and Gilliam.

It's a personal opinion, but - having (again) watched several BBC America repeats lately - I don't think the TV episodes have stood the test of time very well. I much prefer the movies such as "Life of Brian" and "Monty Python & The Holy Grail", mainly because they seem FAR less of a curate's egg.

I know that will be considered a sacrilegious viewpoint as far as die-hard Python fans might be concerned, but it's something I can't lie about.

However, back in 1972 I'm not sure I could not have said even the vaguest bad thing about Monty Python. "Obsessed" is, perhaps, an understatement for how I was?

Sure there were some sketches I didn't laugh at - some I'll admit I was too young to properly understand at the tine - but then something like election candidate "Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel", Bicycle Repair Man, the Architect sketch, the Spanish Inquisition, Spam, Bruce, Nudge Nudge Wink Wink and countless other crazy moments would come along and provide me with my quotable material for the next week or more.

I've hung onto quotes from Python all my life, and every so often my brain will mysteriously unveil one previously forgotten and I'll recite an entire sketch - or at least some dialogue - verbatim.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that - along with the likes of Spike Milligan, The Goons, Tony Hancock and The Goodies - I owe my own anarchic sense of humour to the Python crew. So they're the ones to blame really.

The interim years have seen mixed fortunes for the Pythons.

Michael Palin was head and shoulders my favourite Python - maybe because he always had the best lines, or the ones which I found the most funny? - so I was as pleased as anyone with the success of his mid-life traveling series like "Around the World in 80 Days" etc. Just as in various interviews, these showed him coming across as a "genuine bloke"... if that makes sense?

John Cleese surpassed his Python days with the timeless and irrefutably hilarious "Fawlty Towers", in itself another deeply influential TV comedy series. (Although why co-writer Connie Booth has never been given the proper credit for her contribution is anyone's guess). In contrast to his writing skills however, Cleese always seems to come across as something of an angry bitter man, full of demons. I've also heard rumours that he also a bit of a git to work with, always miserable, etc and FAR too serious That seems a shame for a man who gave us so much humour - but isn't that often the case where a comic's best work is always on the outside?

Graham Chapman - always the most nervous-looking Python - sadly left us in 1989, following a losing battle against a rare form of spinal cancer. His funeral service (link NSFW or kids) was as fabulously irreverent as you - and he - would expect.

Terry ("Mr Creosote") Jones appears to have spent his post-Python years with a pen in his hands, co-writing other quality comedy series like "Ripping Yarns", as well as authoring books, magazine and newspaper articles. He's done some historical documentaries for TV, and got to do his own fair share of film directing (Erik the Viking etc). Many consider him to be very much be the "philosophical one" of the troupe, responsible for many of the more esoteric and 'educational' skits. It was probably his skits that I failed to fully grasp. Rumour (sadly) has it he too has been fighting cancer recently.

I hate to say it, but Eric Idle has always irritated me. He was my least-liked Python back in the 70's and he's certainly my least-liked now. (I try to conveniently ignore his genius of parody with the sublime "Rutles" project, always referring to it as being written by Neil Innes) I have always felt Idle to be a little too 'smug', a little too 'full of himself' and the one apparently most involved with somehow undermining the Python legacy, his latest attempt being the theatrical musical "Spamalot"... which - to me at least - just seems to stretch a joke a tad too far... if that's possible?

However, having said all that, he is TOTALLY redeemed thanks to one major musical contribution. That contribution being the song at the end of "Life of Brian", "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life". It is such a beautiful mix of pathos and comedy that I've actually considered asking to have it aired at my own funeral, the only thing putting me off is that it has now become something of a "funeral cliché". Well, that, and the fact that my wife doesn't care for whistling very much.

Animator Terry Gilliam has gone on to be a film director of considerable acclaim with classics like "Brazil", "The Fisher King" and "Time Bandits" assuring him of a place in film, as well as comedy, history. (Let's not mention "The Brothers Grimm" shall we?). I wonder if he'll ever shake off the tag of being Python's "cartoon man" though?

As it happens, I worked on a Mac for years and loved it. But when I left the nominally more creative side of my business, I left the Mac as well and switched back to PC-dom.

Perhaps it wasn't as elegant or fun. Then again, the world didn't end when I switched.

So it was with some bemusement that I watched the grownup equivalent of "OMG! The iPhone3G!!!!" frenzy this (now past) week.  Even though the reviews were mostly positive, a few pointed out that amidst its "functionality and beauty" there were still some glitches and hidden costs. But no fear, the data points are ready, any criticisms (however mild) can be argued with zeal.

Don't get me wrong. The iPhone 3G is way cool, and in general Apple products are elegant, thoughtful, well-marketed, and smart. But watching the frenzy ... the lines... the "Countdowns" over the iPhone 3G kept reminding me of the scene in Life of Brian where the hero, Brian, mistaken for the Savior, has accidentally lost one of his shoes. His followers have fervently taken off one of their shoes "so we can be like YOU, Master!"

The willingness to proclaim everything Brian does or mentions as "a miracle!" is very Apple-esque (or -esque of nearly anything in tech where the hype just gets breathless. Google. Web services, once upon a time. Heaven forbid, blade servers. Chips.) As for the declaiming around him that "only the true messiah would deny his divinity" -- well, I'm not sayin' it reminds me of the fans of the guy in the black turtleneck. But hang out on certain discussion boards for a while and connect your own dots.

As Allen Stern of CenterNetworks (a great Web 2.0 news and analysis blog, by the way) said on Twitter: "Anybody want to get 100 people to line up outside of the Sprint Store, just for the hell of it?"

Did anybody find "Fawlty Towers" (don't mention the war!) as excruciating, embarrassing and unfunny, in the way only John Cleese can be unfunny, as I did? Please discuss, for I need help, and I feel so terribly, terribly left out of something clearly very universal here where "British" modern humour is concerned. Even though he drove a Rover 2000, I can't love the man or especially his humour. (Perhaps, tell it not in Gath, I'm not really a libertarian....? Not THAT sort, anyway...? ....[YOU know!...he DOESN'T LAUGH at MONTY PYTHON STUFF.......!!!] )

And I found "Life of Brian" even worse - possibly I was offended to religious reasons, but I watched in in the company of several "English Old Catholics" who all found it an uproarious hoot, and I was frankly mystified.

David Davis

Now then.

I have been wondering quietly over the last couple of weeks and months about Iraq. As everybody here knows, I have never ever failed to oppose, often vociferously, those who said we (which is to say "The West", which is to say in practice, Britain and our assistant the USA, plus any Anglosphere nations such as Poland who wanted to come along) had no business there.

The probability that, providing whichever Gramsco-Marxian succeeds Bush as our President in 2009 pursues what Petraeus has been doing, Iraq will finally succeed as a project, is high. this was noted today on Kerplunk, a sensible Australian blog. While the main point of the post was about the "West's" mediarati dis-reporting success in Iraq, the blogger also wondered why the "left" don't want people to be successful and free. Well, they'd have no job, and would have to break stones or fill shleves like proper people do, as I opined there:-

First of all, thank you for a sensible and grand blog. I have always particularly admired your "Ten Signs that you're a Moral idiot" essay. It ought to be resyndicated lots.

The left does not want nations, any nations at all, to be successful and free. Why?

Because the very fact of freedom, coupled with success or even relative failure - and most nations fail, just like people - utterly negates any premise that the left (Nazis or other types of left-wing-communists, or "Trotzky-ists" (whatever those may have been) Marxists, Maoists, Polpotists, Sartristas and the like) has any reason for existence, other than in "public-sector" jobs as a bureaucracy.

This latter loophole is the only way they can get "gainful" (yay!) "employment" inside "advanced" (which is broadly to say, liberal capitalist) nations which are peculiarly resistent happily to armed or subversive revolution on the Leninist model.

The "left" is not Mankind's solution: it is the problem, and the main problem. The uncomputable number of deaths and individual sorrow, which it and its musings have caused, is probably water under a bridge by now...but the scenario in former Warsaw Pact countries now liberated - after a fashion - from pre-capitlist barbarism, shows what can be done with little, even half-heartedly, in a very little time.

No. The "left" does not want you - or anybody - to be lifted out of atavistic misery and servility to barbarous, unsocialised beasts masquerading as human beings. Once everybody is free, and has no need to listen to the buggers, they are f****d. Terminally. Good.

That is why they are so, so very very pissed off about Iraq and the results.

Lite att nynna på i grådasket. ;-)

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (from Monty Python)

Listen: LoFi | Download | Send-Card | Chords
From: A Faire To Remember

words and music by Eric Idle

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.

So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...

KEY Am

verse:
Am G
Am G
Am G E7
A7 D7

chorus:
G E7 Am D7
G E7 A7 D7

Background: This song is from Life of Brian and later from The Meaning of Life both by Monty Python. From what I heard, they were filming the last scene of Life of Brian and were all bored and hot sitting up on their crucifixes. So Eric Idle started singing a little ditty. Everyone (but Eric) liked it so much that they decided to use it. It has sine become one of our most popular songs as well.

Bajen å andra sidan saknar fortfarande en komplett backlinje och kommer förmodligen att fortsätta att exprimentera med offensiva spelare på kanterna. Den uttagna truppen finns här, och jag förutspår att man startar med följande elva:

Poppen

Haris - José - Traoré - Sosseh

Lolo

Erkan - Guterstam

Petter

Charlie - Paulinho

Möjligen kan jag tänka mig att man väljer att fortsätta med Mikkel som mittback snarare än Traoré som precis kommit tillbaka från skada. Men om Traoré är helt återställd är han förstavalet i mittlåset bland de tillgängliga spelarna. Möjligen får Helg eller Castro chansen på vänsterkanten istället för anfallaren Guterstam. Men på det hela taget tror jag att det är dessa spelare som spelar. Resultatet blir 2-0 till Bajen.

För övrigt måste jag vända mig mot det sångförslaget som José kommer med på "officiella" (som är bajenlingo för klubbsidan). "Always look on the bright side of life" är för mig en sång som handlar om självironiskt lidande. En sång man sjunger när det går åt helvete för Bajen. Det var inte romarna som sjöng den i Life of Brian, det var de som hängde på korset. Att använda den för att håna ett lag som kämpar i botten av tabellen känns bara fel.

"And now for something a little different"

Bigus Dickus

Check him out! (Search, find, watch, buy)
Do Not Adjust your Set (1967-69)
Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-74)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Ripping Yarns (1976-79)
Life of Brian (1979)
The Meaning of Life (1983)
Labyrinth (1986)
The Crusades (1995)
The Wind in the Willows (1996)
Medieval Lives (2004)
Barbarians (2006)
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/terry_jones/index.html

Find out stuff about Terry Jones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Jones
http://www.terry-jones.net/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001402/

Um dia, vou promover um apedrejamento!

I found this really interesting scene from the movie that I think is really relevant to the debate in Africa generally regarding the contribution that the dreaded "colonists" made (or did not make) to this continent.

Enjoy.

REG:

They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers' fathers.

LORETTA:

And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.

REG:

Yeah.

LORETTA:

And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.

REG:

Yeah. All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!

XERXES:

The aqueduct?

REG:

What?

XERXES:

The aqueduct.

REG:

Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah.

COMMANDO #3:

And the sanitation.

LORETTA:

Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?

REG:

Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.

MATTHIAS:

And the roads.

REG:

Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads--

COMMANDO:

Irrigation.

XERXES:

Medicine.

COMMANDOS:

Huh? Heh? Huh...

COMMANDO #2:

Education.

COMMANDOS:

Ohh...

REG:

Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.

COMMANDO #1:

And the wine.

COMMANDOS:

Oh, yes. Yeah...

FRANCIS:

Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.

COMMANDO:

Public baths.

LORETTA:

And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.

FRANCIS:

Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this.

COMMANDOS:

Hehh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.

REG:

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

XERXES:

Brought peace.

REG:

Oh. Peace? Shut up!

Well? Scary hey?

Esta é sem dúvida, a melhor comédia de sempre. Como este blog é dedicado às opiniões pessoais, não me preocupo em ser isento, mas se tivesse que ter esse cuidado, diria o mesmo. Aviso desde já, quem não é apreciador de humor britânico, que esqueça este post e o filme. Mas se não for este o caso, é um filme obrigatório por tudo o que um apreciador de comédia inglesa pode pedir, ou seja, humor inteligente e com excelentes interpretações.

Os conhecedores de Monty Python, seja dos outros filmes (Life Of Brian, Meaning Of Life, etc) ou da famosa e inigualável (os Gato Fedorento bem tentaram) série Flying Circus, irão encontrar todas aquelas situações ridículas e absolutamente "non sense" bem características destes humoristas, mas com o acréscimo de que as personagens ainda tem mais piada!

Analisando os filmes de comédia que são feitos hoje em dia, o Holy Grail irá reinar por muito tempo. Não querendo desprezar, claro, grandes comediantes como Eddie Izzard, Ricky Gervais; grandes séries que se tem feito : Little Britain, Blackadder (com o melhor de Rowan Atkinson), Seinfeld, The Office, etc.

A história do filme baseia-se na demanda pelo cálice utilizado por Cristo na Última Ceia, o Graal. O Rei Arthur (Graham Chapman) percorre a Inglaterra à procura de cavaleiros com coragem suficiente para o ajudar nessa perigosa tarefa. À medida que vão avançando, montados nos seus cavalos fictícios, imitando o som dos cascos batendo com dois cocos, as situações mais ridículas e hilariantes vão acontecendo. Desde mortíferos coelhos brancos e ninfomaníacas sozinhas num castelo, tudo de mais inesperado e burlesco acontece neste filme genial. Enfim, é um filme absolutamente obrigatório para quem se quiser rir, contado assim não tem piada, é preciso ver mesmo.

Fica aqui um pequeno excerto da luta infernal destes cavaleiros:

O orçamento para este filme foi em parte investimento de bandas como Led Zeppelin e Pink Floyd. Esta informação é só para aguçar o apetite dos admiradores...

Curiosidade : se virem o filme reparem quando Deus aparece nas nuvens, a imagem Dele é uma fotografia de um jogador inglês de cricket do século 19...Genial!! :P

Assinado : Knight Who Say NI!

]]> http://soundaffects.wordpress.com/?p=35 Tue, 13 May 2008 15:56:05 +0000 soundaffects http://soundaffects.wordpress.com/?p=35 CONSIDER HOW AND TO WHAT EFFECT LANGUAGE IS USED AS A FORM OF POWER

Of all the socio-political issues in Britain today, very few carry the weight, the history or the popular fascination as does class. In a nation often associated with its royal family, and bearing a long history of feudalism, many people still believe they are fighting the class war, and despite Tony Blair’s declaration that “we are all middle-class now”, a 2007 poll by The Guardian found that a majority of respondents saw themselves as “working class”. What is most interesting here is that both Blair and The Guardian have identified a majority bloc of the British people, the difference is that the middle class that Blair speaks of identifies itself as working class – the disagreement is one of language. Perhaps unsurprisingly, class emerges as one of the most significant issues of concern in two of the finest manipulators and users of language in modern British culture – the poet Tony Harrison and the comedy troupe Monty Python. Harrison, the working class child who, via grammar school and university, became a celebrated poet, is always acutely aware of his own class, but also of the importance of language as a symbol of class struggle. His poem Them & [uz] is a scathing attack on those Harrison saw as hoarding poetry, reserving it for the upper, educated classes as thought the right to self-expression was a part of one’s M.C.C. membership. Similarly v., arguably Harrison’s best-known work contains examinations of language, expression and poetry, only this time it is Harrison representing the intelligensia against a skinhead vandal. While perhaps less immediately apparent, the comedy of Monty Python is similarly scathing of superiority, whether religious, social or military, and spent a significant proportion of their career portraying hopeless, incompetent “upper class twits” getting their comeuppance at the hands of the lower classes – both on screen and at the hands of the writers.

When considering the power of language, particularly in relation to class, it is impossible to ignore Harrison’s own biography, and the continued recurring power of language inherent in it. Harrison was a working class boy who received an education, both at grammar school and university, which removed him from his class. And he is a man who has spent his working life as a poet, playing with words and manipulating language. Clearly, nowhere is the power of language more apparent than in Harrison’s own life. It removed him from the innate, natural unit of identity, his family, and immediately set him apart from almost everything he had known pre-education. And his continued education only led to a continued distancing from his home, his hometown and his family. And if that weren’t enough, the power of Harrison’s own language has enabled him to make a living as a poet – something that many attempt but at which few succeed. No wonder, then, that Harrison’s poetry displays such a focus on class and on language: these two competing markers of identity are pulling him in opposite directions, and he is left, torn, in the middle, attempting to find his niche where he can coexist between the class he was born into, the class conferred upon him with his high school diploma, and the class he has chosen for himself, as a member of the literary elites in the most literary-elite country on earth, Britain. These are Harrison’s very own  ‘versuses of life’ that he details in v. – “Half versus half, the enemies within/the heart that can’t be whole until they unite.” This is the inner conflict displayed in Them & [uz], and the argument played out between Harrison and his skinhead alter-ego in v. – it’s the voice of Harrison, the “class migrant”,  unable to return to the land of his parents, but equally unable to find a sense of home in the land he has chosen for himself.
Nowhere is this conflict more apparent than in Harrison’s poem Them & [uz], in which Harrison recounts his schooling and of ‘receiving’ Received Pronunciation, in which all dialectic and regional accents are completely removed from any reading of the poetry. Harrison vehemently disputes this idea that there is only one correct accent with which to read poetry aloud, and announces his opposition to this idea of “leasehold poetry”  by using the military word “occupation”. Harrison declares that he saw this as “an aggressive occupation – I was going to usurp classical forms but fit them to what I wanted to say and the kind of language I wanted to use” . Indeed he succeeds at this from the opening line, juxtaposing the familiar (to academics) cry of the Greek tragic chorus with “the stand-up comedian’s popularly familiar “’ay, ‘ay”” , and continues in the same vein, alluring to the accents and regionalism of Keats and Wordsworth, and declaring gleefully his flouting of the accepted rules of grammar – “ended sentences with by, with, from”.  Of course, the problem with Harrison’s quest for an accessible, egalitarian poetry is that you not only have to be reading the poem in the first place, but also understand the allusions to Keats, Wordsworth and the conventions of grammar – things that, realistically, the working class for whom he is writing will not do. Indeed, Harrison himself seems to admit this very problem in his poem when he writes:

You can tell the receivers where to go
(and not aspirate it) once you know
Wordsworth’s matter/water are full of rhymes,

Harrison’s use of the phrase “once you know” makes it abundantly clear that the poet himself knows what we as the audience have already realised – that while Harrison is raging against the elites he sees as holding a monopoly on poetry, language and expression, he is doing so in a way that is completely impregnable to anyone outside that elite group.

This calls to attention Harrison’s usurpation (as he sees it) of classical forms in order to make his poetry more accessible. The issue of the power of language is clearly highlighted here, with a poet using recognisable, manageable and approachable forms of poetry – quatrains, ABAB rhyme patterns, even rhyming couplets – in order to achieve wider readership. By making his poetry more accessible, Harrison is also making it more powerful simply through striving to reach more people. Here is a double-sided consideration of the power of language – it can be powerful, influential and significant, but only if it is being read. There is scarce experimentation in Harrison’s work – rather he is content to allow the form to welcome readers, and the language to affect and engage them.
In this way, Harrison’s poem v. has been made available to a much wider audience as a result of its presentation on that most accessible of formats: British national television. v. is a simple poem in its structure, featuring 112 quatrains in an ABAB rhyme scheme, and thus is a simple, straightforward poem to hear or read. There are no wild shifts in metre, narrative voice or rhyme, and this allows the power and force of the language to be greater and more readily identifiable. v. is not a poem that makes witty jokes concerning grammar and the pronunciation of written poetry, but instead explodes into a tirade of harsh, violent expletives during a heated argument about class in Britain in the 1980s, the stark divisions in British society and the blunt, brutal power of words. Indeed, the setting of the poem itself can be seen as a metaphor representing Harrison’s view of Britain following the 1984 miner’s strike – a graveyard, littered with empty beer cans, desecrated by anger and violence, and sitting precariously on an empty, mined-out pit.
Perhaps one of the more interesting considerations of the power of language is quite separate from any real analysis of the poem itself or its themes. The most interesting examination of the power of language comes instead from looking at the heated reaction to the profanity in Harrison’s poem. Although certainly not intended as such, the greatest compliment ever paid to the poem was by a coalition of conservative MPs who proposed a motion titled ‘Television Obscenity’ into the British Parliament, allegedly concerned with the effect that Harrison’s use of obscenities would have on the youth of Britain. Although slightly hysterical, this apparent belief that rude words can somehow scar and mark a child for life clearly subscribes to a belief in the power of language.
This “furore in the right-wing press” caused v. to receive “more tabloid coverage than any other postwar poem” , and following its airing on Channel 4 in 1987, many youth and community groups staged popular performances and poetry workshops, which drew a large number of young people.  Indeed, in Bruce Woodcock’s experience, “young, unemployed people were unanimous about the power and general accessibility of the video version of v.”, but “at the same time, they asked some probing questions about Harrison’s presentation of the skinhead voice.”  Woodcock goes on to explain how these young people felt Harrison was not entirely correct in his portrayal of the skinhead, as many football-supporting skinheads had been banned from stadia, and thus had to hide their identity by changing their clothes and hairstyles. And while Woodcock uses this example to address the problem of Harrison’s speaking on behalf of a class he no longer belongs to, what is most fascinating about this account is that these young, unemployed people were arguing about and taking umbrage with a poem. What greater reinforcement could there be for Harrison’s use of traditional, non-radical poetic form to better convey his message than this anecdote of “ex-NF ex-skinhead”   objecting to the representation of skinheads in a poem?

John Cleese once said that a good deal of the Monty Python comedy came from a reaction against the system.  In Britain, unavoidably, that system involved class. And while Python were certainly never class warriors like Tony Harrison, many sketches of theirs not only involved sending up the upper classes (“The Wacky Queen”) or lovingly mocking the lower classes (“Four Yorkshiremen”), but occasionally turning the entire class paradigm on its head to create something that was both recognisable and completely ridiculous all at once.
The perfect example of this is “The Working-Class Playwright”, where a recognisable father-son confrontation scene is entirely reversed. Indeed, this is perhaps a scene that Harrison himself would recognise: the son returning to the roots that he has outgrown only to be met with a father furious at what he sees as a complete rejection. However, just as the audience has identified the trope, the entire scene is subverted when it is revealed that the father, while outwardly working-class, is a playwright, and that the son with his suit, coiffed hair and Anglia accent is working in the mines in Yorkshire. In this instance, the language is where the joke is, as Graham Chapman echoes the working class Four Yorkshiremen, but now with a distinct culturally elite bent:

“Good! good? What do you know about it? What do you know about getting up at five o'clock in t'morning to fly to Paris... back at the Old Vic for drinks at twelve, sweating the day through press interviews, television interviews and getting back here at ten to wrestle with the problem of a homosexual nymphomaniac drug-addict involved in the ritual murder of a well known Scottish footballer! That’s a full working day, lad, and don't you forget it!”

The power of the language is not only that it creates the humour, but that it creates the class as well. In a complete reversal of the norm, and indeed of Harrison’s poetry, it is language that controls class, rather than the upper classes controlling the language.

However, similar themes to Harrison emerge in “Romanes Eunt Domus” from Monty Python's Life of Brian. Although it may be a comic scene, there is a parallel – Brian can only tell the buggers to get stuffed once he knows their language. Throughout, the Centurion has power over Brian because the Centurion knows the Latin, and Latin is the basis of the protest. As with Them & [uz], Brian has to master the language of his occupiers in order to fight back.
The difference though, lies in the accessibility of the scene compared to the accessibility of Harrison’s poem – the scene is in a popular film, screening in cinemas across the world, and even within the scene itself the Pythons explain why the joke is funny. All the audience members who have never done Latin can appreciate the joke because every step is translated for them. And even then Brian’s high-pitched squeals of “Ah. Ah, dative, sir! Ahh! No, not dative! Not the dative, sir! No! Ah! Oh, the... accusative! Accusative! Ah! 'Domum', sir! 'Ad domum'! Ah! Oooh! Ah!” are funny on their own, whereas with Harrison, the audience cannot appreciate the wit or wordplay of the poem unless they know the conventions of grammar and of classical Greek theatre.

But perhaps nowhere do Python more explicitly show the power of language than in Dennis vs. King Arthur. This scene shows the opposite of “Romanes Eunt Domus” and of Harrison, as it is the peasant who has control over the dialectic that leads to the defeat of the class enemy. The king is attacked by language questioning his “divine right” to rule, and Arthur, like his less fictional descendants, has no answer as to the exploitation of the workers, or the fact that his “supreme executive power” does not derive from a mandate from the masses. In their own way, Python once again bring about the defeat of the upper classes. Only this time they are not defeated by the writer of the sketch (as in “The Upper Class Twit of the Year”) but rather are soundly beaten in a direct contest with the workers.

If, as The Guardian survey suggests, the majority of English people see themselves as working class, then perhaps this goes a long way to explain the enduring popularity of Monty Python. If most English people see themselves on the bottom rungs of the social ladder, then Python’s frustrated authority figures, triumphant peasants and ridiculous aristocrats not only serve as amusement and escapism, but appeal strongly to the majority of English people who feel judged by their social class, and thus enjoy a good skewering of those above them.

Both Monty Python and Tony Harrison clearly convey the power of language through their chosen medium. Harrison uses his poetry to rage against the literary hegemony of the educated elites, and even the reaction to his aggressive v. shows the force that words can have in the right context. Monty Python, meanwhile, play exceptionally clever games with the English language to satirise every aspect of British life. While Harrison forces his audience to examine issues of class and language by making his words impossible to ignore, Monty Python persuades their audience to laugh at themselves by making their words impossible to resist.

Bibliography

1.    Tony Harrison, v. in Joseph Black et. al., The Broadview Anthology of British Literature volume 6: Directions in Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Century Poetry, (Broadview Press: Ontario), 2006
2.    Tony Harrison, Them & [uz], in Joseph Black et. al., The Broadview Anthology of British Literature volume 6: Directions in Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Century Poetry, (Broadview Press: Ontario), 2006
3.    Graham Chapman et al., Monty Python’s Flying Circus – Just The Words vol. 1 & 2,  (Methuen: London), 1989

4.    Joseph Black et. al., The Broadview Anthology of British Literature volume 6: Directions in Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Century Poetry, (Broadview Press: Ontario), 2006
5.    Sandie Byrne, H, v., and O: The Poetry of Tony Harrison (Manchester University Press: Manchester), 1998
6.    Peter Childs, The Twentieth Century In Poetry: A Critical Survey (Routledge: London), 1999
7.    Gary Day and Brian Ockerty (eds.), British Poetry from the 1950s to the 1990s: Politics and Art (Macmillan: Basingstoke), 1997
8.    Joe Kelleher, Tony Harrison, (Northcote House in association with the British Council: Plymouth), 1996.
9.    John O. Thompson (ed.), Monty Python: Complete and Utter Theory of the Grotesque, (BFI Publishing: London), 1982, p.9
10.    Stephen Wagg (ed.), Because I Tell A Joke Or Two: Comedy, Politics and Social Difference, (Routledge: London), 1998
11.    Bruce Woodcock, Classical vandalism: Tony Harrison’s invective, “Critical Quarterly” vol. 32, no. 2

Terry Jones, as Brian's mother.

There are a couple of topics you rarely see tackled in the world of comedy. They're simply too dangerous, too inflammatory, too likely to piss someone off.

Cancer is one of them. When was the last time you heard a cancer joke? About the only time you hear anyone make a crack about cancer is when the joketeller happens to be a victim of the disease.

John Kruk, the television baseball analyst who was much funnier during his playing career, pulled this off. Kruk was a victim of testicular cancer and had one of his removed in surgery. Legend has it, Kruk later wore a t-shirt that said "If they don't let me play, I'll take my ball and go home." Of course, even Kruk has his limits, as you'll find in this article.

Another topic you don't see blasted all over Comedy Central is rape, and it's easy to undestand why. It's simply a horrible crime, and to make a joke about it is risking offending many. The basketball coach Bob Knight found that out with an ill-advised comment he made in an interview with Connie Chung. (Shocking, I know).

But somehow, the legendary British Comedy troupe Monty Python pulled it off in their movie Life of Brian. The movie is a brilliant satire predominantly about religion, set in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. The film follows the adventures of Brian, who is inadvertently swept up in the locals' desire to find the true "Messiah."

In the scene in question, Brian is railing about the oppression his people suffer at the hands of the Romans, whom he abhors. His mother, played by a hilarious Terry Jones in drag, grows uncomfortable and decides there is something Brian must know about he father.

"He was a Roman, Brian," she says. "He was a Centurion in the Roman army."

Brian's jaw drops in shock and disgust. "You mean, you were raped?" He asks, furious.

Brian's mother, caught off guard, looks sheepish, and hems and haws, answering:

"Well ... at first."

When I heard the line for the first time, I was stunned, my mouth wide open. Then I couldn't help myself, and I burst into laughter. Before long I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes, as Brian's mother goes on to remember her interlude fondly, and reveals that Brian's father's name was (of course) Nauteous Maximus.

You can watch the scene below (it's about five minutes into the clip). And when you pick yourself up off the floor, try to imagine anyone EVER pulling off that joke successfully again. I don't see it happening. 

Emission diffusée le vendredi 18 avril 2008 à 16h.
Rediffusée le samedi 19 avril 2008 à 10h.

Actualité

Zombie Strippers avec Jenna Jameson et Robert Englund

Underdog de Frederik Du Chau en DVD et Blu-Ray chez Disney

Frissions d'Horreur de Macchie Solari dans le Mad Movies du mois d'Avril

Mort de Charlton Heston à l'age de 84 ans ce 5 avril 2008

Dossier : Terry Gilliam

A l'occasion de la ressortie en salle de Brazil et la sortie Blu-Ray de La vie de Brian et Les Aventures du Baron de Munchausen, les voyeurs reviennent sur la carrière de Terry Gilliam.

Ses réalisations

1977 : Jabberwocky

1981 : Bandits, Bandits

1983: The Crimson Permanent Assurance

1985 : Brazil

1988 : Les Aventures du Baron de Munchausen

1991 : Le Roi pêcheur

1995 : L'armée des 12 singes

1998 : Las Vegas Parano

2005 : Les Frères Grimm

2005 : Tideland

En tournage actuellement The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Il est également en 2000 le "héros" du documentaire Lost in la Mancha de Keith Fulton et Louis Pepe.

Bande Originale de la Semaine

Guns 1748 (Plunkett er Macleane) de Jake Scott
Musique de Craig Armstrong

Bienvenue au drive in

Hommage à Richard Widmark

Extraits

Les Aventures du Baron de Munchausen

Musique

Always look on the bright side of life des Monty Python

Brazil de Geoff Muldaur

She's youngest of my twin girls, approaching 8 months of age. A couple of weeks ago she learned how to pull herself up and stand. She hasn't quite mastered sitting back down, and she usually just topples over. Or she'll stand there and cry until someone comes to the rescue.

I mean, you have to learn to stand before you can walk, and so on. The problem is that she's utterly addicted to standing. She stands every chance she gets. As soon as you put her down, she's assuming a standing position. As soon as she gets up in the morning, she's standing in the crib. And in the middle of the night, if she wakes up because of a noise or a bad dream, she's immediately standing, even before her eyes are completely open.

I sometimes find her standing in the crib, staring into the mirror, crying, her slap of hair sticking up as if she's been electrified, part of her wanting to let go and go back to sleep, the other part determined to stand no matter what. Just for the audacious sake of it.

When a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, it's a philosophical issue as to whether it makes a sound. But when a baby topples like a petrified oak, foam mattress or not, she makes a sound that would make the deadest of philosophers beg for earplugs. And you'd think she'd learn.

I imagine if I tried to make her stand, she'd be a lot less interested in it. As long as I keep rescuing her once in a while, and the other times letting her topple (safely on a foam mattress), it will seem like the coolest possible thing she could ever be doing. And any day now Boss #1 (the other twin) will decide she wants in on the action.

I'm not convinced that any of this standing business is in my best interest. After all, the more mobile they become, the more they'll reach for the things I'm not ready for them to have. The stapler. My coffee cup. Their freedom.

I was pondering what this standing addiction portends about her character, and it got me remembering something from my own high school days.

I was a bit of a pain in the butt in high school. I was a nice kid, and smart, in mostly the advanced classes, but I had absolutely no inclination to respect authority.

I didn't care for school assemblies, and the part where we all stood up for the star spangled banner song rubbed me the wrong way. I always made a distinction between loving my country (which I do) and being militaristically patriotic (which has always scared me).

But mostly I was just a pain in the butt.

So I asked to be pardoned from the assemblies, to go instead to the lunch room and do homework.

Request denied.

So, in the assembly, when everyone else stood up for the rocket's red glare, I sat, infuriating the Assistant Principal (whose nickname was Sarge) and earning me a ticket to the Principal's office (not my first by a long shot).

The Principal did not have Sarge's fury, and I successfully argued my case. I was allowed to skip the next assembly and instead go to the lunch room and read.

So there I was, sitting alone at the table, reading a book, minding my own business, and suddenly a small horde of punks and goths come through the lunchroom door, sheepdogged by Sarge, who was nearly purple-faced.

They were ushered into seats and I learned soon about their crime. Inspired by my act of rebellion in the previous assembly, this time they'd all stayed in their seats during the bombs bursting in air. And their punishment was a time out in the lunchroom. No talking. No reading. No looking at anyone funny.

I continued reading. I mean, that was the deal. But Sarge ordered me to stop reading. Apparently I was now one of the accused. I tried to explain that I was an exception, but he was in no frame of mind to deal with that sort of subtlety.

So, I sat there a while, looking around at the punks, their primary-colored mohawks reaching for the fluorescent bulbs like sun-thirsty weeds, and the goths, their deflated expressions verging on annoyed. And Sarge, face still purplish, seething with the rage of someone who is confronted with the knowledge that whatever they may have sacrificed for our star-spangled banner, teenagers are born to push boundaries for the audacious sake of it.

So, being a teenager, my next move was to stand up. I stood there, next to the table. Sarge's face looked like it was going to erupt. So I started whistling.

That earned me another trip to the Principal's office. And detention. For a while.

Oh, and the song I whistled. I should have chosen something political, but I just whistled the first thing that came into my head that already included some whistling. It's the song they're all singing at the end of Life of Brian when they're being crucified.

IMDB

(1979, Terry Jones) 

The perfect Easter movie for heretics.

What's totally lost on the modern viewer is how outrageous this film was upon initial release. It was attacked by religious groups as blasphemous, banned in several countries and some American states, and there were protestors at many showings. Think about it: Can you imagine seeing the crucifixion sing-along with your token religious leader?

For those reasons alone, this remains my favorite Python movie. Like all things Python, it still suffers from a lack of consistent belly-laughs. Some favorites: The sermon on the mount ("Speak up!"), Brian speaking to the masses ("You're all individuals."), and the discussion of the People's Front of Judea ("Splitters!").

4.0/5.0

ELENCO
GRAHAM CHAPMAN
JOHN CLEESE - (Temporada 1 - Temporada 3)
TERRY GILLIAM
TERRY JONES
ERIC IDLE
MICHAEL PALIN

Monty Python's Flying Circus es una de las series mas estúpidamente olvidadas y mas originales que se hayan creado. Bueno, en realidad la serie ha dejado un legado inalcanzable, pero es desconocida prácticamente el 90% de Latinoamérica y es frecuentemente olvidada en Estados Unidos debido a otras series parecidas, tales como Saturday Night Live o MadTV, que en mi opinión son aburridas comparadas con esta obra de genio.

Pues si. Desde su extraño título, a sus exóticas y bizarras animaciones, hacia lo más absurdo que caracteriza a la serie, Flying Circus es probablemente el mejor programa de sketches que se haya creado. Los sketches de ahora son influenciados tremendamente, indirecta o directamente, por Flying Circus, y aunque su legado es recordado por la crítica, y por casi la misma gente que recuerda que el programa empezó cuando Los Beatles por fin se separaron, la ¿juventud? de hoy en día, lo deja a un lado, dando espacio para sitcoms innecesarias, dramas demasiados empalagosos, y programas de sketches, que bien fueron buenos en su prime, pero ahora son bastante tediosos (SNL es el perfecto ejemplo de esto.)

Bueno, ya dejando claro el legado, ¿de qué demonios se trata esta serie? Pues podría decirse que se trata absolutamente de nada y absolutamente de todo, ya que los Pythons (como le dicen casi todos) hacían sketches desde pájaros muertos a Mozart, de Proust a leñadores, de canibalismo, clínicas de argumentos, hombres vestidos de caballeros con pollos muertos, un hombre tratando de brincar el gran canal de Inglaterra, etcétera, etcétera. y aunque suene algo normal la verdad es que era mezclada con la magnifica delicadez demencial y completamente insana que le ponían cada uno de los Python (aunque en mi opinión Chapman y Cleese parecían hacer los personajes mas locos). Además de que los seis tenían educación muy alta, mezclaban cualquier cosa inteligente, digamos la obra de Proust "À la recherche du temps perdu", con algo totalmente ridículo y tonto, como un concurso en que los concursantes tienen 15 segundos para dar un resumen de cada uno de las partes de este libro.

Y con todo esto, ¿valen la pena? Pues yo digo que sí. Aunque obviamente como en todo tipo de humor siempre va a haber gente que diga que el show es aburrido o que no lo encuentra gracioso, con Flying Circus parece ser que el porcentaje se incrementa, al menos en el lado Occidental del mundo. Bueno, el caso es que la comedia de Inglaterra es muy distinta a la Mexicana, Americana, Argentina, etc. y obviamente es muy compleja para muchos, ya que la serie usa usualmente más el lenguaje y las palabras para que los sketches sean buenos, a diferencia de otros shows que prefieren hacer que los personajes se caigan o se golpeen.

La serie duró cuatro años con 45 episodios. Muchos dirán que es muy poco tiempo o muy pocos episodios, pero en mi opinión, es mejor la calidad que la cantidad, y en Flying Circus, no es la excepción. Además, creo que el show se fue en una nota muy alta, si hubiera seguido por más tiempo, tal vez la gente se hubiera hartado, sin contar que el show estaba perdiendo un poco de su contexto original (las historias, por ejemplo, empezaban a relacionarse por episodios completos). Claro que las primeras dos temporadas, son mejor que las últimas dos, pero eso lo discutiré más adelante.

Ahora. El reparto. En realidad, muchos prefieren a uno que a otro, pero en mi opinión el show no pudo haberse logrado sin ninguno. Tal como Los Beatles no hubieran sobrevivido sin McCartney, Lennon, Harrison o Starr, el show no se hubiera convertido en el show que fue sin Chapman, Cleese, Gilliam, Jones, Idle y Palin. Si no me creen, vean algún episodio de la cuarta temporada sin Cleese... como que falta algo ¿no?

Chapman era mejor como el "straight man". El hombre que, por algunas circunstancias, es racional y bien portado, y podría decirse que más normal, se encuentra en medio de lo más absurdo que era todo el show. Si no me creen, vean algunos sketches como Silly Job Interview y verán de que estoy hablando. Mientras que Cleese, parecía ser mejor como la autoridad completamente desquiciada normalmente con un toque abusivo además de poder hacer grandes cosas con cosas visuales como Ministry of Silly Walks. Gilliam era el animador, que era aquel que hacia las animaciones que unían los episodios de alguna forma u otra. No lo encuentro muy gracioso ya que sus roles eran limitados, pero aun así aprecio y a veces encuentro hilarantes algunas de sus animaciones. Jones, en cambio, era mas gracioso cuando se vestía de mujer y hablaba en voz falsetto, algo que, debo agregar, a todos los Pythons les gustaba a hacer, chequen por ejemplo Church Police, para que vean de que hablo. Idle, también ponía a personajes un poco locos, pero sus personajes eran mas habladores y jugaban con las palabras, en lugar de atacar a otros. Normalmente, sus personaje nunca escucha a otro, aunque también hace un muy buen straight man. Y Palin, podría decirse, que es como el "tierno" del grupo, ya que casi siempre se ve como un gato asustado cuando se le coloca con Cleese, Chapman o Idle, que son más altos que él, y su forma casi nerviosa y calmada de hablar, hace contraste con lo abusivo de Chapman y Cleese. También debo agregar que Palin diversificaba mucho sus roles, ya que también podía ser un hombre desquiciado o un timido hombre infeliz.

...

"Life of Brian" fue producida y totalmente actuada por el influyente grupo de comediantes llamado Monty Python, precursores de todo ese humor surreal y basado en la exageración y lo absurdo que es tan común hoy en día, seguramente sin ellos no tendríamos el humor de "South Park", "Padre de Familia" o los mismos "Simpson", inclusive gracias a ellos, Guido van Rossum se inspiró para nombrar su lenguaje de programación.

La trama es bastante simple: narra la vida de Brian Cohen, personaje que nació el mismo día que Jesús (de hecho nació en el establo de al lado), y de cómo su destino se va entrelazando contemporáneamente a lo sucedido con "El Mesías".

En sus tiempos (1979) causó bastante polémica debido a que tocaba tópicos referentes al cristianismo (además de una pequeña cantidad de desnudos). Hoy en día ya no causa esa polémica, sin embargo es refrescante observar esa crítica hacia una sociedad que estaba dispuesta a creer en la que fuera, eso mucho antes de siquiera atreverse a pensar por sí mismos. Todo esto inmerso en una dinámica de situaciones supercómicas (como la de "Biggus Dickus" jajaja) que hacen tirarse unas buenas carcajadas, a menos que seas un amargado(a) que desde el principio se puso a la defensiva debido al tema de la película.

Pero aaaaaah, ya no les contaré más, los invito a verla y a casi orinarse de la risa. Les ofrezco una disculpa por esa parte (a mitad de la película) de los extraterrestres y la nave espacial (WTF!!), la verdad no sé en qué estaban pensando estos weyes, pero fuera de eso la película es excelente.

Los dejo con un tema clásico del filme. Disfruten.

Questa inutile premessa serve semplicemente ad introdurre un personaggio tagliato all’ultimo momento dal film Life of Brian dei Monthy Python (una delle più intelligenti e succose satire sulla religione della storia del cinema) che ho trovato tra le scene eliminate dell’edizione dvd del film.

Il personaggio controverso di Otto, interpretato da Eric Idle, sarebbe dovuto servire a fare satira sull’ebraismo, essendo egli un eccentrico soldato nazi-ebreo, ovvero ebreo ma di origini germaniche e spietato antisemita che vuole liberarsi di tutta l’impura “feccia non-ebrea” che ha invaso Israele, oltre che a capo di uno squadrone suicida altamente addestrato che è “in grado di suicidarsi in soli 20 secondi”.

I Python si sono auto-censurati in questo caso, togliendo volutamente la scena in fase di montaggio. Temevano, con questa figura, di essersi spinti un po’ troppo oltre, anche a causa del simbolo che Otto e la sua squadra sfoderano sull’elmo: un incrocio fra la stella di David e la croce uncinata!!

È veramente un peccato che questo spezzone sia stato tolto dalla versione finale.. la vita è proprio fatta di rimpianti..

Ma che dico? Oggi ci sono i dvd, no?

Andrò a farmi due risate con Animal Trainer..

What if the crowd is wrong? What if there's just a trend, or a panic, or pressure to conform? The Bible says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world."

I love that bit on Life of Brian when he shouts at the crowd, 'You're all individuals!' Check out the response.

I'd take issue with Brian about not having to follow anyone, and we all follow someone - even if it's the prevailing viewpoint. Just make sure who you're following is going the right way!

This morning I was reading with my Friday morning men's group through the beginning of Luke's gospel. It seems Jesus had some issues with crowds.

The home crowd liked him at first, when he was preaching good. But then he said the good news was not just for the Jewish people, but for everyone, everywhere. Suddenly the same crowd that loved his sermon hated the application and then tried to chuck him off the nearest cliff! Now that's what I call a reaction! I'll never moan about a letter from 'distressed, 3rd pew back' again.

You can spend a lot of money on a trip to Israel to walk 'in the steps of Jesus,' but it's really interesting to look through the gospels and notice the STOPS of Jesus. How often he'd see not a crowd, but a person. One life at a time. A leper who'd been left on the margin by the crowd perhaps, or a bunch of fishermen and a tax collector who would not have been welcomed by the religious elite crowd, the in crowd. Very often you notice it's the crowd that would keep a blind man sitting quiet and unhealed at the roadside, or stop a paralysed man's friends from bringing him to Jesus.

The only crowd Jesus was happy to sit with (and vice versa) was what you'd call the wrong crowd. The comment by the righteous observers was that he hung around with 'scum,' as my friend Justin's Bible version rendered this morning.

I love what Zacchaeus did when Jesus came to his town. He got above the crowd - to see Jesus! The crowd would have kept him (and his sort) away, but Jesus saw him and said, "I'm coming to your house!"

Don't go along with the crowd, get above - look out for Jesus - and then follow him.

Always look on the Bright Side of Life

The song from Life of Brian. 

The Spanish Inquisition

Bring forth the cushions and the comfy chair!

Part One

Part Two 

It's Christmas In Heaven 

I fear that theologians will tell you heaven is not like this. This is heaven on earth. 

 The Epilogue

Not sure you would get Haggard and Dawkins debating God in this way ....

Every Sperm Is Sacred 

Taken from the film The Meaning of Life (which is my favourite of the films)

The Philosophy Song

Philosophers to drink by.

The Universe Song

My personal favourite song - hence being on myspace. The wonder of the Universe by knowing more about it.