Four Things I’ve Learned This Week

by sj

How to add songs from Spotify directly to my posts. I think you have to already have a Spotify account to listen, but still. This can be cool for things that I can’t find on YouTube. What this means, though, is that if you want to get the full impact of our posts, you’ll have to sign up there. Sorry, but really – free music? Why haven’t you already signed up already? (unless you live in one of the Narnia countries that doesn’t have it yet, in which case I’m sorry for mocking you) This is what I’m listening to as I type this, isn’t that cool?

That I was too stupid to get the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, even though I’ve seen it at least 50 times. To be fair, every single person I’ve mentioned this to was too stupid to figure it out, as well. So…[shrug] Maybe this article is putting too much thought into it? Dunno.
How to open a bottle of wine with a shoe if there is not a handy corkscrew. Who knew?
That there are many, many people willing to put their metaphorical dukes up for Meg and I. Extra special thanks go out to Mandy, Amy, Nicole and Susie for being willing to tear a bitch’s face off at a moment’s notice. <3

Really, I can't draw.

Happy Thursday, folks! For those of you working for the weekend (yes, I went there), it’s almost here!

Posted on April 19, 2012 at 7:00 am in Lists | RSS feed | Respond | Trackback URL

Tags: Friends, Gogol Bordello, Humor, Loverboy, Monty Python, Music, Spotify, Wine

25 Comments to “Four Things I’ve Learned This Week”

lahikmajoe
April 19, 2012 at 7:14 am

Because of rights issues, Germany doesn’t allow spotify. We could have it. Easily.

Horrible, isn’t it? Many things that I used to be able to see/listen to on YouTube are also no longer available.

This is a great country, but sometimes the legal intricacies make things ridiculously complicated.

Reply
- sj
  April 19, 2012 at 9:59 am
  
  I was thinking of Germany. My friend Mandy (not BorkAdventures Mandy, but the one who did our banners) is in Germany currently, and she says the Narnia situation is almost as bad as when she was in Luxembourg.
  
  Reply
Michael Cargill
April 19, 2012 at 7:15 am

Hmmm, that Monty Python article seems to be a case of over analysing things to be honest.

Snobs, I reckon you can draw just fine.

Reply
- hatzihatzi
  April 19, 2012 at 8:46 am
  
  I agree. I read some of the other interpretations on that cite and found at least one more I disagree with (Donnie Darko).
  
  Reply
lucysfootball
April 19, 2012 at 7:38 am

All the dukes. ALL THE DUKES.

Love both of your faces.

Wait, what? The Monty Python thing? Really? Is that open for interpretation? Or is that the truth? Because…yeah, I’ve seen it a ton of times, too, and I never got that from it, either. I don’t like that interpretation at all.

Reply
- sj
  April 19, 2012 at 10:30 am
  
  Well, when Meg and I eventually meet Sir Cleese, we’ll have to ask him about it.
  
  Reply
lightlycrunchy
April 19, 2012 at 8:12 am

I’ve totally missed that ending too. I haven’t watched it in a couple of years now, so I’m going to have to go back to it. No Spotify in Canada either, apparently.

And next time I’m stuck in the woods with only a shoe and a bottle of wine, I’ll know what to do.

Don’t know what’s up with the rest, but sounds like you’ve got it well under control. I always enjoy your posts.

Reply
- sj
  April 19, 2012 at 10:31 am
  
  No, from what I understand, Canada’s royalties are much higher than most other countries? So…
  
  It looks like more people were like me than not (with regards to the ending), so apparently I’m not so stupid, yay!
  
  Reply
reverend61
April 19, 2012 at 8:36 am

The Monty Python thing is garbage. Completely. Because if the knights are escaped mental patients, then so is everyone else in the film apart from the police and dead historian. The whole point behind Monty Python was that their sketches never had punch lines, but clearly you have to have something to finish a film. It’s just an example of the fourth-wall breaking that occurs right through the film, from the numbered scenes to the deconstruction of the relative merits of the Castle Anthrax sequence. FFS, it’s a surrealist comedy. You’re not supposed to make sense out of it.

Reply
- sj
  April 19, 2012 at 10:01 am
  
  See, that’s what I was thinking too! I always looked at it as there was the main story, following Arthur and the Knights, then a secondary story (in which the Historian was killed by a wayward LARPer of some sort) and they all just kind of…met at the end, so that there was an ending.
  
  Reply
  - reverend61
    April 19, 2012 at 10:06 am
    
    It may not be that much of a stretch to suggest that they’re re-enacting things in the present day, if you really wanted to go down that road. But it’s hardly a ‘twist’, given that the police spend the second half of the film tracking them in a series of interludes (that appear with increasing frequency in the final reel). The appearance of the Black Maria is amusing but it’s less shocking than it would have been if it had been the first time we’d mentioned it. And to say, as this writer does, that the mental patient thing is “abundantly clear” is ridiculous.
    
    But then again, they completely missed the boat on Donnie Darko, so…
    
    Reply
    - sj
      April 19, 2012 at 10:33 am
      
      I was talking about it with my dad and my husband the other night when I originally read it, and our biggest problems were the fair cop witch and Castle Anthrax. I can totally buy Dennis being an escaped mental patient, but even if this is true, there’s still THE QUESTION OF THE COCONUTS!
      
      Reply
atoasttodragons
April 19, 2012 at 10:58 am

Monty Python was not meant to be analyzed. It’s just a ridiculous sequence of events.

Reply
NIcole Hamlett
April 19, 2012 at 11:23 am

I live to tear bitches faces off. <_<

Reply
pouringmyartout
April 19, 2012 at 11:54 am

You only learned four things this week? Slacker! But you do learn interesting things, and then pass them on to people who can’t be bothered to learn things themselves, so that’s why we love you. And just so you know, I will tear a beeotches face off for you anytime, and then I will stick it back on their skull facing the wrong way out so people can see the back of their two-faced face… (OK, that sort of scared me. I do not like to get even pretend angry, because I am huge, and I need to be careful)

Reply
- sj
  April 20, 2012 at 12:23 am
  
  This made me laugh. Really hard. Thank you for that.
  
  Reply
Audrey
April 19, 2012 at 2:02 pm

This winebottle and shoe trick sounds very intriguing… Is it easy?

Reply
- sj
  April 20, 2012 at 12:24 am
  
  I don’t know, I haven’t tried it! I only watched the video, but the Frenchman made it look awfully easy!
  
  Reply
Jericha Senyak (@JerichaSenyak)
April 19, 2012 at 2:07 pm

Holy Grail was the first movie I EVER SAW. You missed it? So did I and everyone else ever. What are they gonna say next? “Oh, that kid standing by his parent’s smoking remains at the end of Time Bandits was…um…” Yeah, that’s what I thought. Dude, the Pythons couldn’t write a tidy twist ending if they TRIED, They just weren’t built that way.

Reply
- sj
  April 20, 2012 at 12:37 am
  
  God, seriously. Seeing everyone else tell me that this article is crap has really taken a load off of my mind. I even told my dad tonight “I totally blogged about that stupid article that made me doubt my Python fan-ness.” “Oh…?” “Yes, and everyone else agrees with me that they’re full of shit.” and then he laughed.
  
  Reply
Danielle
April 19, 2012 at 6:58 pm

I’ve seen Holy Grail many times. I own it. And I never figured out that they were patients from the loony bin. I pretty much just kind of wrote that ending off as a strange ending obviously in modern times. But, for the record, a paddy wagon would not automatically make me think “they escaped an asylum” … either way, I still love it!

and opening wine with a shoe? crazy!

Reply
- sj
  April 20, 2012 at 12:39 am
  
  Oh, I hope you watched the video to see the wine opening! It was pretty great!
  
  I am very happy that you are also a Monty Python fan. That is probably my most watched movie ever (up there with Weird Science, Strange Brew, Harold and Maude and the Lost Boys, really) and when my dad steered me toward that article I felt SO SAD because I couldn’t believe I’d mistaken the ending of the film MY ENTIRE LIFE!
  
  Reply
  - Danielle
    April 20, 2012 at 6:54 am
    
    HA! But really, I mean, if it had to be explained to everyone for us to get it, it’s not a very good ending, is it? I’ll just on enjoying it as a really weird ending which makes no sense
    
    Reply
Baghead Kelly
April 19, 2012 at 9:13 pm

I live in Narnia?

Reply
- sj
  April 20, 2012 at 12:40 am
  
  It is a joke based on this image:
  
  Reply