8 thoughts on “The Pleasantry Supreme”

  1. actually, a monty python reference, and you can listen to it here:
    http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/python/Sounds.html
    cec, this may constitute plagiarism.
    for my china trips, i learned to say ‘thank you’ and ‘thank you very much’ in mandarin.
    for the python fans out there…
    THE HOLY GRAIL
    Arthur approaches an isolated castle guarded by soldiers ( #1 & #2 ) …..
    S #1: Where’d you get the coconuts?
    A : We found them.
    S #1: Found them? In Mercia? The coconut’s tropical!
    A : What do you mean?
    S #1: Well, this is a temperate zone.
    A : The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?
    S #1: Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
    A : Not at all. They could be carried.
    S #1: What? A swallow carrying a coconut?
    A: It could grip it by the husk!
    S #1: It’s not a question of where he grips it! It’s a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.
    A: Well, it doesn’t matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here.
    S #1: Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
    A: Please!
    S #1: Am I right?
    A: I’m not interested!
    S #2: It could be carried by an African swallow!
    S #1: Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow. That’s my point.
    S #2: Oh, yeah, I agree with that.
    A: Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?!
    S #1: But then of course a– African swallows are non-migratory.
    S #2: Oh, yeah…
    S #1: So they couldn’t bring a coconut back anyway…

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  2. Itto, your source is mistaken. That is the voice of John Cleese, but it is in fact a sample from Time Bandits. It’s rom the scene where Cleese plays Robin Hood.
    The time I hiked Half-Dome, there was a very slow-moving line moving up the steep area where chains are anchored into the rock. This gave a lot of people, inlcuding myself, much too much time to think and get nervous. Then someone quoted a line from “Holy Grail”–the Black Knight scene–and someone else answered with the next line. Pretty soon, people all over the side of Half-Dome had joined in. Everybody started laughing, the tension was dissipated, and before we knew it we were at the top.

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  3. a nod may also be due to john coltrane (a love supreme) and latke (thank you very much)–both of whom made appearances in my imagination when i read the post (no, they did not wrestle; plenty of space in there for the both of them).

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  4. e wrote:
    “a nod may also be due to john coltrane (a love supreme)…”
    now *that’s* what I’m talking about. that was actually the intended reference….
    btw, I think I’ve figgered out a mathmatical formula wherin x [which designates the shortness of the post] = y [which designates the number of comments] * pi / z [which applies a randomly generated digit between .5 and 1.5].
    So, you know, Stockholm here I come.*
    * for the record, the Stockholm/nobel prize reference is a reference to gravity’s rainbow. points to anyone who can indentify the particular without searching the online text….

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