Week 49: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Dear Avid Reader,

Another Stock Market Crash in three years. This cycle of boom-bust-boom happened all the time before regulation in the 1930s.

Guess deregulation wasn't such a hot idea.

I Have To Push The Pram A Lot

Memory is a weird duck. But I guess it's the thing that determines a lot of my personality. I mean, it's how a know how to do stuff. Like I know to close closet doors because I saw a monster in one once when I was six. If I didn't remember that happening, I'd probably have been eaten by now.

But memory is a fickle gypsy. Again, I look to my own situation as a typical case. I remember, with the clarity of the ancients, an argument that I had with my college roommate about dorm chores some ten years ago. But when I began rewatching Breaking Bad Season Two, I had forgotten, with the voracity of a pit fighter, entire plot points that I had seen only months ago. The entire existence of Jesse's girlfriend was gone to me.

And it was the same with Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

It's Just Like Those Miserable Psalms, Always So Depressing

Readers of my blog will already be familiar with my strange middle school friends, and how we memorized Rocky Horror Picture Show and Monty Python during our lunches. But for the blog neophytes, suffice to say that because of a twelve-year-old theatre fanatic, my middle school chums and I memorized scripts of all kinds with a unique ferocity usually reserved for medical students before anatomy exams. In fact, I think I had memorized quite a few scripts before I ever actually saw a single episode of Flying Circus. So I was more than familiar with the Monty Python style before I ever saw Holy Grail via our talent show, award-winning troupe. Own horn tooting is now complete.

But even though I had spent all that time with the material, I found that I had disremembered several key scenes. Some of the lyrics to Sir Robin's minstrel song slipped my mind. The "Castle of Ahhhhuugggghhh" bit was not included in my recollections. But most troubling of all was the entire Bridgekeeper Questions scene was flat gone from my memory. This was an oft quoted scene in my childhood. We used to scream, "Blue...no Yell-ahhhhhhhhhhhh" across classrooms daily for a few weeks. And yes, we were very cool and good with the ladies. No more questions.

It's Just A Flesh Wound

But the peculiarities didn't end there. As I watched, I began to realize that my friend's performances of the lines had replaced several of the original performances in my mind. Like Micheal Johnson's stunning recitation of the Holy Hand grenade of Anticoh monologue, in a junior high cafeteria. Michael Ostrokol reciting the line "Well, she turned me into a newt" in a high-school Bible class even though I'm not sure he ever said that line to me. It's very hazy and ghostly. But I think he did. Didn't he?

Memories began to swell and disintegrate. The center began to fluctuate. The movie began to spn inside my head. Did I hear an audio tape of this movie before I saw it? Michael was the biggest fan among us and could only afford cassettes on his allowance. It was how we were able to run lines so effectively for those talent shows. Or maybe I didn't see it until my mom began dating Gary, who owned a video store, and my access to flicks exploded. But I think I saw it before I saw any flying Circuses. Or did I?

See...THIS is exactly what I'm talking about.

Go And Boil Your Bottoms, You Sons Of A Silly Person

Forgetting things is scary. To me it feels like I'm turning to mist all the time. And forgetting takes all the initiative out of doing things here in the present. After all, why bother doing anything cool when I'm just going to forget it later. I'm depressing myself.

Maybe I'm just bad at dealing with the reality of memory. Maybe I just hate it more than anyone. Of course no one else feels as strongly as me about forgetting because I am the only one who fully understands the problem.I am the only one paralysed by the truth.

But I'm sure it will pass. Even the knowledge of this shocking reality that I dwell in, will fade in time. If I just wait long enough. The problem itself becomes the only solution. Just wait for it.























It's closer.

















Fading, and fading.






















Closer still.













Almost there.

















It's gone.

Until Next I Blog,

James