Hard to believe but the 52 days we set aside to spend in Mexico in 2015 have just about run their course. We are starting to listen a little more intently, online, to the weather back in our local area. Internet radio does have some double-edged sword aspects. None-the-less we are fitting a number of smaller excursions into our last days. 
Oddly enough, I find myself slowly getting worn down though. It's not that sense of letdown that creeps in as a good trip is obviously drawing to a close so much as just a cumulative feeling of wear-down that comes from each days contribution to the overall experience. The travel adrenaline has been on a slow drip throughout and its approaching the tipping point. For the first time also, I found myself with not enough to keep my hands busy, on occasion. If I had permanent digs here for part of each year, I'd certainly have some sort of a workshop setup for hands-on therapy.
Okay, enough of these semi-sunstroke musings.
Since I spent so much time with the rats last time around its time for the pythons - or one of them.
I mentioned back before Christmas that I was looking forward to cracking open John Cleese's autobiography. Well I have and it was a most enjoyable read. The timeline is basically from birth to the point at which he helped put together Monty Pythons Flying Circus. I hadn't realized just how accomplished he had become as an actor and writer prior to The Pythons. By his mid-twenties Cleese had also made it through law school at Cambridge to boot. The digressions within " So, Anyway " are as thoroughly entertaining as the story itself.
Cleese is, not surprisingly, very well read, allowing him to toss in, while decrying his own lack of musical education, such observations as one made by Sir Thomas Beecham about how " The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes." That describes me too, a lot of the time.
First " hmmmm" item for me, was finding out that John's original surname was not "Cleese" but "Cheese". At one point, having just received a " Dear John " letter from Connie, the love of his life, Mr. Cheese/Cleese contemplates his current woe begotten state from this " what's in a name ? " POV.
I also meditated on whether I required a change of personality - or perhaps just a change of name would do. I'd always thought " John " though very popular in England since King John's reign ( and despite it, too ) was rather dull and tame: worthy and honest but not at all sparky. Of course in the good old days Johns were often called Jack, which is a much better handle: a bit cheeky, cheerful and lets face it, sexy. Who ever heard of a " Dear Jack" letter? A Jack would tear the damn thing up. In addition, I'd always preferred " Cheese " to " Cleese " which is, quite simply, not a proper name. So, I thought, if I had been Jack Cheese, I could have gone to live in Monterey and started a bank, and written in the evenings and had children with Constance Cheese, who would never have been able to resist Jack's advances."
When, in his early twenties,writing and performing saw him to New York for his first extended visit Cleese itemized a number of observations about the New York State of Mind ( as Billy Joel sings it ) including this observation on New Yorkers so-called " rudeness" .
New Yorkers weren't rude so much as tense. If I went into a tobacconist and started with my public school patter, " I'm so sorry to bother you but I'd rather care to buy some cigarettes, so if you'd be so good as to allow me to intrude upon your time. . . ," they'd shout "Whaddyawant?" as though you'd insulted them. But if you strode into the store, fixed them with a look of pure hatred and hissed the word " Larks! " they'd smile and chat and tell you why they'd just left their wife.
From the vantage point of looking back on his life from his 70's Cleese observes more than once that his " halcyon days " came while he was in between schools and was doing fill in teaching back at his old middle school. This caught my curiosity as a teacher. Particularly because he got his first taste of educating with students of the same age as I did - ten and eleven year olds. His were all boys, mind you. . He clued in, early on, that " the boys were very keen on " fairness "" and that " by and large, they wanted to learn."
He also clued in to something that I missed early on, and was given the gears for on more than one occasion by my young charges. I'll let Mr. Cleese explain:
The second thing is: never tell a boy, " Stop talking," because he will always claim he wasn't . You must say, " Don't talk. " Then, when he denies that he was talking, you can say, " I didn't say you were, I said, 'Don't'". This leaves him with nowhere to go.
The man is absolutely right! Plus, there are times when I look back and realize that teaching younger, less jaded and " semi-adultified " ( is that a word?? ) minds certainly has its appeal. In fact, it seemed more often than not that the teachers who, you could easily tell, would teach until they died if they could, were more often than not those who dealt with the very young. Hmmmm....
There are so many delightful digressions and diversions in Cleese's account that I could go on for pages and days here but I don't want to play the spoiler. So how 'bout one last item that fits in well in a column which purports to be conversations between " editors ". It contains not only some pithy truth about editing but some priceless writing and comedy advice to boot. Herein Cleese is recalling the seminal influence of a fellow named Peter Titherage, who was his mentor as he first became a top-drawer comedy script writer on a major network series. Again, here are his own words:
"In addition, Peter helped me to edit what I had written, removing whatever "fat" my dialogue had on it, whether it was a repetition, a redundant phrase, an unnecessary adjective - even a single syllable. I'd half realised some of this, but not the ruthlessness it required. Finally, of the many things he had taught me, I still remember this: always put the key funny word in a sentence at the end of it, as this will give it maximum impact; any words that follow it will soften its effect, causing the audience momentarily to hold back their laughter so that they do not miss what still is to be said."
In closing, of the book and the subject, waiting til I got down here to tie into " So, Anyway " at my leisure, was completely worth it.
There are lots of other things I want to get to that cropped up in these 52 days of semi-tropical hanging out. One will most definitely be the most recent non-fiction volume I'm just about half way through right now. It has to do with the wonderful world of linguistics and the fluidity and dynamic nature of English as a language.
So, in my rabbiting on ( borrowed a pythonic phrase there... ) about The Stainless Steel Rats nest I'd been in awhile back, I neglected to include the Mark Twain tidbit. So tonight here's two:
I also meditated on whether I required a change of personality - or perhaps just a change of name would do. I'd always thought " John " though very popular in England since King John's reign ( and despite it, too ) was rather dull and tame: worthy and honest but not at all sparky. Of course in the good old days Johns were often called Jack, which is a much better handle: a bit cheeky, cheerful and lets face it, sexy. Who ever heard of a " Dear Jack" letter? A Jack would tear the damn thing up. In addition, I'd always preferred " Cheese " to " Cleese " which is, quite simply, not a proper name. So, I thought, if I had been Jack Cheese, I could have gone to live in Monterey and started a bank, and written in the evenings and had children with Constance Cheese, who would never have been able to resist Jack's advances."
When, in his early twenties,writing and performing saw him to New York for his first extended visit Cleese itemized a number of observations about the New York State of Mind ( as Billy Joel sings it ) including this observation on New Yorkers so-called " rudeness" .
New Yorkers weren't rude so much as tense. If I went into a tobacconist and started with my public school patter, " I'm so sorry to bother you but I'd rather care to buy some cigarettes, so if you'd be so good as to allow me to intrude upon your time. . . ," they'd shout "Whaddyawant?" as though you'd insulted them. But if you strode into the store, fixed them with a look of pure hatred and hissed the word " Larks! " they'd smile and chat and tell you why they'd just left their wife.From the vantage point of looking back on his life from his 70's Cleese observes more than once that his " halcyon days " came while he was in between schools and was doing fill in teaching back at his old middle school. This caught my curiosity as a teacher. Particularly because he got his first taste of educating with students of the same age as I did - ten and eleven year olds. His were all boys, mind you. . He clued in, early on, that " the boys were very keen on " fairness "" and that " by and large, they wanted to learn."He also clued in to something that I missed early on, and was given the gears for on more than one occasion by my young charges. I'll let Mr. Cleese explain:
The second thing is: never tell a boy, " Stop talking," because he will always claim he wasn't . You must say, " Don't talk. " Then, when he denies that he was talking, you can say, " I didn't say you were, I said, 'Don't'". This leaves him with nowhere to go.
The man is absolutely right! Plus, there are times when I look back and realize that teaching younger, less jaded and " semi-adultified " ( is that a word?? ) minds certainly has its appeal. In fact, it seemed more often than not that the teachers who, you could easily tell, would teach until they died if they could, were more often than not those who dealt with the very young. Hmmmm....
There are so many delightful digressions and diversions in Cleese's account that I could go on for pages and days here but I don't want to play the spoiler. So how 'bout one last item that fits in well in a column which purports to be conversations between " editors ". It contains not only some pithy truth about editing but some priceless writing and comedy advice to boot. Herein Cleese is recalling the seminal influence of a fellow named Peter Titherage, who was his mentor as he first became a top-drawer comedy script writer on a major network series. Again, here are his own words:
"In addition, Peter helped me to edit what I had written, removing whatever "fat" my dialogue had on it, whether it was a repetition, a redundant phrase, an unnecessary adjective - even a single syllable. I'd half realised some of this, but not the ruthlessness it required. Finally, of the many things he had taught me, I still remember this: always put the key funny word in a sentence at the end of it, as this will give it maximum impact; any words that follow it will soften its effect, causing the audience momentarily to hold back their laughter so that they do not miss what still is to be said."In closing, of the book and the subject, waiting til I got down here to tie into " So, Anyway " at my leisure, was completely worth it.
There are lots of other things I want to get to that cropped up in these 52 days of semi-tropical hanging out. One will most definitely be the most recent non-fiction volume I'm just about half way through right now. It has to do with the wonderful world of linguistics and the fluidity and dynamic nature of English as a language.
So, in my rabbiting on ( borrowed a pythonic phrase there... ) about The Stainless Steel Rats nest I'd been in awhile back, I neglected to include the Mark Twain tidbit. So tonight here's two:
It's no wonder that truth
is stranger than fiction.
Fiction has to make sense.
***
There are lies,
Damned lies and statistics
So, next time I appear we will have moved from 20.9700 degrees N, 86.6200 degrees W back to 44.57667 degrees N, 80.9333 degrees W. I'm both looking forward and not looking forward to that.
Don
So, next time I appear we will have moved from 20.9700 degrees N, 86.6200 degrees W back to 44.57667 degrees N, 80.9333 degrees W. I'm both looking forward and not looking forward to that.
Don
All images sourced from Google Images
Fig. 1 - brokenhearts anonymous.com
Fig. 2 - re-enhance-dental.com
Fig. 3 - express.uk
Fig. 4 - creativefan.com
Fig. 5 - randomperspective.com
Fig. 6 - thesocietypages.org
Fig. 7 - content.time.com
Fig. 8 - curata.com
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