Friday, October 7, A.D. 2011

John Safran versus God

I recently discovered John Safran’s Australian antics, and I find his comedy interesting and funny. I especially like his John Safran versus God series, where he, an apparently lapsed Orthodox Jew, explores various aspects of the world’s religions. His segments on Mormons are enjoyable. In the first, Safran attempts to pitch a movie idea—xtreme Mormons—to L.D.S. filmmakers.

Safran also lets the horse out of the barn in examining Magic Masonic Mormon Underpants:

You may also see what happens when Safran knocks on doors in Salt Lake City to spread the bad news of atheism. It is a bit obnoxious, but so are strangers who interupt family dinner, I suppose. More clever is Safran’s “The Pope versus the Dalai Lama”:

You learn a bit more about Tibetan Buddhism than you need to know.

Posted by Joseph on Friday, October 7, Anno Domini 2011
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Thursday, September 29, A.D. 2011

Up House

As we are both fans of Pixar’s Up, my brother Aaron notified me of a house that was built in Utah that replicates the film’s balloon carried home. Gizmodo features the curiosity: “Video Tour Inside the Up! House Looks Exactly Like the Real Thing.” We are a quirky people, indeed.

Posted by Joseph on Thursday, September 29, Anno Domini 2011
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Thursday, September 15, A.D. 2011

The Humanities

Given this week’s theme, I thought that this deserved to be reposted:

“. . . and death.”

Posted by Joseph on Thursday, September 15, Anno Domini 2011
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Tuesday, September 13, A.D. 2011

Simpsons on Graduate School

Continuing the theme from yesterday’s post, 100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School, here is a Simpsons video suggested by that site:

Smile, even though it might hurt.

Posted by Joseph on Tuesday, September 13, Anno Domini 2011
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Wednesday, September 7, A.D. 2011

Conservative Atkinson

Rowan Atkinson performs leftist mockery of the Right so well, it delights even my reactionary soul. From Not the Nine O’Clock News:

This skit might be one of those creative pieces that pleases different sets of people for different reasons. If only the Conservatives really supported “realism and responsibility.”

Posted by Joseph on Wednesday, September 7, Anno Domini 2011
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Monday, September 5, A.D. 2011

Restaurant Sketch

On our cultural calendar, summer comes to a close. Enjoy your Labor Day, and be happy that we Americans have distanced our celebration of honest toil from those feverish Commie demonstrations of foreigners. If you are unemployed, I wish you luck in finding a job. If you are earning a wage, count your blessings.

Relevant for the day, here is one last Monty Python video to cap last week’s theme:

Happy Labor Day, especially to those in the restaurant business. Please don’t spit in our food, and we’ll try not to complain about the dirty flatware.

Posted by Joseph on Monday, September 5, Anno Domini 2011
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Friday, September 2, A.D. 2011

Michelangelo and the Pope

For Friday of Monty Python week, here are Cleese and Idle in “The Last Supper” live at Hollywood Bowl:

Superb. Wikipedia states that the sketch was based on Paolo Veronese’s Last Supper. After a hearing before the Inquisition, Vernonese renamed the painting The Feast in the House of Levi. Fiction cannot trump history for comic fodder.

As for Michelangelo and the pope, it seems that they had good relations when it came to art. Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo to paint The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, though the work’s execution occurred during the papacy of Paul III. Michelangelo decorated the chapel with nudes, which annoyed several clerics in the Vatican. When the Master of Ceremonies Biagio da Cesena complained about the nudity, the artist painted him in hell with the ears of an ass, having his genitalia bitten by a serpent. Incensed, the official protested to the pope. The pontiff said that he could have done something if Biagio had been consigned to purgatory, but the successor to Peter has no authority in hell.

Posted by Joseph on Friday, September 2, Anno Domini 2011
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Thursday, September 1, A.D. 2011

The Mouse Problem

One of my favorite Month Python sketches is “The Mouse Problem”:

Clever.

Posted by Joseph on Thursday, September 1, Anno Domini 2011
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Wednesday, August 31, A.D. 2011

Rhetoric in Court

Eric Idle’s best Monty Python sketch might have been his day in court (please excuse the Hungarian subtitles):

The comicially absurd is but an exaggeration of absurd actuality.

Posted by Joseph on Wednesday, August 31, Anno Domini 2011
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Tuesday, August 30, A.D. 2011

Village Idiots

Monty Python week continues with the “Village Idiots”:

I love to watch John Cleese. Like Tom Baker, Lucille Ball, and Dick Van Dyke, his mere presence on the screen makes me smile.

Posted by Joseph on Tuesday, August 30, Anno Domini 2011
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