Once upon a time I thought it was impossible to have too many Monty Python bits memorized.
No. That's not true.
Once upon a time the possibility that having every single Monty Python bit ever memorized was anything less than desirable would never have occurred to me.
Well. It would have occurred to me if someone had pointed it out, and if that person had had any credibility. And had a good argument. Like Terry Jones. Maybe.
Having large swathes of Monty Python ready to unleash at will was self-evidently desirable. It was a way to vet new acquaintances, and not just to test them for that narrow suitability. Since Monty Python's Flying Circus (and everything else Monty Python) wasn't American network TV, knowledge of the program and its contents provided me with a way to gauge the whole person quickly: this person clearly gave a chunk of time over to watching PBS, so I will make a string of assumptions about their biases, intelligence, and taste in happy clouds and bon appetit.
This worked pretty well, actually. I have several close friends who, having survived the sorting as strangers in my teens and twenties, are important parts of my life now. Of course, I survived their sorting, too.
So Monty Python bits were intrinsically amusing, handy for breaking the ice, and had utility as a sorting mechanism. Not all is well with this system, however. As much as this knowledge unites and binds, it also excludes and repels. Not all of my friends care much about Monty Python. That's OK. I don't care much about baseball. Some of these people hinted that maybe relying so much on this trivia wasn't always such a good idea. I think they might have. Whoever they were.
Over time, even with the Monty Python crowd, the number and length of Monty Python bits peppering everyday conversation declined to almost nothing. There are still, and frequently, very quick turns of phrase from Monty Python. References to the joke at hand, or a similar joke, or to a personality type parodied in some Monty Python bit or other. These are a shorthand, or even idiomatic. They are almost verbal tics, but every long-term relationship develops this sort of thing, and even with the Monty Python crowd these are only a small part of the shorthand.
As time passed it became a game to become aware of when the Monty Python tic would express itself. A variant of the game is to be aware of Monty Python bits going on around you, but to let them flow past you rather than compel you to recitations, outbursts of non sequitur, and departures by silly walks. Monty Python bits are like The Force: they surround us, penetrate us, and bind us together; they control our actions, but they also obey our commands.
The image up top has lately been working its way around social media. I knew it, but I didn't know it. I had to reach deep to fully contexualize it. I had to let it go, and feel it come back. I felt some sorrow that the bit didn't leap, fully realized, into my consciousness. Then I felt pretty good, like mature and all, that it wasn't so important to me that it ran like a well-worn VHS in my mind.
Then I thought: hey! I get to rediscover Monty Python! I wonder if my son will enjoy it, and if it will become one of his sorting mechanisms like Goat Simulator is.
