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So, Anyway ...; John Cleese
Nov. 24th, 2014 02:26 pmThis is Cleese's autobiography. It focuses a lot on the early part of his life, and does not tell about much after Monty Python got big.
The text is quite self-effacing and generally owns up to the author's mistakes--except the caption under a photo of some horrific yellowface, saying, "Unforgivably racist now, but deemed acceptable in 1963."
No, sir. It was racist back then too. Not knowing it was does not make it less so.
Also Cleese denies utterly that he was shocked when Graham Chapman came out to him, then describes a reaction that is obviously shock.
Anyway, here's an excerpt:
Once, when we were strolling together through a Knightsbridge arcade and he [Graham Chapman] was miles away, I stopped him, grasped him firmly by the shoulders, turned hin ninety degrees to the right, and shoved him into a very posh jewelry shop. At first he was so inattentive that he offered no resistance. Then, realizing what was happening, he tried to decelerate. Instead he tripped as he passed through the doorway of the shop, picked up speed and, with arms outstretched to soften the blow, ran full-tilt into the counter. The salesman standing right behind jumped backwards and fell over. Gra now behaved with impeccable politeness, explaining to the poor cowering man why he had sprinted at him, and pointing outside at a man who was laughing so much that passers-by had stop to watch and figure out what that individual was laughing at.
The text is quite self-effacing and generally owns up to the author's mistakes--except the caption under a photo of some horrific yellowface, saying, "Unforgivably racist now, but deemed acceptable in 1963."
No, sir. It was racist back then too. Not knowing it was does not make it less so.
Also Cleese denies utterly that he was shocked when Graham Chapman came out to him, then describes a reaction that is obviously shock.
Anyway, here's an excerpt:
Once, when we were strolling together through a Knightsbridge arcade and he [Graham Chapman] was miles away, I stopped him, grasped him firmly by the shoulders, turned hin ninety degrees to the right, and shoved him into a very posh jewelry shop. At first he was so inattentive that he offered no resistance. Then, realizing what was happening, he tried to decelerate. Instead he tripped as he passed through the doorway of the shop, picked up speed and, with arms outstretched to soften the blow, ran full-tilt into the counter. The salesman standing right behind jumped backwards and fell over. Gra now behaved with impeccable politeness, explaining to the poor cowering man why he had sprinted at him, and pointing outside at a man who was laughing so much that passers-by had stop to watch and figure out what that individual was laughing at.
