If you ever needed proof that great minds think alike, Joshua at One Free Korea and I both used Monty Python references in pieces published yesterday about the ongoing (and ongoing and….) talks on NK nukes.
Joshua invokes the Dead Parrot Sketch when pointing out part of the problem with the six party talks and the Geneva sideshow in a recent post at One Free Korea:
For some time now, but certainly since Geneva, we’d arrived at the point where our finest diplomatic minds could not defend Agreed Framework 2.0 as a viable and productive process without the customer pointing out where the parrot’s feet were nailed to the perch.
Being more of a literalist, I chose to go with the Argument Sketch in my latest KT piece:
As has happened so many times over the past fifteen years, negotiations with North Korean officials on its nuclear programs have degenerated into a Monty Pythonesque argument of “Yes you did! No, I didn’t!”
My piece deals mainly with a proposal to create a trilateral security arrangement between Korea, Japan and the US to replace the current hub-and-spoke system. As I said in the KT piece, I am not sure if a proper three-way alliance can be worked out, but closer security coordination between Japan and Korea would be helpful.
BTW, here are videos for the Dead Parrot Sketch and the Argument Sketch, both of which are hella funny.
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16 Comments
It’s a rare absurd situation which does not evoke a Python sketch.
Agreed.
Wow. That’s pretty odd.
Fwiw, the Argument Clinic was definitely the funnier sketch.
What does “hella” mean? Is it like a jewish word for extremely? There’s a band called hella.
“hella” is short for “hell of a(n)” which means “very”. It is used to denote an exceptional case or a memorable incident. Examples follow:
“That was a hella big truck that just went by.”
“Pawikirogi is a hella annoying fool.”
“This ‘hella’ word is hella useful dawg.”
so “both of which are hell of a funny. Sounds hella stupid to me.
I never wanted to be an arms control negotiator….I wanted to be a lumberjack!
I loved both Python references. I’m a longtime fanatic (I saw them live at the City Center in NYC in 1976) and can still sing the Bruces’ Philosopher Song from memory (”Immanual Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable….”)
I always thought hella was a “Stone-cutters” joke…
as in this: http://www.hellatemple.org/
Maybe it’s a Texas thing?
The usual slang spelling is “helluva”.
I first heard “hella” on a South Park episode.
“I think that all good, right thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that all good, right thinking people in this country are fed up with being told that all good, right thinking people in this country are fed up with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am”
“I never wanted to be an arms control negotiator….I wanted to be a lumberjack!”
I would pay money to hear Chris Hill say that.
He’s not a lumberjack. He’s not okay.
@#9:
“Hella” is a trendy, recent version of “helluva.”
#14
I partially disagree.
“Helluva” is clearly a contraction of “hell of a” and, AFAIK, only used as a substitute for it, as in “I must be a helluva man.”
On the other hand “hella” is mainly used as a substitute for “very” or “extremely,” as in “It’s hella cold out there.”
They can be substituted for each other, but not always.
You won’t catch me arguing against the hilarity of Monty Python sketches (big fan), but their looming presence seems to have distracted everyone here from the real joke of this post:
“closer security coordination between Japan and Korea”.
**Yoboseo y’all. Kinda new here so I thought I’d jump in with something provocative.**