The above words belong to the great John Cleese, one of the six members of perhaps my all-time favourite comedy group (together with the Marx Bros.), Monty Python’s Flying Circus (a coincidence I mention them because on October 5th, 1969, their first show appeared on BBC tv)! They’re taken from a skit he and Eric Idle did many, many years ago at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, which is also part of that live video. The scene shows Cleese dressed up as the Pope talking to Michelangelo. He doesn’t quite understand his conception of art and why in a Last Supper scene he painted in several Christs and about 32 apostles, and concludes the sketch by saying, “I may not know much about art, but I know what Iike”!
I actually used this line on me better-half many years ago and she laughed. I still use it to this day, especially every time I take in Venice’s Biennale art exhibit, as we did just a few weeks ago (during one exhibit a few years ago, there was an enormous chandelier hanging from the ceiling. It was made entirely of Tampax tampons!). And in my case, I (certainly) may not know much about art, but at the Biennale I ALWAYS have a great time figuring out just exactly what art is (or isn’t)!
