The Cat In The Hat; King Hit Or Sucker Punch?

The year is 1959, a young Peter McCleavy has just stepped off the banana boat to Europe. He is in Naples, standing transfixed in front of Giovanni Bellini’s The Transfiguration.

“ Which I found overwhelming. In those days, you could stand right close to the paintings – there were no security guards…and you could see the man who painted
the thing. You could see the brush strokes, the bits of hair from the paint brush. For the first time, I realised art was made by someone, by a human being.”

(The Listener Nov-Dec 2009 p36)

No doubt an apocryphal tale; McCleavy must have seen original paintings before leaving New Zealand and understood the process of applying paint to canvass. Seemingly before McCleavy had his Neapolitan epiphany there were no artists of sufficient genius for him to realise the humanity in home-grown art.

On his return to New Zealand ‘the cat in the hat’ happened across another Catholic painter who also left hairs in his paint.

The year was 1964. The venue was Lewistown, Maine. An outspoken negro muslim named Cassius Clay was to challenge the enigmatic title holder, Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight championship. It was a rematch bout. The initial showdown had ended in controversial circumstances when Liston refused to leave his corner in the seventh.

Around two thousand people squeezed into the auditorium, watching Clay in his white Everlast booties dance gracefully for maybe the first minute. Liston watched too, jabbing occasionally. Moments later, The 'Big Bear' from Arkansas falls unconvincingly to the canvas. Few spectators see the knockout blow. The replay is inconclusive. The muslim does not retreat to his corner, and the count does not start. "Get up and fight, sucker!" he spits. Someone takes a photo.

The exploited crowd chants deliriously. "Fix! Fix! Fix!"

King Hit

1. The most hardcore, damage-maximising, chronicly solid punch that can be thrown. Send's the aggressor off balance if it doesn't hit the intended target.
2. A Very Very large sized bong of cannabis.
1. "He tried to King Hit me, so I easily dodged to the right, jabbed him twice in the stomach, then let go a King Hit of my own while he was still keeled over."
2. "Ohhh...That waz a King Hit!"

Sucker Punch

This occurs when someone hits someone else from behind, usually when the person being hit doesn't know it until afterwards. Usually considered shady or a "bitch move".
That motherfucker came up and sucker punched me!





Thanks to the Listener, The urban dictionary and the roast.