Was Chaucer murdered?

Asks ex-Python and medievalist Terry Jones in a new book, interestingly reviewed here. Stop for a second and think of this: can you imagine somebody from Mr. Show or SNL or Kids in the Hall writing a book like this? Or even doing the sort of enlightened and enlightening tourism that Michael Palin undertakes?



It's a HUGE flaw in American comedy that the people who rise in it are so completely one-dimensional. The reason American comedy so often has nothing to say is that the people doing it know about nothing except (shudder) show-biz. How arid. How depressing. Until Simpsons writers start publishing monographs about Abelard, I'll reserve the upper reaches of respect for people like Jones.



By the way, as some you may know, there was a little blurb about Barry Trotter in the November issue of Details. And, the month before, my brother Keith Schwab was listed at #42 in the magazine's "Fifty Most Powerful People Under 35." Keith's a quantum physicist working at the University of Maryland. So if you ever need somebody to reserve your space down in the post-apocalypse mineshaft, call Keith.