don't squeeze the python

The two Python members talked about their past work and threw ice water on the suggestion that there might still be new, fresh Monty Python films and appearances. Terry Jones said they've gotten too old. Eric Idle said ... those who demand a Python resurrection really don't want that. What they want, he said, is to feel young again...to be transported back to the age they were when new Python material was coming out.

I daresay Idle is probably right. I'm a dedicated Pythonite, but I'm not really faunching for them to do anything else except what they really want to do. For one thing, any new material would lack the patina of long-familiarity which covers all their older work. This is a problem I experienced as early as Life of Brian, which I didn't enjoy all that much on first viewing because I was already too familiar with what had come before. I only began to admire it as it aged into the same state for me.

Also, there can come a point where you just run dry, and there is nothing worse than material hacked out by creative people who are only doing it out of obligation. (There actually was a record called something like Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album. I vaguely recall that it wasn't very good, but Python were never at their best in audio-only format anyway.) The number of times I've watched Brian and Holy Grail and most of Flying Circus runs into three digits, but I've only ever seen The Meaning of Life once, when it first came out, and I have no desire ever to see it again. I'd rather they do nothing than another one like that.

But do the Pythons owe us anything? I think not, and for a simple reason: they never left us hanging. When grrm tells his readers he doesn't owe them anything, and the next volume in his saga will be done when it's done, and right now he's going to watch a football game instead, it may be better for the eventual book if he doesn't just grind it out like pulp, but the argument feels disingenuous. This is because he's writing a serial, and if you want to captivate your readers with your plot, you owe them to finish it up. You want your readers to be patient? Then don't write a story that interests them very much. Simple as that.

Also, don't keep announcing deadlines that you keep missing. Better to make no promises than false ones.