Call Me Fool

Trowbridge’s Fool is based on an archetype that runs from the beginnings of storytelling up to modern films (silent and sound), fiction, poetry, and stand-up comedy. He is combination schlemiel and shlimazel, alternately the spiller and the spilled-on. Often the scapegoat, he is, as St. Chrysostom put it, “he who gets slapped.” Trowbridge’s Fool, after blundering into hell with Lucifer and company, is reincarnated in various historical times, with occasional unplanned visits back to the heavenly realm, operated as a mega-corporation by its Enron-style CEO. Trowbridge thought he was through with his not-so-distant relative after his collection came out, but the Fool is back again, none the wiser.