His master's voice

Mr. Melendez’s second career as the voice of Snoopy happened entirely by accident. Because Mr. Schulz would not countenance the idea of a beagle uttering English dialogue, Mr. Melendez recited gibberish into a tape recorder, speeded it up and put the result on the soundtrack.

For his decades of squeaks, squawks and grunts, Mr. Melendez received residuals to the end of his life. —NYT

Kiddie modernist flatland

Who wrote this about Peanuts?

Never sentimental, never ironic, it took place in a kiddie modernist flatland where every gag was deadpan and every day held its little heartbreak, its little revelation.

Bill Watterson in the WSJ? Nicholson Baker in the NYO?


No—Devin McKinney in the Guardian! Here's some more:

Its title was quickly changed to Peanuts by the head of UFS. Apparently Schulz hated it because it didn't mean anything-were the characters the Peanuts or what? No explanation-hence it's the perfect name.

Read it all here.

* * *

In Britain, [Werner Kleeman] was transferred to division headquarters to serve as a post-invasion interpreter, an assignment in which he would forge several lifelong friendships, one of them with a counterintelligence man named Jerry Salinger, who wanted to be a writer.

“Jerry was just a nice little boy then,” Mr. Kleeman said of the man who would become the celebrated J. D. Salinger. “He was kind of quiet.” —NYT