Wait—what's the joke?

An admirer of William Trevor, the often-bleak Irish author — a taste Mr. McCain has picked up — Mr. Salter is known among colleagues for his gloomy view of human nature and the world. Mr. McCain has a similar streak. “It’s always darkest before it’s totally black,” he often says, a motto borrowed from the “Peanuts” character Charlie Brown that he jokingly misattributes to Mao. —NYT

Twiddely-two!

I've been tagged!

OK, this is from page 123 of The Complete Peanuts, 1967 to 1968 (Fantagraphics):

Charlie Brown: "Okay, let's run through the two's first...What is two times seven?
Sally: "One million?"
Charlie Brown: "You're guessing!"

(You can figure out the setup—Sally has asked her "dear brother" to help her with her "times tables.")

I thought I'd share the strip right under it, too—CB asks Sally to calculate 3 x 0, and she takes increasingly absurd stabs in the dark: "Four thousand? Six? Eleventy twelve? Fifty Quillion? Overly-eight? Twiddely-two?"

* * *

OK! I'm tagging....um....Jenny...Jen...Joe....James........any more J's?......OK, K's?......I'm looking at the margin links....how about L's? Oh yes, Levi!

[Oops, forgot to post the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.]

[UPDATE OOPS: I forgot to follow rule #5—I was tagged by Lee!]

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

Four thousand dollars a day

"He was more than a little crazy."
—Nicholson Baker on the Schulz bio

(Via Light Reading)

The zombies — Every which way but Lucy

A few clips from the pilot of Babylon Fields (co-created by Mike Atkinson)...

UPDATE: Like what you see? Sign the petition!

* * *

Bill Watterson on the new Schulz biography:

"It would have been interesting to learn how Schulz's conception of the strip changed over the years and what Peppermint Patty, Spike and Rerun offered him in the way of new expressive possibilities."

And—I never thought of it this way before:

"Lucy, for all her domineering and insensitivity, is ultimately a tragic, vulnerable figure in her pursuit of Schroeder. Schroeder's commitment to Beethoven makes her love irrelevant to his life. Schroeder is oblivious not only to her attentions but also to the fact that his musical genius is performed on a child's toy (not unlike a serious artist drawing a comic strip)...."

(Via Other Ed)

The football is always pulled away

"Just before he was put on the respirator, Vernon Bellecourt [opponent of 'Indian' sports mascots] joked that the CIA had finally gotten him, his brother said"...Levi's been reading Edmund Wilson lately...Dizzyhead straw poll: Who's your favorite "EW"—Edmund Wilson, Evelyn Waugh, or Edith Wharton?...A tiny New-York Ghost emerged last week, with an Aimee Kelley poem and thoughts on "Hotel California"...Scott Esposito looks at Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading..."Good Grief!" is such a strange phrase...I wonder when Charles Schulz said this—a bleak poke at Garrison Keillor's Wobegon?: “All the loves in the strip are unrequited; all the baseball games are lost; all the test scores are D-minuses; the Great Pumpkin never comes; and the football is always pulled away.”

When the other team attacks

Like Perec, the author of this NYT article on zambonis likes to quote Peanuts. (He also has an amazing name: Hary Hurt III!)

Apart from the inventor, few people did more to transform the Zamboni into a pop cultural icon than the cartoonist Charles M. Schultz. A Minnesota native and hockey fan, Schultz made over 50 references to Zambonis in his comic strips and films. Schultz provided a miniature Zamboni for the tiny bird Woodstock to use when his birdbath iced over. But he awarded the honor of driving most of his imaginary Zambonis to Snoopy, the ice skating beagle.

“As the world famous hockey coach, what do you do when the other team attacks?” asked Charlie Brown.

“Circle the Zambonis!” Snoopy replied.

(Thanks to Jane.) Required listening here.