I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: LEON BRIDGES-Tiny Desk Concert #469 (September 8, 2015).

Leon Bridges has a great old soul voice.  Indeed, I had no idea he was so young until he started speaking after the third song and all manner of young person chat came out of his mouth: “Thanks to my main man, you all looking beautiful man.”  His voice is pure and clean and hearkens back to 1960s soul singers like Sam Cooke.

The way he sings “baby baby baby” in “Coming Home” is classic soul.  And his enunciation of “mouth” is just gorgeous.  This song features the backing vocals of his sister Jesse.

“Smooth Sailin'” features a sax solo and Bridges on guitar.  Since there are 2 guitarists already Bridges’ guitar doesn’t  add much, but for me it’s all about his voice anyhow.

“Twistin’ & Groovin'” is about how his grandparents met.  He says the first time he saw her at a party the thing he noticed first about her was her long legs.

“River” is just him on acoustic guitar with Jesse singing backing vocals.

It’s a solid set and Bridges’ star has continued to rise since this show.

[READ: September 18, 2016]  The Complete Peanuts: 1993-1994

I didn’t like the previous book all that much, but this one picked things up a bit.

The year starts with Snoopy taking a test in school and acing the true false part–the only one to do so!

1993 has Schulz’ first celebration of MLK day.  Patty mentions the “I have a dream speech” but I love that she just mentions it without making it a big deal, it quickly changes to an unfair lunch swap between a carrot stick and french fry.  Speaking of old words, Lucy begins insulting Linus with: blockhead airhead, noodleneck but then finds that these older words work better: puzzlewit, dimbulb.

In pop culture notes, April 1993 sees Snoopy as Joe Grunge and in May 1993 Sally asks why is Barney purple?

In May 1993 there is an opening on the Supreme Court–Snoopy applies for it.  Linus asks him, suppose you’re facing the senate judiciary committee and Senator Biden asks you a tough question (such simpler times back then).

Patty tries to look cute on June 4 1993, by making her eyes big with lashes.  She look really creepy!  There’s an amusing Sunday strip in which Snoopy gives Charlie a report of what he was barking at last night.

April 1993 Snoopy says whey don’t they put some of the great old comic strip characters on stamps?  In 2015, the Peanuts gang was commemorated on holiday stamps, so that’s cool.

Later, Snoopy asks why birds always fly in V formation–Woodstock say their mom told them to

In Sept 1993, Snoopy does a suppertime dance again (it has been quite a while) although Charlie says that he never learned to dance so he can’t join in.

There’s a lot of interesting sports themes jokes in this book.

On March 30, 1993, Charlie Brown hits a home run in the ninth inning and wins the game!  Seeing him happy is great.
Two days later he meets the girl who threw the pitch.  She is very upset saying he ruined her whole life.  She claims to be Roy Hobb’s great-granddaughter.  Her name is Royanne.  I didn’t realize that Roy Hobbs was fictional until it was revealed later.  She returns in August.  She wants to know if Charlie likes her before she confesses something.  He says sure, then she says she could have struck him out is she wanted to, she says she didn’t because He looked cute standing there.  He screams “I didn’t want to look cute!”

In March 1994, Royanne tries to sell Charlie Roy Hobbs’ bat.  Lucy buys it for $1 but when she hears he was fictional she freaks out and Snoopy saws it in half.

There’s hockey.  More zamboni jokes in this round–Marcie’s dad took her to her first hockey game last night she loved watching the Zamboni.  Later Marcie went to another game, the Mighty Flamingos and her dad was hit with a puck so she got to keep it.

There’s a bunch of football.  When playing football, patty tells Marcie to use her helmet … so Marcie throws her helmet at Patty.  Then in December the kids play football in the mud.  Patty loves it, but she’s the only one who does “in the rain, down in the dirt and now its starting to snow.  We play again tomorrow, I never knew life could be so beautiful.”

In the 1993 Lucy football strip, Lucy says that she has a brand new ball so Charlie should kick it.  But she pulls it away saying that if he kicked it, it wouldn’t be new anymore.

And then there’s summer camp.  At summer camp Charlie meets a new kid names Ethan who wants to be a newspaper columnist.  We dont see much of him after that.

On December 5, Linus assembles a whole bunch of snowmen, this time like he is going to speak to them at an assembly, but there are several similar ones.  It reminded me of Calvin and Hobbes.

In Dec, Rerun goes to talk to Santa (Snoopy).  Afterwards he says, “did yo know I was talking to a dog?”

In January 1994, he references Laura Numeroff by saying, “If you give a beagle a brownie.”

At the end of 1993, Linus and friends were riding down snowy hills in a box (with hilarious results).  In January, Linus get a sled and doesn’t need to ride in a box anymore.

In January 1994.  Charlie is reading Silver Blaze by Arthur Conan Doyle and says “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” “That was the curious incident remarked Sherlock Holmes.”

In Feb 1994, Snoopy suddenly is in the hospital–seriously out of nowhere–and his three (!) brothers show up Andy, Spike and Olaf.  I don’t think we’ve ever met Andy before, he is fuzzy.

March 2 1994, some girl yells at Snoopy wake up it’s a perfect day for chasing rabbits “you don’t catch rabbits by handing out literature.”  Who is it?  Her name is not mentioned, but we assume it is Patty (not Peppermint) the girl who used to yell at him about chasing rabbits about a decade ago.  Weird.

In April 1994, Pig-Pen returns. He sits at the psychiatrist booth and Lucy says Pig-Pen, you’re a complete mess. She says to clean up and come back.  He is totally clean with his hair combed but as he is sitting there dirt just starts accumulating on him until he is just as filthy as before..

In June 1994, there’s a whole series of fairly serious D-Day strips.  It’s serious war footage with a joke at the end of each one about what Snoopy is really doing–at Marcie’s, he’s in the wading pool, at Linus’ he’s digging in the backyard, with Patty he’s sitting in a grocery cart.

At summer camp, Patty calls Chuck to tell him there’s lot of cute guys there.  She ends it by saying “Get jealous, chuck!”

By July 1994, Rerun has been getting bigger–starting to walk and putting on his shoes.  Lucy tries to teach him how to jump rope, and Linus tries to teach him basketball  After explaining everything you do, he keeps saying Why?  Lucy says if you says why again, she’ll pound him, so he asks, “How come?”

Chalice starts making real advances to the red-haired girl.  He has Sally bring her a hand-written note, but she says she can’t read his smudgy writing. When Sally tells her that Charlie is in her class, the girl says she doesn’t remember him.

In September 1994, he finally gets a letter from his penpal.  Her name is Morag and she is from Scotland.  Her letter is hilarious “Just been to the shops. Ma maw’s in bed with a sore heid and ma da’s making mince and tatties for the dinner…. love, Morag.  In the next letter she says she would have written sooner but she has 30 other pen pals. THIRTY!

They play more mud ball on October 1994″A down in the mud” game.  She Patty says, “I love the slamming and the banging and the splashing through the mud.”

The pulling the football gag is shown from Sally’s perspective on her porch in 1994–a great twist.  Lucy goes to the door and asks Sally if Charlie can come out.  Charlie goes.  Sally shouts, “You don’t really believe my brother is that naive do you?  I mean, after all how often do you think you can fool someone with the same trick?”  Charlie walks back, “Pretty often huh?”

November 3, there a joke I don’t quite get, I think Lucy calls Snoopy Forrest Blimp.  I get the relation to the movie, but it’s really quite a stretch, and kind of a lame pun.

Also in November, Charlie is eating a new cereal.  He likes the name: Flakey Things.  At the next meal, Marcie says that a “tuna fish” sandwich is redundant.  So Pattys says “I’ll have a fish sandwich.”

Also in November, Rerun says “I’m your younger brother and I don’t suck my thumb or cling to a blanket for security.  As the years go by you’ll probably develop a real resentment toward me.”

Near the end of November, Patty answers “Charles Dickens” to a question.  Marcie is shocked. “How did you know that?”  Patty: “If you go to school long enough, sooner or later the answer is going to be Charles Dickens.”

In November for Thanksgiving Linus says he doesn’t eat turkey any more “I’m a vegetarian.”  And Rerun says he is a Cerealatarian.

In December 1994, Lucy says Men are from Mars women are from Venus and that it’s a good title.  So Snoopy writes “Dogs are from Jupiter Cats are from the Moon.”

As the year ends, Charlie buys the red-headed girl a book of poetry (Sally says she’d rather have a $25 gift certificate).  He asks Linus to bring her the book because he’s too shy.  Linus gives it to her but she says she doesn’t like to read. Then Charlie goes back to buy her something else “For about a dollar.”

The very end sees Sally writing to Santa.  She starts: Monsieur Claus, then asks “it never occurred to you he might be French?”  Then she tries Signora Claus, “I have a theory that he married a nice Italian girl.”

The introduction was written by Jake Tapper.  I don’t know who he is [I see he is a journalist].  He says that when he was little he loved Peanuts and his mother worried that he identified with Charlie Brown too much.  He says that other protagonists were rooted in gluttony or mischief, by Charlie was always about insecurity.

But the key, he says is that Charlie is not a loser.  He is a winner.

Charlie Brown has a good life and a loving family.  He has friends.  As sister who adores him.  A fun dog who depends on him.  He’s the manager of his baseball team.  And while he might be either blissfully unaware or not interested, there are plenty of girls who seems to dig him.

Tapper refers to an interview in which Sparky says that he never really recovered from his mother’s death. He was shipping out to war and his mother was dying and said “they’d probably never see each other again.”  Jeez.

Tapper also says that even though Schulz seemed without ego, he obviously knew he was successful.  But success doesn’t bring back your dead mother or get Donna Mae Johnson (the real little red-haired girl) to marry you.  Schulz had said “I can think of no more emotionally damaging loss than to be turned down by someone whom you love very much.”  Of course, he later he commented “I got my money’s worth out of that relationship.”

Tapper notes that Charlie isn’t the only one who suffers from unrequited love or goals, either.

when one factors in goals such as defeating the Red Baron, returning to the happy days of the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm or witnessing an appearance by the Great Pumpkin, virtually all the characters pine for something or someone out of reach. Sally loves Linus, Lucy loves Schroeder, Peppermint Patty and Marcie compete for Charlie Brown’s affection. Within these pages, we are also introduced to another young girl who takes a fancy to our hero, one who claims to be Roy Hobbs’ great-granddaughter — despite the continued reminders to the girl that Malamud’s The Natural was a work of fiction.

Schulz thought War and Peace the greatest novel ever written, and he could relate to the author’s demons. “He sure went through a lot of turmoil,”