I was waiting for the University shuttle the other day, and it was snowing very lightly. The temperature was probably twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit.
And the snowflakes were perfect.
I watched them as they landed on my jacket, one by one. Each was a six-pointed miracle, and all of them were different.
(I first read about this in a children’s magazine in the 1960s. I have always wanted to try it. But I know in my heart that never in a billion years would I ever get something like that to work.)
It’s nice, in any case, to think of nature’s infinite variety: that every snowflake is different from every other snowflake.
Except – surprise! – it’s not true.
Of course they are.
Linus and Lucy knew this as long ago as 1963:
Beethoven’s birthday was a few days ago.
How do I know this? Why, the dear late Charles Schulz, of course.
Charles Schulz was the artist behind the comic strip “Peanuts.” He created the character Schroeder, who played his toy piano as if it were a grand piano, and who especially appreciated the music of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Schulz said later that he loved the idea of a child playing real music on a toy piano, and he showed this by showing Schroeder playing the actual (complex) Beethoven scores. You can always identify the music that Schroeder is playing; Schulz reproduces it perfectly, note for note.
And every December Schroeder remembered and celebrated Beethoven’s birthday, on the seventeenth of December.
Was Beethoven really born on the seventeenth of December? No one is sure. He was baptized on the seventeenth, in any case.
In belated honor of Beethoven’s birth (and baptism): the lovely ethereal opening movement of the late E major piano sonata No. 30, op. 109.
Celebrate!
I am not feeling much like Christmas this year. My feelings for the holiday have been diminishing for a couple of years now; I used to enjoy decorating, and looking at lights, and giving gifts, and getting gifts in return. Now it’s just a list of things to do: buy a few things, mail some cards, write emails to those people that I’ve been neglecting shamelessly for months now. Partner and I will go away for a few days between Xmas and New Year’s, just for the hell of it, and to break up our routine.
This is exactly the way my parents felt about Christmas when I was a kid. I hated their bad attitude, and swore I’d never be that cynical.
And here we are today.
I have decided, though, that I’m not going to rain on anyone’s parade this year. My mother used to whine and complain about Christmas to anyone who’d listen. I do not intend to follow her example. Why ruin other people’s fun?
Better to light a candle, etc., etc.
But not everyone agrees:
Vince Guaraldi, one of the leading figures in the 1960s San Francisco jazz movement, was chosen by the 1960s Charlie Brown animators to write music for their cartoons.
You know “Linus and Lucy”: it’s a classic. You also probably know some of his other music.
But this is a lovely pre-Peanuts piece. It takes me back to my childhood when I hear it. It won the Grammy for Best Original Jazz Composition in 1963. It’s gentle and winsome and very freeing.
Enjoy.
I love this musical, and this song. This is an animated version, and I don’t know the name of the singer; I wish I could have given you the original Broadway version, with Bill Hinnant as Snoopy, but this will do. And the animation is nice.
This is dedicated to all of us who, now and then, need to bite someone.
We are dismissive of anything labeled “kid stuff.” If a book or a movie is marketed toward “young audiences,” we tend automatically to assume it's mediocre at best. And some media / art forms – animation, comics – are automatically consigned to the “kid stuff” bin.
But everything in the bin doesn't necessarily belong there. The author / artist may well have had children in mind, but that doesn't mean that the art is childish.
Charles Schulz – well, hats off, gentlemen, a genius. I grew up with “Peanuts,” and I still get a thrill from the sharpness of the dialogue and the simplicity of the drawings. There's also the bizarre juxtaposition of everyday reality – school, baseball, lunch, holidays – with the distinctly surreal atmosphere created by a dog who pretends he's a World War I flying ace, and whose best friend is a bird who communicates in long strings of punctuation marks.
For a long time, I assumed Schulz was a devout Protestant Christian. Somebody (usually Linus) is always quoting the King James Bible; whole parables get acted out sometimes. And there was Schulz's public image: an amateur hockey player in a funny sweater, whimsical, modest, a family man.
Then I read David Michaelis's bio of Schulz.
It turns out that Sparky Schulz was not quite like that. He drifted away from his church after a while; he had extramarital affairs, and he actually used the strip to communicate with his girlfriends. Remember all the times Snoopy fell in love? Schulz was dropping codewords and sweet nothings into the dialogue, messages to the women in his life.
The one stable point in the strip, I think, is the bittersweet note of resignation. Charlie Brown is resigned to being a loser. Peppermint Patty is resigned to being a failure in school. Snoopy, much though he struggles against it, is resigned to being a dog. Linus is resigned to being a little brother.
You don't always get what you want, and sometimes you just have to live with what you're given.
Kid stuff indeed.
