As I look (again) at Peanuts—the entire 50-year-project, and its astonishing achievement—I’m noticing new things. I’ve learned, for example, about how everyone credits Schulz with inventing not just the classic four-panel gag strip but the crucial innovation of the “silent” third panel, which Garry Trudeau (whose style I appropriate here) and Bill Watterson (whom I […]
Writing
Despite the joy of seeing beloved family members, I returned from Grosse Pointe, MI this week even more depressed than I’d been at any point since the election, since the casual, obscene racism and unthinking Trump support I encountered (among perfectly well-meaning and pleasant well-to-do Americans who sincerely believe themselves to have the best interests […]
A child sits alone at home, a teenager, upset, angry, sad, misunderstood. The bedroom has posters and a barricaded door and may be anywhere in the world; I picture one in Illinois where my grandfather was born, the smallest town I’ve ever seen and the place he escaped from in high school to drive a […]