Month: November 2007

My buddy D.F. Rogers points out that the synopsis of David Michaelis’ biography of N.C. Wyeth isn’t all that distinctly different from that of his biography of C.M. Schulz.

For forty-three years, starting in 1902, N.C. Wyeth painted landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and murals, as well as illustrations for a long shelf of world literature. Yet despite worldwide acclaim, he judged himself a failure, believing that illustration was of no importance. David Michaelis tells the story of Wyeth’s family through four generations — a saga that begins and ends with tragedy — and brings to life the huge-spirited, deeply complicated man, and an America that was quickly vanishing.

After a lot of furious flipping through various portions of the Michaelis biography of Schulz, I am now slowly and deliberating reading it front-to-finish. Yes, Schulz was complicated, but in the book “complicated” does indeed seem to mean the same thing as “negative.” By definition, a single significant aspect of someone’s personality isn’t what makes them complicated.

I got a laugh of out Monte Schulz’s comment about his brother Craig that’s in a previous post.

I just wanted David Van Taylor to tell a more complete story and to give some clarification to a story my brother tells regarding “us” riding our dirt bikes on the roads and not being bothered by the cops — none of us except him either owned or rode dirt bikes, and David only used that clip to “show” how pampered we were back then, and privileged, neither of which was true.

The reason it’s funny to me is my brother rode dirt bikes, but I never did. I would have the same reaction as Monte if my brother said “we” in a way that sounded like a reference to our family, rather than to his friends. Here’s Craig on a dirt bike.

At the moment, the header for this blog is this picture. I stitched it together from a couple of scanned images. It was inspired by a poem that Monte Schulz wrote, that was published in Happy Birthday, Charlie Brown, in 1979, as ‘Peanuts’ headed into its 30th year.

I salute you,
Speaker to the world
Through little boxes.

I applaud the four little squares
A world watches and laughs with, mornings.
And I share the fortune
You grant us,
Allowing a peek through four little windows
Into your world each day.

I cherish the wisdom lessons
and the story telling.
And always I treasure
The laughter,
Greeting every new morning.

Speaker to the world
Through little boxes:
I salute you.

— Monte Schulz