Who is the "Loser" in Peanuts? Might Not Be Who You Think.

A few Christmases ago, I got several pounds of Peanuts comic strips in three bound volumes. Finally managed to work my way through the set covering the 1960s, and I learned something startling:

Linus -- grounded, studious, intelligent Linus -- may be just as bad a student as Charlie Brown.

In reading the dailies (before the strip ended in 2000; I am old) and in reading the much smaller collections I gathered over the years, I always assumed that Charlie Brown was the more lackluster student, particularly when it came to not finishing book reports until 3 am the night before they're due. (The strip below is from 1965.)

But the 1960s Peanuts are rife with such comics as above (I'm not sure when this is from, but I suspect it's later than the 1960s) Linus shows some habits of procrastination that I thought were much more Charlie Brown-ish.

Maybe this is Schulz just populating his strip with characters of ordinary mein (except for the Beethoven prodigy Schroeder). But even Schroeder has his faults.

But ask anyone to identify the "loser" in Peanuts and it's Charlie Brown, all the time, hands down.

Maybe it's a message to look past the stereotypes and see people for what they are. Or something.

Parrowan and Petroglyphs

The older I get, the more I appreciate those little trips I can take that don't require a lot of hiking.

Hells bells, I sound old. And fat. I am both.

Nevertheless, it was fun to see these petroglyphs in a canyon outside of Parrowan, Utah,  on our way to Las Vegas last week.

Both on the way in and out, we ran into this herd of sheep. Getting by them going in was easy, as we jsut stopped the car and let them flow around us. The other way, we had to drive through them. Liam did well, and was very patient with them.

Quite a few sheepdogs and farm dogs in the mix, a few of which had sheep haircuts, and all of whom found puddles of red dirt water to sit in along the way. They looked funny, with their red rumps. Wished I'd managed a picture.

Okay, Now Talk to Me

NOTE: I shared this with my students today, hoping to show them how dialogue, even if it has to be contrived a bit, helps bring readers into their writing.

I remember this happening:

My brother and I loved to ride our bikes through the industrial park and vacant lots next to our home. The road was lightly-traveled, so we could weave all we wanted on our bikes, or dart into the vacant lots to bounce along the dirt trails. One day we decided to take a longer route, and at one point I hollered we should race. I was in the lead, but my brother is pretty fast on his bicycle, so quickly took the lead.

Our route led us through the parking lot of an abandoned RV dealership, a construction office and then past a looming, two-story concrete building that jutted out of line of the others, concealing a business that engraved gravestones right on the corner where we turned for home.

The parking lot leading to the two story building was rough, so as I raced to catch my brother, I was more interested in watching the bumps so I wouldn't crash. I rounded the corner, shot past the gravestones then barreled the few hundred yards to the house and came to a halt in the garage.

My brother wasn't there.

Odd. He'd been ahead of me. Maybe he went inside? But his bike wasn't there either. I waited a few minutes then rode off in search of him, retracing our route. Maybe he found something interesting to do I was missing out on.

When I went around the corner of the two-story building, I saw him lying on the ground, partly underneath his bicycle, moaning a bit. When he heard me he looked up and said he'd been looking over his shoulder to see how far behind I was, then turned around just in time to see he was about to hit the building. He laid his bike out and only got a scraped hand. I don't know how I missed it all, unless I was too busy looking at the rough parking lot to hear the crash.

I like to think this is pretty vivid. There's a lot of detail here. But there's something missing. I'm going to try again.

My brother and I loved to ride our bikes through the industrial park and vacant lots next to our home. The road was lightly-traveled, so we could weave all we wanted on our bikes, or dart into the vacant lots to bounce along the dirt trails. One day we decided to take a longer route, and at one point I hollered "Hey, let's race!"

"No fair! You're already ahead!" he yelled. But I laughed and pedaled faster.

I had to. I was in the lead, but my brother is pretty fast on his bike.

"See you, loser!" he shouted as he passed.

Not fair.

Our route led us through the parking lot of an abandoned RV dealership, a construction office and then past a looming, two-story concrete building that jutted out of line of the others, concealing a business that engraved gravestones right on the corner where we turned for home.

The parking lot leading to the two story building was rough, so as I raced to catch my brother, I was more interested in watching the bumps so I wouldn't crash. I rounded the corner, shot past the gravestones then barreled the few hundred yards to the house and came to a halt in the garage.

My brother wasn't there.

Odd. He'd been ahead of me. Maybe he went inside? I hollered through the back door to the house: "Randy! You there?" I got silence. But his bike wasn't there either. I waited a few minutes then rode off in search of him, retracing our route. Maybe he found something interesting to do I was missing out on.

When I went around the corner of the two-story building, I saw him lying on the ground, partly underneath his bicycle, moaning a bit. When he heard me he looked up. "I was watching you, over my shoulder, to see how far behind you were. Then I turned my head and that building was there." He laid his bike out and only got a scraped hand, rather than crashing into the building. Lucky.

"I don't know how I missed it," I said. "Maybe I was looking at the parking lot. Didn't hear you crash."

Again, this is vivid, I think. But hearing my brother and I talk -- that adds another dimension. I hope it helps draw you into the story more deeply.

Try that with your stories.

Are these quotes 100% accurate? Probably not. I remember what happened and in a general sense the things we said to each other, but I can't guarantee what I've recreated here is 100% accurate to what was said.

But that doesn't matter. I'm recreating a story from my own life, and as long as I try to be faithful to the memories I'm recreating, 100% accuracy doesn't matter.

What does matter is using the conversation to help draw the reader into the story. Hearing the words, rather than merely being told something like that was said, strips away a barrier between the writer and the reader and helps both be present at the same time.

A favorite example of this from real life is from Wilson Rawls' "Where the Red Fern Grows." Rawls writes in the introduction to the book:

[This as yet unnamed person has spotted a dogfight, and is wading in to stop it.]

Taking off my coat, I wandered in. My yelling and scolding didn't have much effect, but the swinging coat did. The dogs scattered and left.

Down on my knees, I peered back under the hedge. The hound was still mad. He growled at me and showed his teeth. I knew it wasn't his nature to fight a man.

In a soft voice I started talking to him. "Come on, boy," I said. "It's all right. I'm your friend. Come out now."

The fighting fire slowly left his eyes. He bowed his head and his long red tail started thumping the ground. I kept coaxing. On his stomach, an inch at a time, he came to me and laid his head in my hand.

Rawls uses the quoted phrases in this instance to bring verisimilitude to this scene. He could have continued simply to narrate, but hearing the words, particularly in context with the violent dogfight he describes earlier, helps bring the story from a frenzy to a calmer state. Is this likely 100% accurate to what he said in this instance, or is it more likely that he says something similar when he stops any dogfight? Probably the latter. But hearing the words acts as a calming brake to this scene.

I challenge you, as you write your stories, to look for ways you can use quoted words to help connect your readers to what you're writing. Because I guarantee when I read that quote, I too am calmed. It sends the message he's done this before, he loves dogs, he wants to make a friend. It's a big message sent in a few compact phrases.

Try this out in your writing. It can be powerful.

A Wild Day in Facebook Advertising

It's been an interesting roller coaster day in Facebook ads.

This morning, almost nothing but ads from local state representatives pitching woe or pitching woo.

Then later came the NFT and crypto bros.

Round about 2 pm, inexplicably, ads advising me on how to increase attendance at my karate school.

Then we moved on to more dudebros in really, really bad haircuts urging me to "book that free call" or read their list of "six simple tips" to help my financial standing go from poorhouse to powerbro in as little as an afternoon.

I should probably stop clicking on them to read the comments, as I'd get fewer of them. But leaving this video for the financial dudebros has been cathartic.

Karate school, one of a few:

Bad Haircut financial dudebro:

YouTube Free Movies: Godzilla vs. Gigan

I’ll be honest – I had to look at Wikipedia’s long, long list of Godzilla movies before I could remember the title of the one I watched a week or so ago: Godzilla vs. Gigan. I found it, of course, on YouTube, and thought, “You know, I’ve never watched an entire Godzilla movie; this is probably as good a place to start as any.”

So, tell me this is a movie made in the 1970s without telling me this is a movie made in the 1970s:

Apparently, it was called Godzilla on Monster Island in the United States. Not that it matters. All I know is the version I watched was in Japanese with subtitles, not dubbed over in English.

And it was . . . a Godzilla movie. I went into it not really knowing what to expect, and came out feeling about the same way.

It had some interesting moments. Some confusing moments. And some interestingly confusing moments as well.

First of all, this being in Japanese, the character names eluded me. I’m told the main turtleneck sweater-wearing protagonist is a magna artist named Gengo, who is either hanging out with his girlfriend or his mother – I never really figured out which; I have to assume since they appeared to be close to the same age they were boyfriend/girlfriend, though at one time he draws a monster bearing her resemblance and calls it a “momma monster,” adding to the confusion. Despite this, it was fun to watch the mom/girlfriend unleash her martial arts skills on the baddies; I almost wished it was mom at the time, as this would have added to the film’s humor.

There’s also a hippie, an odd theme park called World Children’s Land, and two maniacal people who are either handing out cigarettes or trying to destroy the world. Amid lots of talk of peace – the peace that comes only after destroying everything that’s not peaceful, So yanno, many layers in this film on the “what’s the moral to the story” level.

If you’re not getting the drift already, the movie was silly. A few months ago I watched a preview for the latest King Kong iteration and was kind of bothered by the “human” way the monsters were depicted fighting (lots of punch-throwing and such). Not that I’m an expert on animal fighting, but I get the feeling they should fight differently than humans. Watching this movie I kinda got that feeling as well, though it helped that all the monsters had some kind of weapon they could blast at their enemies by just having the actors stand there with their costume mouths open.

As with many movies of the era, there was an underlying “we’re destroying the ecology, so whatever happens to us we deserve unless we recognize our error and start fixing things” vibe. The bad guys are revealed (spoilers) to be interstellar cockroaches planning on colonizing Earth because their home planet has become too polluted to live on. Not that they did the pollution, rather another species polluted and then died out from said pollution.

I gather from the film that every planet has its own native monsters and that in some way, they’re either there to keep more dominant species in check or to be used as intergalactic weapons if things are going awry elsewhere.

Still better than any Avengers movie out there, so there’s that.

It also contained a scene where everyone was eating a banana:

And they gave the monsters cartoon talk balloons, which were a nice touch I wish we'd see more of in such movies today. But they're not done for children or comedy today, but for Serious Film People who want to see different monsters do the same iteration of destruction and defeat that just kinda leave me cold.

My Best Friends

I've never met the people who live in the blue house. I see them scurry by, rushing when it's raining, or strolling when the night is warm and the only light come from the post at the end of the street. I see them gathering their mail, or watering their plants, or even just staring out the window maybe watching the doves or listening to the clamor from the Tuesday market in the square their windows face. They appear to be friendly. Sometimes we see each other on the street, or staring out of our own windows. The man will flinch as if he'd just touched a live wire and dart around the corner or close the curtain and dip away from the window. The woman always smiles and nods, and I smile and nod back. I have heard their voices; his quiet and rasping like a rusty gate heard far down the lane while hers, while also quiet, sounds like Debussy on the piano.

I saw her at the market once, and we had the following conversation:

Me: The bread is extra crisp today (we shopped at the same bakery).

Her: Yes, yes it is. Harold will love it.

I wonder if they know they're my best friends?

Oh Harriet . . .

Wipers irritate Frank.

Too slow and the water beads up and even with the movement of the car it's hard to see between the streaming drops.

Too fast and everyone coming the other way will think "Spaz at twelve o'clock."

So Frank spent an inordinate amount of time adjusting the speed on his wipers.

And the defogger. Don't talk about the defogger. Frank, he preferred the windows open. But Harriet, well, Harriet can't stand the noise. And the wind. And the infiltration of the rain. Drowns out her songs on the radio and makes her hair a soggy mess. So she rolls her window right back up if Frank rolls it down, and that makes the wind rattle in Frank's ears so he rolls the window down again and Harriet rolls it back up and gives him a look so he turns on the defogger and rolls up his window and sweats into his mackinaw because the defogger makes it too hot.

And the curves. Oh, the curves on wet, smooth asphalt, waiting to drift him off the road as he struggles with the wipers and the defogger and the windows and with that harridan Harriet who is never -- never -- satisfied with his driving and can't understand why he won't leave the damn wipers at one speed and just drive you moron, drive!

But it was quiet. He could hear the wipers quack on the windshield. And scrape if the drops diminished. The defogger was off and the windows -- the glorious windows -- were open.

He was pleased.

Best drive in fifteen years.

He was pleased he'd left Harriet at the service station an hour and a half back. Doubly pleased he'd flushed his cell phone down the bog.

He had money. He had a destination. He had the divorce papers waiting with his attorney at home. Once Harriet got there. And she'd get there; she had Roger to rely on. Stiff, reliable Roger. Who always knew what speed to sent his wipers at.

The rain fell harder. Frank cranked the wipers to the maximum setting, whistled a tune as the rain soaked his shoulder through the open window.

Hold On There, Anonymous Survey-Taker . . .

Dear senders of the survey mentioned in this email:

Who are you, really?

I understand you're using a Qualtrics survey form. That's fine. But who are *you,* that is what I want to know.

I do not respond to anonymous surveys. If you want my opinion, the first thing you need to know is that you will be up front with me about who you are and why you want my opinion or I will not respond.

This is for tracking and quality purposes.

Not telling me who you are up front when you ask for my opinion makes me suspect you're shady as hell.

So file that under a "key issue facing Idaho."

See, don't monkey with me. As a voter, I'm tired of it.

The Project I Don't Want to do Right Now But I'm Doing it Because it Needs to be Done

Like the master bathroom, the kids' bathroom is falling apart.

Isaac scrubbed the shower walls several weeks ago, and as he did so, tile fell off the wall and landed on his foot.

So this happened:

I didn't want it to happen this soon, but it's happened. And that's okay. There's enough mold behind the tile that it's good it's all coming out.

Today, this happened:

I accidentally put the panel on the left on backwards, but it won't matter all that much. I have to get some thinset into the joints and let it all solidify and harden, but then it's ready for tile. Maybe we'll have better weather by then; right now it's still a bit cold to be running a wet saw to cut tile.

We're also seriously looking at a remodel of the basement bathroom as well, and I'm okay with that too. I'm wondering if I can get a shower stall there instead of another tub to clean, but we'll have to see how that goes. It would mean extra work.

The upstairs bathroom will mean extra work enough. I know I've got some subfloor underneath the toilet that's going to have to be replaced, along with the flange and bit of pipe that the toilet connects to. Not looking forward to that. I may farm it out to someone else. If I do that, that should bring an end to the occasional and far-between random leak from that bathroom into the kitchen below, so I can replace that one bit in the kitchen ceiling and be done with it. That'll be nice, if I can pull it off.

I would like to talk to the howler monkeys who framed the bathroom. There's one spot next to the tub where there should be a stud, but instead we get a stupid flat 2X4 that doesn't even go all the way down to the floor because they had to cut around an electric wall heater that they could -- and should -- have moved rather than mess up the studs. So I get to figure out how to fix that, and I'm not a fan. Buncha jerks. Cover it up quick and leave it for the next poor schlub of a homeowner to deal with when the crap job you did on the tile finally rots all the way through.

Oh well. I suppose in thirty years some other homeowner will be complaining about the crap job I've done on some of the repairs and remodels I've committed against the house. Thus is the circle of life.

About Today's Wordle . . . (Spoiler Warning)

 I see today a lot of complaining about today's Wordle:

The biggest complaint: English contains many words that end with "ASTY."

The Free Dictionary offers FIVE "ASTY" words, which in the world of Wordle is many.

I think the complaints stem from two likely sources:

1. People playing in "hard" mode that requires all correct letters to be used, limiting choices.

2. People playing in "hard" mode in their heads only and locking themselves into the trap of limiting their attempts to eliminate consonants.

This, of course, plays into my consonant-first Wordle strategy, and why I'm pointing out my smartypants ways.

Today my performance on Wordle was completely done by luck; I had no letters in the right place until I had the right word. It just happened that as I looked at what consonants were involved and where they might have to lie in the word, "nasty" just came to mind.

Still, locking yourself into using the correct letters on every line, even early on, limits your chances of getting rid of likely consonant starters (the Y isn't a problem here, as always, it's the consonants). It's better not to use the correct letters over and over again; it's better to use words that help you to eliminate consonants. So get the letters right on whatever line you get them, but from then on don't play them until you've eliminated a few consonants first.

(Note I don't necessarily follow my consonant-first strategy strictly here, as I also eliminated possible vowels along the way; that's where the luck plays in.)