tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6910067.post112528039249594718..comments2024-03-24T08:17:55.097-04:00Comments on BLOG TO COMM: Christopher Stiglianohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17107248034597839482noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6910067.post-1125842156862945882005-09-04T09:55:00.000-04:002005-09-04T09:55:00.000-04:00One thing I caught in STAY WITH IT, SNOOPY and fai...One thing I caught in <STRONG>STAY WITH IT, SNOOPY</STRONG> and failed to mention in my post was a comic where Snoopy asks Woodstock what his philosophy of life is, and after the bird chirps his usual relay of specs Snoopy tells us that it's "Small is Beautiful." On the surface this may seem either obscure or irrelevant, but when you realize that this was also the philosophy of British economist E. F. Schumacher, things become even <EM>stranger</EM>...<BR/><BR/>Schumacher was a fellow who, back in the seventies, seemed to border on a variety of socio-political stratums, on one hand influencing the Green Party/movement as well as Jimmy Carter (!) yet on the other the "hard-right" (excepting free markets, it seems) <STRONG>NEW OXFORD REVIEW</STRONG> <EM>and</EM> none other than Edgar Breau! The Green left would naturally find favor with Schumacher for his ecological concerns and sense of "limitedness" ("small" = "beautiful") while the right (not counting the freewheeling libertarians at <STRONG>REASON</STRONG> who seem to dismiss any source of freedom outside their narrow ahd increasingly hippy definitions and once "dissed" on Schumacher for some seemingly pro-Mao comment he made that was probably taken out of context as they seem to do to suit their own purposes) went big for his Chestertonian liberal-yet-proto-conservative reassertation of culture and family. And while the left seemed uncomfortable with Schumacher's Catholicism and the right his perhaps anti-free-market beliefs, they <EM>may</EM> have joined together on a few of Schumacher's ideas such as "distributism," a form of limited capitalism with worker-owned companies yet with a penchant for profits albeit pared down profits next to a more open economic setup. I dunno exactly what to make of all of this, but it does sound like a different, perhaps refreshing approach or at least attempt at a workable solution and I will not dismiss it out-of-hand like way too many seem to do. But finding this "Small is Beautiful" philosophy (and thus a reference to Schumacher) mentioned in a popular comic strip is kinda mind-boggling esp. when its <STRONG>PEANUTS</STRONG>...really!Christopher Stiglianohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17107248034597839482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6910067.post-1125356756292409552005-08-29T19:05:00.000-04:002005-08-29T19:05:00.000-04:00The early PEANUTS are definitely the best. Persona...The early <STRONG>PEANUTS</STRONG> are definitely the best. Personally I prefer the mid-fifties ones the most, though if I feel rich enough I might dish out some money for the current series of hardbound reprints of strips done in the days when Charlie Brown's head was bigger than the rest of his body. Later on, after the strip became "larger than life," the quality certainly went down...like the Stones and Babs Streisand, Schulz might have figured that he's already reached his pinnacle so why not dish out subpar strips the undiscerning fans'll gobble up anyway. Maybe that's why I'm surprised that I like those mid-seventies ones I reviewed above...it could be because they're still in the four-panel mode rather'n shorter like they became in the eighties, or maybe Schulz stil "had it" that late in the game, but who knows?<BR/><BR/>I like "Nobody Wants to Play With Rose" too. It sounds as if some record producer, thinking he could make LMO a "star," had him record this with a "professional" group as a demo to shop around!!! And I still think the Funeral of Art track on <STRONG>TRANCEFORMER</STRONG> is a "phony"...the FOA tracks I heard were very 1969 art rock-oriented with a distinct British flare, perhaps thanks to the proto-Krozier-esque singer. And yes, "Freeze Frame" is on <STRONG>TRANCEFORMER</STRONG> but I thought you knew that!Christopher Stiglianohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17107248034597839482noreply@blogger.com