Heidi

As mentioned last week, I finished reading Heidi in French. It was something I was mostly doing on the side rather than my normal reading. Even so, it took longer than I thought, despite the fact that it's easier to read. The problem was that almost nothing happens in the story, which was published in 1881.

The story starts out with Heidi's aunt dumping orphaned Heidi at her grandfather's house in the Swiss Alps and the aunt running off to live her own life. Heidi lives there a while before the aunt comes back and kidnaps her and takes her to Frankfurt before running off again. Heidi lives in Frankfurt for a while until she gets so homesick it affects her health. A doctor orders her home. She reunites with her grandfather and lives happily ever after.

You're probably wondering why it's a classic. I wondered that the whole book. During Heidi's time in Frankfurt, one weekend she learned to read at a high level. Her favorite story was the prodigal son from the New Testament. When she returns home, she reads it to her grandfather. It changes his life. He prays a prayer of repentance and takes Heidi to church on Sunday. The ending is what makes it a classic. The restoration of the grandfather and how he's welcomed back into the community after being a grumpy old cuss for quite a long time is the power of the story.

The ending was good. It just took a long, hard slog to get there. There were a lot of missed opportunities. If I was doing a story based on Heidi, I'd make a few changes to make it more interesting to read. The grandfather would have worked for MI6 in the past. The aunt, unknown to her, works for his old nemesis from the KGB or possibly, since Heidi went to Frankfurt, the Stasi. After Heidi's kidnapping, the grandfather tries to track her but fails. Instead of training to be a domestic servant the way she was in the original, Heidi is held prisoner by her grandfather's nemesis. Her guard teaches her to read, so she won't bother him so much wanting to be read stories. She overhears the nemesis's plot for revenge on her grandfather and uses her newfound book knowledge to escape imprisonment and hides with the family in the original story where was training to be a servant. From there she devises a trap for the nemesis, which requires her to lure him to her grandfather's cabin. She flees Frankfurt in the dead of night with the nemesis one step behind her. At grandfather's she bursts into the cabin and shouts a code word she learned at the nemesis's lair. Grandfather's MI6 reflexes take over, and he grabs his old service pistol and gets into a shootout with the nemesis. Heidi provides a key distraction, allowing the grandfather to shoot the nemesis. They tell the other villagers he was a prowler, but secretly the grandfather alerts MI6 that the old threat has been eliminated. Then Heidi would read him the story of the prodigal son, and they would go to church.

Technically, they didn't have all those agencies in 1881, but it makes for a much better story. We could update the setting to more modern times. At least that way, something would happen in the book instead of it being a dry, blow-by-blow description of Heidi's child life.

Have a great weekend.

Spammers, Writing, Painting

The reason there was no blog last week was because someone I know had a so-called emergency that needed help right away. I should've known better.

I ran across an interesting article the other day that was talking about good guys versus bad guys and how it's a modern invention that never existed in fairy tales and old stories. It explains the modern origin and how it came about through the rise of nation-states and modern national identity. It's worth a read or worth a skim at least.

So, a while back I got a new cell phone and a new number. I started getting a ton of spam calls, multiple calls every day except weekends. Frustrated with that, I considered getting a newer number. Maybe the last person to have the number was the problem, and a different one would fix it? What I settled on doing was killing the calls as they came in. Guess what? That makes them not call back. I can go several days now without a single spam call. And sliding that red circle to send the call to oblivion feels good, too. It turns out there's an app that does the same thing. I haven't installed it, but it's out there.

I've been working on pre-work for the next book. It's not going very fast. I've also been working on that cat painting I've mentioned several times before. I've been able to put maybe an hour or two into it every night. I'm hoping that a side effect of doing it is to figure out a way to do book covers that have that illustrated feel rather than a painting feel. Although I'm not happy with the painting as it is today, it's slowly coming together. I'm having to learn things and figure things out. I have some doubts about my skill to make it look the way I want it to look.

I have the painting on an easel in the living room. When I come home and sit down a few minutes, I can stare at it and try to work out fixes and ways to progress toward the finish. It's not the hardest painting in the world, but cats have fur. It has colors that can be hard to match even with all my past experience mixing colors. The ears have a reddish orange color near the base that's not really quite reddish orange. One of the eyes has a dark pinkish sort of red color near it that isn't the same color throughout. Part of the fur is white. The shadows(greys), mid-tones(light grey) and highlights(white) all have to look white. It's not as much hard as it's time-consuming. The eye will think it's all white. It just has to be done right.

I've painted fur before, but this has to look like the person's pet. The eyes are a bit tricky as they have multiple colors in them. Anyway, it's taking a while. If it works, I'll post it after it's done.

I finished Heidi in French. That's what I was going to blog about last week. It had a lot of missed opportunities. Maybe I'll discuss that next time.

Have a great weekend.

The Heat

There wasn't much progress on the book front this week. It was pathetic. The air conditioner problem is still there, and a high pressure system got stuck over my region, causing hotter temperatures than in July. It was brutal and frustrating. The Weather Channel said the heat would disintegrate instead of moving out. Their heat map shows me to be in a sort of wedge area. Cooler temperatures are expected Saturday. Yesterday the high was 94F(34.4C). Today it's 93F(33.89C). Saturday's high(tomorrow) is 70F(21.1C). That's a crazy drop. The rest of the week it's supposed to be in the 70s.

In last week's blog, I did a semi-review of the new Magnum P.I. show based on a random episode I saw part of. One of the problems was the characters talked about their feelings too much instead of doing things. That lasted about 30 minutes. Then things got moving. I assumed the naval gazing was over. Nope. I watched the end of the episode. As the heros were sitting in some kind of Jeep/SUV type vehicle about to face the bad guys, they stopped to talk about their feelings again. I wish I was kidding. It was this episode.

With not being able to get on the computer much due to the heat, I saw another Magnum P.I. episode. It didn't have all the feelings talk. Maybe the first episode I caught had different writers. I also said the new Higgins had an Australian accent. It sounded like one of the more uncommon ones I've heard before, though the accent seemed inconsistent between scenes, making it hard to pin down. I looked her up. The actress is actually from Wales. Regardless, it doesn't work. The real Higgins had a sophisticated, cultured British accent. The new Higgins doesn't. Fail. The actor who played the real Higgins, John Hillerman, was an American from Texas. If somebody from Texas could fake it so convincingly, I think a gal from Wales could, too. I don't understand why she's in the show.

One thing the new Magnum show is lacking that I don't miss about the original is all the arguing. In the original the characters argued all the time. I hated it. Is talking about their feelings supposed to be the replacement for that? I groan.

The real Magnum, Tom Selleck, is still alive and working. The new show isn't dishonoring his memory. It's dishonoring him personally while he's still alive and healthy to see it. 😀 Boo, Hollywood. Boo.

With the weather turning, I expect to get more done on the book front next week.

Have a great weekend.