For Early Risers Who Wish That It Could Be Morning All Day
With all of our recent snowfall, I got to thinking of “the bullseye.”
Who wouldn’t?
Here is an oldy, but goody watercolor painting demonstration of a “warm” winter scene—utilizing the bullseye technique. It is an excerpt from Learning to Paint Winter’s Light.
If you are interested, you can find the entire course here: spetz.teachable.com
New snow and soon a new full moon.
We have received a blast of the same frigid weather as most of North America. But at least we got some sunshine and calm conditions to go with it. Here is a photo that a friend took from Glacier National Park yesterday.
At the onset of a brand new year, I suspect that most people embark on ambitious resolutions. You know, goals like loosing 30 lbs. or quitting smoking or learning how to speak a foreign language. Big goals. Hard goals.
Not me. I’m keeping things simple and easily attainable this year.
Oh, I’ve done the ambitious resolution thing in the past. And by all rights, I should do so again this year. I am a very imperfect human in need of many improvements. I bet my wife could list twenty just off the top of her head. And while I would like to be a better person, I just can’t be this year.
Just think of the song lyrics, “I wanna do right but not right now.”
When it comes to New Year resolutions, I have had checkered past. I did quit smoking decades ago—that’s my hallmark resolution accomplishment. But God knows I could still lose some weight. And wouldn’t it be neat to speak Spanish or Swahili or even Double Dutch?
Maybe next year. Not this year.
Why? Because this year: I hereby resolve to “relearn” how to fish.
You read right. Fish.
And I can do this. I can achieve this.
Yeah, I’ve fished here and there over the years. And yeah, I know how to tie a hook and reload a spinning spool. I might even remember how to flay. But I really haven’t seriously fished since I was in high school. And I wasn’t too serious about it then either.
Plus, that was Minnesota fishing—a bobber and twenty feet of water. Crappies, Sunnies, and maybe a Northern or Walleye. But Flathead Lake is deeeeeep. And in the summer, I am told, the fish go deep. And we are talking trout. Sometimes biiiiiig lake trout. So, no more bobber. My bobber days are behind me.
It is time to learn how to do the deep-water jig!
Truth be told, while I love to eat fish, I have never been that interested in fishing per se. But I do love being out on Flathead Lake. And fishing, the way I see it, will provide me with a whole new excuse for being out on the water.
So, if you encounter my unimproved self this year (2017), please “cut me some slack.” Maybe I’ll get back on a self-improvement trajectory next year. Maybe. Yeah 2018. And if you don’t encounter my unimproved self this year, you’ll know why.
I’ve gone fishing.
HNY!
In my “laddybuck” years, I was enamored with the Lost in Space television series. You don’t remember it? Well, it only ran for three years in the mid-60s, so even if you had been born by that time, it was still pretty easy to overlook. Yet I did not miss a single episode, nor a single scene in an episode. So fanatical was I, that if any family member interfered with or merely suggested scheduling something against an episode of Lost in Space, I would become unglued—nothing short of demonic.
A very unpleasant boy I could be, indeed.
This futuristic tale of a wandering space family resonated with me. Well that and … er, I had a crush on the blonde space girl, Judy. Nevertheless, the Robinsons were always trying to find their way to a particular habitable planet that orbited our nearest star. They sought a new life and, consequently, pinned all of their hopes on a faraway twinkling light. But they could never manage to reach their destination. Instead, they essentially “spun their astral wheels” and bounced haplessly from wrong planet to wrong planet—”lost,” as the series title suggests.
In hindsight, I came to realize that this TV series was a metaphor for my own nomadic youth. The biggest difference was that my family was not cohesive (that, and we substituted a ’64 Chevy for a spaceship).
I have written about those times—intermingled with the fascinating history of the early 1960s—in my book, Easy Hearts. It was a daunting project for me, though a very satisfying one. And when the book was initially released a year and a half ago, it did fairly well. But in recent months its sales have lagged. So (not being averse to cheap gimmicks and unsavory stunts) I have made the decision to give the book a re-boot—namely, a new title and a slightly modified cover.
Actually, I am going back to the original working title.
At the risk of it being misconstrued as a science fiction novel, I have re-titled the short simple Easy Hearts to the long-winded Searching for Alpha Centauri in a ’64 Chevy. If you happen to read it, this title will make more sense. The gist of it is that when a family shoots for a faraway star, interesting (even amusing) things are bound to happen along the way. And in my family’s case, they did. While the book is, admittedly, not entirely “fun and games,” it is all-in-all a pretty comical tale. Dysfunctional, combative, impetuous parents, as it turns out, will say and do (as Art Linkletter used to say) “the darndest things.”
I am not the first author to have done a title swap. I checked. It seems that one of the original titles for Gone With The Wind was Pansy. Really. Pansy. And Hemingway’s classic, The Sun Also Rises, was first penned as Fiesta. George Orwell reconsidered his title The Last Man in Europe and came up with the more succinct (and catchy) 1984. And I once watched an episode of Seinfeld where Elaine claimed that the great War and Peace author, Leo Tolstoy, had capitulated from his desired title, War, What Is It Good For?—though I think that one might be pure TV fiction.
Perhaps I watch too much TV.
Anyway, what do Mitchell, Hemingway, Orwell, and Tolstoy have over me—aside from brilliant writings and millions of adoring readers?
No need to answer.
But if you do read and enjoy Searching for Alpha Centauri in a ’64 Chevy, please give it a “Reader Review” on Amazon. Reviews really help the cause (aka book sales).
PS: Here is a short funny Seinfeld clip about temperamental authors and Leo Tolstoy’s supposed alternate title, War, What Is It Good For?: