Will's Good Idea for the Week of 9/20/26

Ah, Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement. We wouldn't even know where to begin. We'll be hitting schul at 6. Then the big one comes tomorrow morning. First Yom Kippur at the new synagogue. 

Saturday wasn't too bad. 

We went to Barnes & Noble yesterday and walked the shelves looking for, we dunno. Whatever we were looking for, we didn't find it. 

We were bored with our workout. So for the first time in more than a year we lifted weights yesterday. We can still bench 300. 

We finally broke down and made an appointment with the eye doctor. 

We sent World War 1990: The Managua Campaign to the grognard. Why not? Soon it must needs be time to get back to work on TMC. Soon.

Which summons Will's Good Idea for the Week of 9/20/26.

Write now our work in progress release order is World War 1990: Thatcher's War, the 5th nuke novel, and finally World War 1990: The Managua Campaign. It's very possible all three roughs will be completed by 1 January. 

Which would clear the decks for a new project. One supposes one could spend December researching and then come into the new knew year ready to write Battle of the GIUK Gap, one supposes. Or something completely different. 

Oh, and we promised James Young a Medieval alternate history story. What if King Harold took one step to the right?

Saturday Updates

Baaaah! Another bad day. We're not optimistic about today.

Political note, national: we'd much rather be the Dems. 

The Things.

We've, we think, like, one more scene to write for World War 1990: Thatcher's War. This scene should end with White House political machinations, no? Ireland's been invaded. Certain objectives achieved. But the Irish problem is not resolved. No, there will not be a third Ireland novel. However Ireland will simmer in the background of upcoming novels. Thatcher's War is 79,000 words.

The Soviet sub story advanced a bit.

Almost There...

Baah. Another bad day, also largely self-inflicted. We had a rough night too. 

It's 9 AM here at the Donut, and we've been coming here so often the kid behind the counter knows out drink. 'Norm!' he shouts as we walk in. The one morning we thought we might like a muffin they don't got nun. 

Thomas Crowne Affair...we forgot to mention that Renee Russo has a couple of topless scenes in the 1999 version. We apologize for the oversight. This blog still prefers Faye Dunaway. Also, we learned that a new take starring Michael B. Jordan will be in theatres next year. One might be annoyed at the race swapping, but race never really mattered to the character. Why not a black version of Thomas Crowne? And Michael B Jordan is an excellent choice. 

More apologies....we were remiss yesterday in not marking the 2nd anniversary of Operation Grim Beeper. 

ME observances...Reports of Iran 'rebuilding' nuclear sights...Parts delivered to US missile assembly plant...Military heads hold secret meeting in Germany...Saudis ask Israel for help against Houthis...US admits it has weapons in space...Trump openly wonders if he should 'annihilate' the Iranians. Exit question: Rods from God at Pick Axe Mountain?

Political note, local: Rebecca Bennett is touting her independence from any party. Which is interesting. She's hammering Keane on TV and YouTube right now.

DOGE report. 

Nevertheless we did some excellent work on World War 1990: Thatcher's War. We still haven't figured out Captain Liam Cox's final scene. He's the hero of Derry but led the unit which arrested Gerry Adams. Ah there we go. Got it. 

We remain ghosted by REDACTED Magazine. 

Wednesday Aftermath

Good morning, Stroock's Books people, and happy Thursday. 

Arrrr, just a bad day yesterday, mostly self-inflicted. It happens. But we don't feel good about it. We don't feel good about it at all. How about turning off the fire hose of news, eh? Also, a post-surgery thing? This was a Thursday downer mini-post. 

Jews-n-News: Israel is still heading for a hung Knesset. Ch14's poll is the outlier showing the Netanyahu bloc with 66 seats. But...most polls show Eisenkot's party gaining on Bibi's party. One supposes President Herzog would have to give Eisenkot the first crack at forming a government. Exit question: what if Ch14 is right?

Political note, national: the 'While Trump builds his ballroom....' ads write themselves. 

This blog endorses, without hesitation, independence referendums for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. 

What Will's Watching: The Thomas Crown affair, 1999. So they left off the 'e'. Piers Brosnan plays Thomas Crown and Rene Russo plays his antagonist, insurance investigator Catherine Banning. Dennis Leary is the cop on the case. This time the film opens with a guns-free art heist. We like it better than the bank heist in the original TTCA. The 1999 version has more or less the same plot, beats and turns as the 1968 version. Crown and Banning meet, pursue, fall in love. There are some excellent plot twists to distinguish this from the 1968 version. 

While Dennis Leary is not as interesting as the police detective as Paul Blake was, he's not bad either. Leary's detective Mike McCann  hits on Banning, and misses. But he's a sympathetic character with a troubled past (cop problems). He ultimately a good cop with a redemption arc.

This time TTCA takes place in New York City. This is the late 90s New York, turned around, cleaned up, and whimsical. The score, interesting and mature modern jazz, lends itself to a city on the make. This is another film one watches for time and place, for style. The late 90's were quite the time, the nation had not a care in the world. And that comes through here. 

Is the Brosnan version better than the McQueen version? Is it worse? We don't know. We can say Brosnan is his own version of the self assured business tycoon. Oh, and Faye Dunaway returns, this time as Crown's shrink, a very 90s affectation. Were we not entertained? We were. 3/4.

DOGE Report.

We advanced the plot. We can see the end of World War 1990: Thatcher's War. It's there. 

We tidied up the sub story. The tidying up will continue until the story is tidied up. 

Despite everything we had a pretty good day. 

Our editors at REDACTED Magazine refuse to respond to our emails. 

Will Gets Crowned

The procedure went just fine yesterday. We'll have results in a few weeks.

We really need to figure out how to stop getting so worked up about things [Meh, it was their screw up-Ed].

What Will's Watching...As ordered we took it easy yesterday. So we watched The Thomas Crowne Affair (1968) and (1999). We'll review the original today. TTCA is a love story about two good looking people wrapped around a bank heist. The 1968 version is a time capsule, 1968 - as experienced by grownups. There's no hippies here. No rock. The score is modern jazz. People dress up to go out. Men wear fedoras. Smoking is still cool.

Steve McQueen plays Crowne as a successful, self-assured, and stylish businessman. When Crowne takes his stolen two million bucks to Switzerland, the bank president is at first reluctant. 'It's all there,' Crowne assures him. When the president balks Crowne says, 'But you will do it.' And finally, 'Enjoy my money.'

Crowne flies gliders, plays polo and drive's dune buggies for fun. He places thousand dollar bets on golf shots out of boredom. 

Faye Dunaway is Vicki Anderson, a brilliant insurance investigator. Anderson is beautiful, stylish, curious, playful and every bit Crowne's match. She's been sent by the insurance company to bust Crowne and tells him so. How does Dunaway do that with her eyes? My word. 

After they meet at an art auction (of course) Crowne and Anderson go about Massachusetts being cool fabulous together.  

There's lots of great supporting performances here. Jack Weston (readers will recognize him) is great as the driver and the fink. 'I'm in' he says when Crowne offers him the job in the movie's first scene in a darkened hotel room. Paul Blake is detective Eddie Malone, at once resentful and intrigued by Vicki Anderson. Anderson likes Malone and even respects him and spends several scenes on his arm. Why in another world the two might even be a couple. To Malone's credit he never hits on Anderson. 

TTCA is a 'look at me!' film with lots of out of focus and split screen shots which some viewers may find annoying. We enjoyed them as a part of time and place. 

All these elements come together in a movie that shows us late-stage middle-brow cool. 4/4

Political note, general: we looked at RCP polls and we see a sea of blue. Here in NJ07, Rebecca Bennett has a five point lead on Tom Kean, which is unchanged from June.  We've seen this movie before, in 2018 when Dem challenger Tom Malinowski beat GOP incumbent Leonard Lance. The ingredients are mixed. Exit question, has the cake baked?  

Yes, we're feeling doomy. 

DOGE report.

We read over a few scenes. Nothing more. 

9/11 Week...Interrupted*

'Please stop yelling at me,' the schedular said.

'What the hell for?' we replied. 

Devotees will recall the battery of tests we've had this summer, colonoscopy, endoscopy, MRI, etc etc...We're supposed to get another test today. 

Honestly, yesterday did not start off well. The doctor's office called and asked a series of weird and increasingly annoying questions, many of which we felt were irrelevant.  'I don't know,' we often answered. They pressed. They pressed. 'Yes, I would say I could nap in the afternoon', we replied to one dumbass question. 

The call took ten minutes and left us in a foul mood. We were already cranky for, after all, we were getting ready for something we don't really want to do. 

An hour later, maybe, the scheduler called and said we had to reschedule. Would October 8th work? The anesthesiologist was worried about putting us under given all the blood pressure meds we take.

We explained that we have already been under anesthesia once this summer. 

Didn't matter, the anesthesiologist would need our last echocardiogram and visit notes from the cardiologist. 

This appointment had been scheduled for a couple of months now. Needless to say we let the schedular know our feelings on the matter, hence, 'Please stop yelling at me.' 

So we called the cardiologist, explained the situation, and they faxed over a note saying all was well. 

But that wasn't enough. 

The anesthesiologist needed the charts and visit notes. As it is the cardiologist's office is five minutes away so we drove over there, got the notes, and had them faxed over to the hospital. 

We waited.

It gets better. About an hour later billing called and wanted the copay before our appointment. We explained what had been happening the last few ours and told them, directly, that they would get no money from us until we had a time for our procedure. Billing hung up. 

At this point we were asking our Fellow North American to sign us up for MAID. 

An hour later scheduling called back. A different scheduler was on the line. We were not optimistic. But, we have an appointment for 9:30 this morning. Which we are leaving for now. 

Wish us luck. 

*By bureaucratic incompetence and mendacity. Fuckwits.   

Bright Blue on a Monday

Good morning, Stroock's Books, and happy Monday. 

Tonight, Dance Taxi begins in earnest. 

NFL notes.

What a football day in casa de Stroock! Mrs. Stroock's Eagles took care of business in a hard-fought game against the Redskins and...

How 'bout them Giants! The Giants haven't looks that good in years. They beat Dallas in prime time, two of the team's bugaboos. Their second biggest win since Tom Coughlin left. Ole Miss' Jackson Dart looked poised. The Giants rushed for 165 yards and dominated the second half. We haven't felt this good about the Giants in...a long time. We're actually getting...emotional.  There's a lot of work to do. But for now, enjoy the moment Giants. Enjoy the moment. God bless John Harbaugh.*

So far, we like Steeler ex-coach Mike Tomlin in his NFL analyst roll.  

9/11 Week....the next few days were weird. On Wednesday 9/12 the skies were just as clear and sunny as the day before. At 8:46 we were in a field hitting baseballs just as we were Tuesday morning. 

Most people were glued to the TV.  The internet was not yet a great way to get breaking news.  9/11 was the beginning of that news crawl across the bottom of your screen. Pundits at this point were still talking about tens of thousands of casualties. 

American airspace was closed for next 48 hours or so. The FAA reopened the airspace despite fears other hijackers might be waiting to strike. The first night ABC News thought the FAA new about a potential high jacking in progress or intel that a high jacking was in the offing. Nothing came of it, obviously. The airlines took it on the chin financially, congress bailed them out that fall. 

Powerline reports on the Fed's investigation of Somalia's finest, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Hey remember all those investigations, impeachments, state and federal prosecutions of Trump? Yeah, good times. The GOP has finally learned to fight back and play dirty. 

Political note, local: Rebbecca Bennett (Gabby Giffords' PAC, really) is still hammering Tom Kean on the gun issue. They're using imagery from Kean's own ads too. Clever. For a guy who checked himself into the nuthouse and disappeared for a couple of months, Kean's doing well. 

DOGE report.

The epilogue chapter will begin with Murphy in his cell reading newspaper headlines describing what's happened. 

*As we joked last February, 'Mr. Harbaugh, a John Mara is on the phone he says he sent you a signed check and you should just fill in whatever amount you think is fair.