Berkshire Shabbat - The Bobcat

Another glorious Berkshire morning to all you Stroock's Books reader(s) out there.  

Reinforcements are arriving this afternoon. 

Waking up here, the air is usually still and cool, though we're in something of a heat wave right now, for the Berkshires. Temps are in the low 70s this morning and will hit the mid 80s today. 

Early morn, one hears birds. Maybe a fish flopping in the water. We are always reminded of our grandmother's feet shuffling along the floor in the morning stillness. We do the same now when we wake up. 

Yesterday we spotted a bobcat in the yard. We've heard the coyotes. About the only wildlife we haven't interacted with up here are the bears. Keep your fingers crossed [For interacting with them or not interacting with them? -Ed]. We don't know. 

We got out on the boat yesterday for some swimming. No sunset cruise. We did a fair amount of yardwork. Since we can't get up here as much as we like, there's always yard tasks waiting, which is nice [Is it?-Ed].

DOGE report. Sitting on our deck overlooking Lake Buel, we went over the post battle of Dublin scenes and started a few more scenes. Looks like World War 1990: Thatcher's War is going to culminate in the Irish Ranger Wing raiding Heath House, County Kildare, where Gerry Adams is holed up.  God bless Captain Liam Cox. 

We are on track [For what?-Ed]. To have the rough draft finished by 1 September [Big talker-Ed]. 

Writing a third To Defend the Earth novel and redoing the covers for same and To Survive the Earth is not a bad idea. Today we shall dwell upon some ideas for To Liberate Mars. In theory, if TLM did well that would open the door for future novels in the series. 

But our original thought was to write a standalone novel and publish it on a platform other than kindle. Upon this idea we shall dwell also. 

Berkshire Thursday - the Snake

A good Berkshire morning to Stroock's Books reader(s) across the United States, Commonwealth, and Empire. And Happy Hiroshima Day. They started it. We finished it. 

Sitting in the house our grandmother lovingly decorated and maintained, opposite the canal she used to clean out so her two grandchildren could play in the water, we can't help but recall that that woman never forgave the Japanese. Wouldn't by Japanese cars. Related, we have Chinese neighbors who won't buy Japanese either.  

Anyway...An overcast morn here in the Berkshires. The weed cutter is out. That thing takes up half the Lake Buel Association's budget. The Labor Day fireworks take up the other half. Someone is swimming the middle of the lake. There's an....who the fuck set their car alarm here in the woods? 

A simple day, yesterday. We didn't go out on the boat till evening, the girls 'weren't feeling it' they said. 

We spoke to the wastewater treatment people about a long needed repair to the system, and have contacted a few tree companies about taking down some trees which if we don't drop them, mother nature will. 

The deck is getting some repairs next week.

Have we ever mentioned that second homes can be time consuming and expensive?

Last night we were coming in from the deck when the family heard us exclaim, 'Ahhhh! Shoo! Shoo!' A snake was lounging on the front stoop. He was a harmless water snake. Nevertheless, we asked, 'Snakes. Why does it have to be snakes?'*

Reader(s) have no doubt heard that scandal plagued Cambridge Professor Jason Arday has resigned. Among other things he's accused of plagiarism. Is not plagiarizing really that hard? Especially for an academic? Back in our professorial days we'd bust a student every once and a while for cutting and pasting an essay from the internet. Sorry, kid. 18 year olds don't write that good. 

Anyway, plagiarism scandals happen so often now we've questioned our own work. Everyone's doin it, right? We got the idea of writing 'we' from the great James Taranto. 'Alert readers' comes from the old Kausfiles blog. The 'outside of laboratory conditions' thing comes from AoSHQ. Some scenes in our novels are inspired by book and movie scenes.**

John Sexton at Hot Air has an interesting story about the growing Exodus (heh) of Jews from blue states. Jewish parents are now choosing southern schools for their kids. Ole Miss and Auburn over Harvard and Yale! Remarkable. Heh, our own grandmother went to LSU, where she knew Giants great Y.A. Title, a little bit, or so she said. Sexton dives into why Jews are traditionally progressive and we think his explanation is at least partially right (Exodus again). 

We ourselves fantasize about returning to our mother's ancestral homeland in Western Kentucky, should we need to. Slap a John Deere hat on our head we'd blend right in. And our girls could walk the streets of Livermore and everyone would just assume they'd belong. Heck when we were a boy we'd play on our Aunt Elsie's sidewalk and people would stop and ask, 'You're Mar-Bess's boy, aren't you?'

The South ain't called the Bible Belt for nuthin'. Prejudice dies hard and some of our fellow Hebrews don't understand that Christ is King is better than Allah Akbar. Stabby lives in our neighborhood and he's starting to give us the yips. We ain't flown our Israeli flag since 10/7. [You see the self-contradiction you just did there?-Ed]. We do Ed, we do. Now get us another cup of coffee, love, and take your time about walking away. 

Will's Good Idea for the Week, Supplemental.

The leader of this blog's Confederate contingent replied, 'It was the one you talked about doing about mars with carriers in space...' Ah, the space-carrier thingy. It'd basically be Wing Commander, good books, BTW.  Meh. Good story idea. Force-K of six escort carriers raids the Naralgian sector base, destroys it, only to detect the newest Naralgian*** Dreadnaught returning from its first shake down. Sort of Operation Hailstone meets Sink the Bismarck.  

Here us out...We commission new covers for To Defend the Earth and To Survive the Earth  and finally write To Liberate Mars. 

*Reference. 

**A name we've banked since high school. Somehow we got Naralgian from Harpoon Scenaraio Editor. We dunno.

*** George Lucas white courtesy phone. George Lucas, white courtesy phone...no, the white phone.  Let's see, George Lucas saw The Dam Busters when he was 9 or 10. So yeah, that movie embedded itself right in his brain. Exit question: anyone know why they can't broadcast The Dam Busters anymore? 

Berkshire Wednesday - the Fish

A glorious Berkshire morning to you all. 

Boating yesterday. Some cleanup around the yard (we need to charge that chainsaw battery). Afternoon kayak. Sunset boat ride.

We saw one hell of a Pike just hanging out on the surface, pushing its gigantic nose out of the water. This thing must have been a two-footer. Damn fish looked like the Lockness Moster. People on the shore pointing a gawking, 'What is that?!'

We buzzed the Israeli summer camp up the lake and heard a couple of counselors chatting in Hebrew [Creep-Ed]. Hey, am Israel Chai.

We'll be dragging trash up to the dump today, a semi-annual ritual. 

What else? We asked Grok, and Grok says the Israeli election is more or less a tie. The new government will be formed by a lot of post election rigmarole and horse trading. We could get behind Yadi Eisenkot, we could. 

DOGE report.

We read over some scenes yesterday. The Irish Ranger Wing should nab Gerry Adams, no? We'd have to set that up. He's hold up somewhere. The Group (14 Intel) figures out where. They contact the Irish government and give Adams whereabouts. Back in Heath House in County Kildare? 

Seriously, guys. Two commenters said we should revisit the old sci-fi project. Which, sci-fi project?

In recent weeks this blog has gotten a huge traffic spike. No idea why. 

Hey, any of you newcomers wanna take a look at our alternate history, sci-fi, and military fiction novels? Looking for a one-off? Give The Austrian Painter a try. What if Germany won the Great War? Two hundred ratings, 4 + star average. 

Berkshire Tuesday - in the sun

A pleasant Berkshire morn to Stroock's Books reader(s) everywhere. The sky is clear. The air is 68 degrees, American. A bit of morning fog remains on the lake. The dew is on the furniture. 

Yesterday we spotted the heron, mad as hell about something and flying down the canal. The heron population has boomed here on Lake Buel. The frog population (one croaked as we wrote that) has suffered as a result. We spotted the bald eagle too, just standing around the yard like he owns the place. 

When one is in the Berkshires, one is engaging in an activity simply by sitting out on the deck in the morning air, a Stroock family tradition lo these 53 years. We are the only Stroock that carries on this tradition. 

We did some yard cleanup between rainstorms yesterday. No boating. There will be boating today. One of the cats caught a mouse last night. 

We also went into town, and among other things, visited The Book Loft, a long established Great Barrington book store, once frequented by our grandfather. Their bookmarks are scattered about the house here. This being the Berkshires, they have a few silly flags, and some commie/woke titles on the shelf. But when one drills down through the muck, The Bookloft is just an indy bookstore, a mini Barnes and Noble. We bought Youngest Daughter a space unicorn rainbow bookmark, $4.

What Will's Watching...The WNBA. No seriously. We saw the Fever were playing and thought, why not? We watched a couple of quarters, and saw Sophie Cunningham get elbowed in the face and called for a foul. Boy the WNBA hates....certain players...don't it? Anyway, were we not entertained? 

DOGE report. 

We're working on the Battle of Dublin aftermath chapter. Three scenes, in various stages of completion so far. This includes the required 'Will Stroock writes about leaders meeting to make a decision scene' also Finn Fahey in Belfast as the city erupts (should I kill him?), and Irish General Parker gathering forces southwest of Dublin and urging the Taoiseach to end the war by giving the British what they want. We can almost see the end. 

Berkshire Monday - in the rain

A rainy Berkshire morning, Stroock's Books reader(s). We are feeling refreshed and invigorated after a decent night's sleep. We are drinking coffee from one of our grandfather's Young and Rubicam* coffee mugs, a gift for the companies' 50th anniversary in 1973. 

We did plenty of lake stuff yesterday. Coffee on the deck. Boating and tubing. Evening barbeque.

The toe is feeling much better. 

The Israelis at Camp Kimana/Halfmoon are having a good time. Lots of drumming, singing, chanting, etc etc. People in the Lake Buel FB group are complaining. We'd say the complainers were Hamas symps, but at least two of them are Jewish. 

Related....we haven't looked at Israeli media this morning because we're sick of thinking about it. 

Bla-bla Trump, bla-bla Iran. What are the unknown, unknowns? Nobody really knows. We are open to the possibility, suggested by Professor Reynolds, that Trump is stringing the Iranians along. Why not? Trump says new peace talks are on. Iran says they're not. Trump can say he tried. 

Oh look! Oil's down - a lot so far. 

Also, military coup rumors abound in Iran, we have heard.  

Thirty-nine years ago today, Def Leppard's Hysteria came out. An absolutely perfect album. All killer, no filler. We can hear the title track's opening bars. We used to be able to play it. Maybe it's just because we're 53, but we're getting emotional just thinking about Hysteria. The album is more than a masterpiece. It's a friend. 

We see we've had an Adrenalize week here at Stroock's Books. But it doesn't seem we've had a Hysteria week. And we won't. We'll wait till next year. 

Okay, the leader of this blog's Confederate Contingent wants us to revisit the sci fi project from a few years back. Question (asked in Dwight Shrute): what sci fi project?

*Young and Rubicam was a huge Madison Avenue advertising company. Anyone our age saw commercials our grandfather worked on. Y&R got mentioned in Madmen several times. Our grandfather said Madmen is almost 100 percent accurate, except that by 1960 the copy men were Jewish and the art directors were Eye-talian. When we asked why he replied, 'Talent'.

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 8/2/26

Good Sunday, Stroock's Books Christian faithful. We write this from the Stroock ancestral lake house in the Berkshires. The air is a touch balmier than we like. The breeze is strong. We got the boat out last night for an evening cruise and will get her out once again this afternoon for some tubing. 

Unfortunately, the dictates of life prevent us from getting up here as much as we'd like. So when we do finally come, a multitude of projects await us. 

Our toe still hurts. Fab. TBH, we aren't necessarily in the best of moods. And we didn't do any good thinkin' on the drive up [No surprise there -Ed]. Shut up, Ed. Get me another cup of coffee, and take your time walking away [Awww, thanks-Ed].

Has anyone else noticed we've been going down [Phrasing!-Ed] with more and more frequency with nagging injuries? Gout, bursitis, etc etc. 

Moving on...[Please-Ed].

Regarding Spain, Socialist PM Pedro Sanchez, and the invasion of Cueta, we urge the Spanish people to follow the example of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, or El Cid. Click over and reader(s) will see a talented, charismatic, and goodlooking author wrote an article about El Cid some 20 years ago. Holds up decent. 

Trump postponed a massive attack on Iran, they say. Honestly this blog is pretty 'meh' on more military action and isn't sure what more bombing would accomplish. Bomb Iran...Mullahs fall! Yeah sure. 

Let's just get on to the various good ideas for the first week of August. 

As we noted yesterday, World War 1990: Thatcher's War feels like it needs 14 Intel, the Det, or The Group (all the same thing) to add a little umph to the plot. Also, with Dublin all but in British hands (we don't see any problems there, no) we're still not sure how they get Adams or McGuinness. Should the Brits even get them? 

Next summer...we should write a standalone novel and put it out on a new platform. Dunno what though. What's been floating around the ethereal mist of Will's head lo these many years?

Saturday Updates

Baah! We're awake at 4 AM and we don't like it, don't like it at all. And we're annoyed. Which doesn't always make for the smartest writing. So we'll just keep our goddamn mouth shut. 

Good morning, Stroock's Books reader(s) and happy August. 

Today we'll head up to the Stroock Northern Strategic Direction for a sojourn to the pastoral splendor of the Berkshires. Wish us luck. Many things must needs be taken care of at the house. 

The things.

World War 1990: Thatcher's War is 66,000 words. We think we need to add another subplot to bring the story together, and to a close. 

We didn't really do anything on the 5th nuke novel. We're three stories away from completion. End of the summer? If one defines summer as ending on 21 September. Maybe.