Bombshell

Bombshell – Stuart Woods & Parnell Hall

Discussing certain aspects of marketing, whether it’s for websites or books, I was pointing out that the author Stuart Woods has the well-oiled machine. About every three months or so, there’s a new one, and the titles for the next year are already laid out on Amazon. Probably elsewhere, but I haven’t looked, Barnes & Noble, Apple.

Spotted this one’s title in the so-called publishing pipeline for close to a year. As a collaborative effort, the first couple of books were clearly collaborations but the way this one picked up? The page-turner feel starts on the first page, and lacks some of the more deft touches. Still, what I’ve always enjoyed, throughout the fifty-some-odd novels, time after time? Workman-like story-telling.

Previously, I’ve linked to the earlier books, but with about four books a year coming along, I’m guessing each is right at 50K words, it’s almost too much to keep up with.

Felt a little badly about this, and I got used to buying the books at Costco which was a marginally cheaper than anyplace else. Amazon and B&N run a close second in price, but again, this time, the quarantine and so forth? I was late in picking up the book, and the local B&N didn’t have it on display, less than a week after it “dropped.”

“Think we sold out., Let me check in the back.”

They did have a spare copy for sale, and I got the friends and family discount. I think I have about six running feet of these books, now.

The binding, the printing, the comfortable way this feels like a book? It feels like a book. Memories run deep, maybe ten years back, one winter, on the road for work, and finishing up a similar Stuart Woods novel.

So diving in, within moments of the first page, there’s a thriller set-up, tension, backstory, drama, and intrigue. Clever plotting. Tight prose. Good storytelling along the lines of thriller.

I’ve already forgotten what the reading app indicated, but I read one of these novels on a seven-hour flight Seattle-Memphis-San Antonio. I booked that flight because it had one stop, no layover.

That’s about right, for me, maybe a a little less for these books, now. But right at 6 or 7 hour of thriller, gangsters making movies, and more. Hint: old school gangster, the proverbial “wise guy” in tone.

For a couple of hours, there wasn’t anything wrong with my world.

Bombshell

Bombshell – Stuart Woods & Parnell Hall

London Rules – Mick Herron

In chatting with a house-bound Sister, Gemini, not that it matters one whit, I was recommending the “Slough House” series to her, starting with the first book. It was a little rough, too much posturing and too much back story. Took about half the novel to get ramped up and running. However, each book seems to move successively faster, as the author’s narrative tempo and ability to spin yarns weaves together.

But my commentary, to my sister, in short, the books describe a London that we were around, a town, a place we’ve individually explored. Old ties to the historic City of London.

Each book has started with an obvious frame, and each tale centers around something at “Slough House,” an aspect, a cat, a breeze, and — so far — each novel has concluded with the same tiny chapter, echoing the introduction. British mastery of the classic novel form? Good writing? Sets up a frame, and while obvious in its nature? The plot tightens. Still, establishes a foundation for the reader; it’s like a novel with participation.

London Rules

The term itself, “London rules,” appeared in an earlier book, I think it was the first, or second, and “London Rules,” in espionage meant, “thou shalt cover thy ass with paperwork,” while “Moscow Rules” were more like, “don’t get shot.” My memory isn’t what it used to be.

“You couldn’t betray someone efficiently if you didn’t love them first.” Part 1.

Adjunct to the rules, ancillary, but cynically hilarious, too.

“Farce is accelerated tragedy?” Not sure I got that right, but halfway through, this novel, I finally get the humor. Weird, twisted, British satirical noises, but sure.

Reading it as whole, books nearly back-to-back, instead of over years, makes it more apparent. Farce. Tragedy. British espionage. World commentary with an old, familiar neighborhood as a background — that entrenched, indomitable, absurd British soul.

“Noon comes with bells on, because this is London, and London is a city of bells. From its heart to its ragged edges, they bisect the day in a jangle of sound: peals and tinkles and deep bass knells.” Part 2.

Really, it does. Like I remember London.

Nice frame. Fun, to me, unsure if this is satire, farce, black comedy, or straight-up spy-thriller.

London Rules

London Rules – Mick Herron

Previously

1. Slow Horses
2. Dead Lions
3. Real Tigers
4. Spook Street

Mercurial Inspirations

“O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods, and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take not that little little less than little wit from them that they have, which short-arm’d ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider, without drawing their massy irons and cutting the web!”

• Thersites in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, III.ii.1.

(We’ve seen this quote before.)

Inspired as much by an Instagram post as anything else, this approaching Mercury Retrograde is amusing, at best. At worst, it’s some kind of a hell for certain signs. Here’s the deal, I work with a number of belief systems, running the gamut from High Catholicism to pure Zen Buddhism. Heavy on ritual at one end, heavy on nothing at the other end.

All depends.

As I’ve intoned before, “All depends.”

Previously, I’ve worked out a ritual that seemed to work, and it did, at the time, but I lived in a different location, and location dictated some of the elements. As I’ve drifted to a less populated center, my needs, and demands, shift.

• 2014 | 2017 | 2019

Not long ago, I texted a fishing buddy an image of the conveyor belt at the grocery store, and my order was a 2-pound bag of cheap, local coffee (dark roast), and half-dozen “reversing” candles. My caption was something about getting ready for Mercury Retrograde.

As noted before, I read two online pieces, one suggested that “Big Box” coffee was no good, and the other suggested that “Big Box” coffee was the best. I’m not exactly torn, after this last shut-in, I’ve lived almost exclusively on grocery store coffee, usually the Texas Roast, “Jet Fuel,” brand-name coffee. But I do like what my Costco carries, there’s a rather inexpensive “Roasted by Starbucks” house brand that’s plentiful and as little as $4 per pound. Same as Starbucks house, dark roast crap, only, coasts a lot less.

Someplace in the dark recesses of my mind, though, a distant — early epicurean — memory recently surfaced. Back in days when I knew a lot more, I ran a place, and for a while, I was mixing up special coffee. I would get equal parts of light roast and dark roast, mixed. Dark roast, like French Roast, for the aromatic effect, and lighter roast for the sense of a less acidic brew. What I recalled was a half and half mix, half dark beans half light beans. Worked really well, as a budding mixmaster, and long-after, we all established I didn’t know what I was doing.

Still, there’s that memory of mixing light and dark beans, and with it? The correct mix of flavors. Dark roast and light roast, preferably cheap, bulk coffee. Like from Costco? Going through a lot of coffee at home, so yeah, cheaper is better. Then, starting to mix the lighter roast with a darker roast, that was part of the secret. Not really ideal, as the individual flavors get muddled, but this i coffee I’m drinking for effect, not for high-brow tasting.

The reversing candles are part of this, started one now, and just let it burn, reversing the negative energy of the situations. Incense, too, and sage, palo santo, plus the coffee. The reversing candles are key, but the other main component is the coffee. A couple of bags of coffee, one dark roast, one light roast, mixed, maybe 50/50.

Compound this with a few other elements, just to make this even more interesting. Eclipse along the Gemini/Sagittarius axis 5°, June 5. Another eclipse, June 21. Venus retrograde until June 24, again, ends at that point 5° of Gemini (same as earlier eclipse), and layered across the top? Mercury is retrograde from June 17 to July 9. Previously, I’d penned that at July 12, and that’s for some “wiggle room,” very much required with everything unfolding.

The new ritual is not about demitasse cups of coffee, like I used to do, regular coffee out of an espresso cup so it felt like more. These days? palo santo, mixed of bulk coffee Eans, and the reversing candle from the grocery store.

I’m also using a Yeti-style of insulated coffee cup, maybe 20-ounce tumbler? Keeps the coffee warm through the morning, and less time spent refilling. Changes in the ritual, adapted for time and space.

Simple. As a ritual it works well enough to enjoy and even thrive in the current climes. Weird astrological weather, no?

If only there was manual to help….

The Portable Mercury Retrograde

Portable Mercury Retrograde – Kramer Wetzel

Handmade

By definition, handmade.

Two-Meat Tuesday

astrofish.net

Two-Meat Tuesday – Kramer Wetzel

San Pedro Creek (temporarily free e-book)

#tuesday

#HashTagsSuck

home improvement

In a series of images, a before and after montage of a dated bathroom, then updated?

Over the toilet, a poster, framed, simple message, “Let that shit go.”

“Let that shit go.”

Two-Meat Tuesday

Two-Meat Tuesday – Kramer Wetzel

San Pedro Creek (temporarily free e-book)

#tuesday

#HashTagsSuck

Shuttering

Won’t be fast, and the URL isn’t set to die until late 2022?

But the joy has left. Anymore, images merely show up in the daily blog. That simple.

One of the original premises was to have images no more than 500 pixels wide. One site claims to be just that, and I’ll not argue, but anymore, the web has exploded in the ability to capture and define imagery, so the visual limits from just a few years ago are no longer valid. I don’t do anything “500 pixels wide,” not now.

That’s too low of definition. Great for conserving bandwidth, but again, prices have dropped exponentially, approaching zero.

In its first inception, I had an idea, and a comical, to me, URL, along with its origin story. That re-birthed itself as a daily photo collection from within the confines of Bexar County proper.

But the site will continue to offer some digital footprint for the foreseeable future, just short run. The longer term? Just about drawing to an end, and all of that data will be imported back into the single blog location (concatenation).

More concatenating. All started with a car-crushing bump that has since been paved over, almost too bad.

What struck me as as odd, a pre-pandemic — and rare — Sunday off, we wandered downtown. Breakfast at the iconic Mi Tierra then a short stroll. New waterworks. The old drainage ditch, up until just two years ago, a concrete trough for extra runs-off, the original pathway for the San Pedro Creek acequia — that’s a separate history unto itself.

The shuttering and shuttling of the data, the process of rolling it all back into a single spot? That’s a perfect Mercury in Retrograde type of action. At some later date. Until then?

Website is for sale.

San Pedro Creek

• San Pedro Creek – Kramer Wetzel
• San Pedro Creek
• San Pedro Creek
• Digital Version here.

astrofish.net/travel