Michael Gruber, our most original so- called “Thriller” writer, has a new blog up on writing and other matters of interest to Q- Philes. Gruber is nothing less than remarkable as a person & author. After a long history of ghost- writing, he emerged from obscurity with Tropic of Night, which is set in Miami …
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Up on Kenosha Pass
Yesterday Connie and I took the dogs up to Kenosha Pass to do some hiking around and to see if we could get out of the heat. It was actually pretty warm up there, about 80 degrees. Last fall I posted some pictures of aspens we took on a visit up here. The dogs had …
John Keegan, RIP
The New York Times reported his death yesterday. As the Times obituary states he was widely regarded as “the pre-eminent military historian of his era” and authored more than 20 books. An Englishman, he taught at Sandhurst and was the military affairs editor of The Telegraph for many years. His later books sometimes took a …
Accidental addition
We fell into a new adventure today. Jim and I went out to feed the dogs and check the sheep. We’d just settled all the adult dogs in with separate piles or bowls of food and decided to take a few treats to the burros, which we’re in the middle of the herd, in the …
Quote on Writing
From Michael Gruber: “You may wonder, why research at all? It’s fiction, why not make it all up? The reason is that almost all readers have some expertise or experience, and will be irritated beyond reason by boners that they detect, and when they detect them, the bodyguard of truth will be penetrated and they …
Grizzly wake
Attracted by the foul-smelling carcass of the calf he’d killed the day before, the grizzly bear climbed into the green metal box to resume feeding. As he grabbed the carcass with one huge front paw, the metal door of the cage slammed shut behind him. Trapped, the bear sprawled atop the carcass to wait out …
Generations
A photo by Jackson taken a couple of weeks ago in Santa Fe, of his grumpy stepfather and inquisitive son– irresistible to me anyway…
Monsoon Clouds
Lately we’ve been getting the summer monsoon flow, bringing moisture in these big clouds up from the Gulf of California. When we’re lucky we get rain out of these in afternoon thunderstorms. As bad as the drought has been we need all we can get and have been fortunate to get rain the last three …
House Band
Regular readers know that Querencia’s home bar is the Golden Spur Saloon, and has been for thirty some years, since Betsy Huntington was alive, first under Steve Grayson’s management (see Q- the- book, which has scenes set there). Montana Pettis (who is not thirty yet!) is the son of present owner Darryl, also bartender and …
New word
ZUGZWANG; German, from chess: “..a situation… in which a player cannot make a move without worsening his situation.” I think I got it from the WSJ but did not write down the source. It is a useful concept.