Author: Vic Socotra

Weather Report: Flurries of “News”

So, that is what the Writer’s Section under close supervision by our Attorney Amanda decided was a capture of the week’s news. You will notice what is not “in the news.” Oh, wait. Of course you wouldn’t notice! We have been trying to follow fellow scribe Marlow’s advice from his Coastal Empire. “Get cleaned up […]

1939 Rhymes

Morning, Folks! We are going to defer to Amanda this morning. We had a hurried meeting this morning out by the Fire Ring before we made our pitch to her for preliminary approval to get to production. Her Legal Shop is not imposing censorship, she tells us. That is something the Chairman is concerned about. […]

Life & Island Times: A Thin Spring Slice of the Empire

This is our sixth spring in the Empire. W’s side garden has been transformed, but not without many patience-trying times and serial plant failures. One example pictured below are the arbored yellow rose vines called Lady Banks. This plant was W’s third different specimen attempt in this small space to plant, grow, vine and flower. […]

Arrias: Escalate? De-Escalate?

The phrase “Escalate to De-escalate” has been used to describe a Russian military doctrine of the select use of nuclear weapons to stop a war from proceeding any further. While some have countered that the phrase does not exist in Russian military doctrine, it is clear that the idea does. But what exactly does it […]

Car People

The car in the picture wasn’t mine. Dad worked for American Motors, and we didn’t produce muscle. Our best try was the 343 Javelin, though the AMX could raise an eyebrow coming off the light changing to “green.” Under George Romney, the man who hired Dad to sculpt sensible designs of reasonable automobiles that could […]

Going Out

It is a cloudless and brilliant Piedmont morning. There is a sparkle of life renewing out over the pastures. There had been a note on the production schedule to do a little history on the current fight about replacing a nice equestrian property south Virginia’s Route 3 with a sprawling data-center complex to serve the […]

The Sciency Method

(A variety of depictions of the Scientific Method. The old one. We have a newer one based on Sciency sounding things that makes us feel better). Refuge Farm was in a bit of a turmoil on a lovely morning. We haveall heard a lot about Science over the last two years that has wrenched our […]

Fools

Thank Goodness Marlow came up with something this morning for the first of this new month. He talked about Grandparents and birthdays. We were left with ‘fools.’ There had been some glances at the night cap last night before surrendering the Month of March to the gentle embrace of the Piedmont darkness and the imminent […]

Life & Island Times: Birthdays

Author’s note: This is not a serious war-war or a playful April Fool’s Day piece. It’s more in keeping with sharing tradecraft in the arts of grandparenthood and passing out indications and warnings in addition to the things that worked. -Marlow Way, way back in the days of yore — like the 1940s way back, […]

Life & Island Times: The Empire Barge Life

Think of life here in the Empire as drifting upon magnificent barge where large, feathered fans stroke the warm river air and time moves differently from the time of everywhere else. Everything is better on the barge with a kind of ease scenting our nights. The barge passes through towns up and down river, through […]