Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 12: Lesson Learned

| October 12, 2012

Back in the last century … I’m talking WAY back ’round about the autumn of 1975 … I was studying alchemy and arguments for and against the Earth being round, along with staying one step ahead of the Inquisition, at Nova Scotia’s prestigious Dalhousie University. Costly and time consuming as it was, most of what […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 11: Bertram’s Restaurant

| October 11, 2012

Murder by poison has a long dark history. For example, whether historically accurate or cooked up by rivals, the Borgia family name is indelibly stained with it. Poison is less used today for killing things that walk on two legs for reasons well presented by Esther Inglis-Arkell in her article The Deadliest Poisons in History […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 10: While I Wasn’t Looking, Dark Sentiments and Worldly Wisdom Wednesday Had a Kid

| October 10, 2012

This was supposed to be two articles, but try as I might, they kept melding so bugger it. Obviously I’m having a two for one sale. Pareidolia is a phenomenon of cognition in which perception of a stimulus becomes connected with other present or remembered stimuli so that a pattern emerges in the mind of […]

Dark Sentiments 2012: Day 9 – Another Year of Gourdgeousity

| October 9, 2012

Our next featured artist for 2012 has been a Dark Sentiments fixture since the beginning. Ray Villafane’s pumpkin carving and sand sculpture represent dark arts against which there is no defense. To get the gist, watch Ray’s 2011 zombification of a couple record sized pumpkins for the New York Bontanical Gardens – You can also […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 8: The Attic Room

| October 8, 2012

Children like to dabble in seances and Quija boards. They shouldn’t, but they do. I myself was once present at a seance in a grave yard that ended suddenly, and more than a little strangely, but that’s a story for another day. Nevertheless, there’s a little of that experience woven into what follows. The Attic […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 7: Grief

| October 7, 2012

Of no surprise to my readers will be the disclosure that my brand of humour veers sharply toward the dark side. My dance card of funeral attendance over the years includes both my parents, four uncles and one aunt, an assortment of friends and the parents of others, and that’s just the humans. If memory […]

Dark Sentiments – Day 6: Stella On Her Own

| October 6, 2012

We first met Stella last year on Day 30. Her saga continues. Stella On Her Own By LFM It was a day in August when Young Stella got the word – “Report thee to thy dream job lass, The sooner is preferred.” The night before she moved away From home at twenty-one, Stella kissed her […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 5: Dark Arts

| October 5, 2012

On Day 23 of last year’s Dark Sentiments, we looked at issues surrounding the announced discovery of what might be the first known artifact to bear an inscription that refers to the Biblical Christ. Here at LFM, we enjoy a good mystery as much as the next bloke or blokette, and today we’re going to […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 4: The Burning Hell

| October 4, 2012

I first heard, indeed first heard of, The Burning Hell only last week when Stuart McLean played their song When the World Ends to end an episode of The Vinyl Cafe. Give it a listen and you’ll get a clue why I was instantly hooked, and why The Burning Hell is the first featured artist for […]

Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – The Word of the Day is “Garniture”

| October 3, 2012

“Everything in Nature is about efficiency and balance, which is why life is, first and foremost, an exercise in energy management. For example, the Way of the Wild demands of each parent that their offspring be made self-sufficient as quickly and efficiently as possible. A tool need not be a physical artifact – rest assured […]