Dark Sentiments Season 15 — Day 14: Be As The Bay Leaf

| October 14, 2024

In this age of divided loyalties and unending crisis, some cower. Some assert themselves from the perceived safety of throngs screaming a common slogan understood differently by each throat and hearing ear. Some look to a saviour. Still others understand that if there is a saviour, in the hour of need it’s going to have […]

Dark Sentiments Season 15 — Day 13: Oh Sheep!

| October 13, 2024

Back on Day 8 we had Pig. Today, Oh Sheep!, a six-and-a-half minute dark comedy in the form of an animated short film from the ever fruitful Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg GmbH., brought to my attention by the Filmbilder & Friends YouTube channel.

Dark Sentiments Season 15 — Day 11: Best Day Ever

| October 11, 2024

“Best day ever!” An all too common utterance from the mouths of the same subset of the Great Unwashed who seasonally prattle on about their “Resolution” for a new year, and the check boxes (most of them fated to remain unchecked) on their “bucket list”. Spoken as though the speaker is dead but refuses to […]

Dark Sentiments Season 15 — Day 10: Violence?

| October 10, 2024

Back on Day 3 we had a word from Maestro Adam Crown that, if you haven’t yet heard, you should go and lend an ear to now. We’ll be hearing from him again tonight as we look at a question that is both Naturally simple, and made more vulnerable thereby to being convoluted by certain […]

Dark Sentiments Season 15 — Day 8: Pig

| October 8, 2024

“Society collapses as a group of animals exploit a sleeping pig by connecting a power grid to its snout. Watch as they deplete their resources and keep lookin’ cute while they do it!” ~ Pig Welcome back Goode Pilgrim. Tonight’s Dark Sentiment, Pig, is a short film that does what speculative fiction is intended to […]

Dark Sentiments Season 15 — Day 6: Dudley’s Shop

| October 6, 2024

It is a not uncommon experience among Writers to feel as though the words being put upon the page are being dictated from somewhere else. So it is with tonight’s Dark Sentiment. A nonsense poem of sorts, Dudley’s Shop was written in a state of flow, exactly as you see it here, and while it […]

Dark Sentiments Season 15 — Day 5: A Man Of His Times

| October 5, 2024

“All this to bring us here tonight where no man is of a piece, unless that’s all you’ve left of him.” ~ Dark Sentiments Season 15 — Day 2: Authority With your blood clearly still up from last night’s Sword Dance, I would be remiss in abandoning the saga of Donald McBane whose early experiments […]

Dark Sentiments Season 15 — Day 4: Sword Dance

| October 4, 2024

Tonight’s Dark Sentiment grew out of two inspirations. This oft quoted witticism: “Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.” ~ Celtic Proverb And the other, the life of Scottish soldier, prize fighter, Swordmaster, brothel keeper, notorious duellist, and all around self-made sonofabitch, Donald McBane (1664 – 12 April 1732), author of The […]

Dark Sentiments Season 15 — Day 2: Authority

| October 2, 2024

There are those who live their lives, and would judge all others, by standards excremental (to paraphrase the Esteemed and Right Honourable Master At Arms James A. Keating). Their mettle never tested, forever self-excused by the acts of others, their only measure of strength is relative to how far an audience can be drawn to […]

Dark Sentiments Season 15 — Day 1: No Apologies

| October 1, 2024

Welcome back to our fireside, goode and weary Pilgrim, and this 15th Season of Dark Sentiments. Here, by the grim and unflinching Watchstone, we can take our ease, speak freely, and match observations with the utterances of those who would proclaim laws to have it otherwise. We don’t cater to weakness here, nor do we […]