Randy | January 13, 2016
Law enforcement officials lost control of the situation in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, according to an internal report by Germany’s national police, the Bundespolizei, obtained by DER SPIEGEL. The author of the report, dated Jan. 4, is a senior official. He writes: “Women, accompanied or not, literally ran a ‘gauntlet’ through masses of heavily […]
Randy | December 24, 2015
You may recall from previous scribblings here that … “In many parts of Europe, the “Feast of Saint Nicholas” is celebrated on December 6th. The evening before the feast, however, is known as Krampus Night or Krampusnacht, when the hairy beast roams the streets in a … rage, visiting homes and businesses to punish and/or […]
Randy | December 23, 2015
Cultural anthropologist Margaret Visser was for many years a regular on an assortment of radio programmes produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). She has authored six books on a variety of subjects ranging from the traditions of dinner to the expression of gratitude, linking the origins of the world we know to that of […]
Randy | December 22, 2015
Pre-Christian history is full of spiritual beliefs that personify the sun as a deity who dies and is resurrected, even as the sun that reaches its shortest period of life in the sky is reborn to linger just a little longer each day in the blessed march toward what is hoped to be a new […]
Randy | November 15, 2015
” … the anecdote goes, a Canadian immigration official was asked how many Jews displaced from what was left of Europe Canada would accept as immigrants, and was said to have replied, ‘None is too many.’ Whether or not the story is true in its placing the speaking of those words in the mouth of […]
Randy | November 11, 2015
On this Day of Remembrance I will be offering you three poems. Two have previously appeared here on other dates, but I deem them suitable for purpose and so, here they are again. The third, appearing as the final act on today’s playbill, was written specifically for debut here. I will leave it to you, […]
Randy | October 24, 2015
Vincent is a short film employing stop motion animation made in 1982, the same year my Wife was born. The years notwithstanding, both she and I are dyed in the wool Tim Burton fans, this delightful item being designed and directed by Tim Burton, and produced by Rick Heinrichs. At approximately six minutes in length, […]
Randy | October 23, 2015
Welcome back Goode Reader. While last night’s Dark Sentiment proferred no small amount of snicker fodder, the concerns it conveyed dovetail into tonight’s offering, which is a whole lot more serious. Clarke’s Third Law states that, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”. From long study and observation on my own part; otherwise known […]
Randy | October 22, 2015
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” ~ Mark Twain Tonight’s Dark Sentiment is a terribly rendered documentary that apparently, though not surprisingly, only aired once in 1971. I ask you though, Goode Reader, to suffer through it, if only for its startling resemblance at times to out-takes from an episode of Monty Python’s […]
Randy | October 21, 2015
Directed by former Student Academy Award finalist Carlos Andre Stevens, voiced by the incomparable John Hurt and Eloise Webb, The Alchemist’s Letter is just what the chirurgeon ordered. The Alchemist’s Letter is a 2015 animated short film that tells a story likely to echo in the darkest and most personal catacombs of what those who […]