Randy | October 18, 2015
During my six year stint as Emergency Measures Coordinator for the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg, one of my areas of responsibility was overseeing creation and exercising of realistic emergency preparedness plans for two County hospitals, and five nursing homes. Up until then, the writing of emergency plans was always tasked internally to some […]
Randy | October 17, 2015
My Boxing Day 2013 article, A Long Winter’s Night 2013 – Day 6: A Winter Lesson in Community, told the tale of a blizzard that buried my home town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia when I was about 3 years old, and how the citizenry had no choice but to suspend all matters of commerce and […]
Randy | October 16, 2015
I’ve spoken before of the Hávamál (sayings of the high one), that being one of the poems in The Elder or Poetric Edda, also known as Sæmund’s Edda. For those of us with eyes to see, ears to hear, minds to think, and hearts to feel, the world of now is every bit as dangerous […]
Randy | October 15, 2015
The sudden upswing in popularity of such books as Fifty Shades of Grey is at once unsurprising and inexplicable to me. Unsurprising because the dark side of desire has always had, and always will have its allure, and only leads to a bad end when unstable personalities or Hollywood movie producers become involved. Inexplicable because […]
Randy | October 13, 2015
Tonight’s Dark Sentiment is in the form of an animated short film by Brian Bear, published to YouTube by aniBoom. Just Delicious is the title of a dark tale based on a story in the third volume of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark anthologies written by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammel. […]
Randy | October 12, 2015
When in this world’s unpleasing youth Our godlike race began, The longest arm, the sharpest tooth, Gave man control of man …. ~ Rudyard Kipling, The Benefactors While I will stop short of joining the Esteemed Mr. Kipling in granting the Human species the epithet “godlike”, I admit to absorbing no […]
Randy | October 11, 2015
While the genesis of this poem was born of my own morning ablutions on a hot Summer morning this August past, I offer it today in honour of someone who mattered to someone who matters to me. I received an email from my Esteemed Friend Gary Carbone only this morning, enlightening me to the passing […]
Randy | October 10, 2015
We all know what rotting meat smells like, and hence the term, “What died?” has entered the popular lexicon. Just words though, Goode Reader, for there is a quantum leap in the experience that lies between pulling the lid off something found forgotten at the back of the fridge, and the full flower of meaning […]
Randy | October 8, 2015
Don’t worry. This isn’t my annual “The Year in Cannibalism” piece. That’s yet to come; although it must be admitted that nothing says “cannibalism” like a child smoothie. What we have for you tonight is a delightfully blood spattered animated interpretation of the Brothers Grimm tale, Hansel and Gretel. Produced by the California Institute of […]
Randy | October 7, 2015
Much of the land that, if I may be so bold, we call “our own”, is covered with a mixture of second growth forest interspersed with a smattering of ancient Pine Trees that have escaped undisturbed by the hand of Man. Walking west from the house, the land rises rapidly over a distance of some […]