Dark Sentiments 2014 – Day 31: All Hallows Eve

| October 31, 2014

Throughout this series I’ve applied the title of  “dark sentiment” to a variety of emotions, events, human acts, portrayals, and situations. Tonight we’ll talk about the darkest sentiment of all – True Love. True Love is the darkest of sentiments both because it has the power to motivate those blessed enough to be possessed by […]

Dark Sentiments 2014 – Day 30: Home Invasions

| October 30, 2014

We of the LFM Clan reside in an antique farm house sitting atop a granite foundation that readily affords access to our basement by all manner of creatures. To the degree, in fact, that our basement stands as its own balanced ecosystem. Mice and Moles, for example, regularly pass through, as do the Minks from […]

Dark Sentiments 2014 – Day 27 – The Last Word

| October 27, 2014

I was irrevocably estranged from my paternal grandfather by the time I was 16 years old. Clem Whynacht was a Master Carpenter who could build, finish and mend anything made of wood to a degree of perfection that was marvelous to behold. He was also an exceptional wood carver with a gift for turning out […]

Dark Sentiments 2014 – Day 26: The Baby and the Abyss

| October 26, 2014

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Aphorism 146, Jenseits von Gut und Böse (Beyond Good and Evil) (1886) I’m known to write of darksome things, That spring from man and […]

Dark Sentiments 2014 – Day 25: From Darkness

| October 25, 2014

Cartoon Saloon is an Irish Animation Studio based in Kilkenny. It was recently nominated for an Academy Award (R) for Best Animated Feature film. It began as an informal partnership between a group of animators brought together by Paul Young and Tomm Moore in 1999. Cartoon Saloon has since grown into a multi-award winning animation […]

Dark Sentiments 2014 – Day 23: La Petite Mort

| October 23, 2014

Student and disciple of Nature that I am, it hasn’t escaped my notice that the cycle of the seasons – from the long, slow build up of Spring, through the heat of Summer, into the breathless bounty of Autumn, and then on to the flatline of Winter – bears a striking resemblance to sex; or […]

Dark Sentiments 2014 – Day 22: In Case of Vampire

| October 22, 2014

The label above would have been included with one of the ornately turned out and beautifully boxed kits consisting of masterfully crafted weapons and accessories created for defense against, and if necessary the destruction of, vampires, that were popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Timing and anecdotal evidence suggest, although fall far […]

Dark Sentiments 2014 – Day 20: An Aside About Cannibalism

| October 20, 2014

Back in the early 1980’s, a young man came to work for a company I was consulting for, and it fell to me to train him in the arcane arts of installing and troubleshooting security and fire alarm systems. I befriended him in  a mentor kind of way, and learned he had spent much of […]

Dark Sentiments 2014 – Day 19: A Few Words from Terence Hanbury White

| October 19, 2014

The world is at war. With everything. The world of humans strives for unbridled growth, and in so doing either sheds all care, or cooks up justifications for its extravagance, to the peril of everything that isn’t us. Religion is still being used as a reason to kill everyone else who doesn’t belong to “the […]

Dark Sentiments 2014 – Day 18: Privacy, Secrets, and the Sliding Scale

| October 18, 2014

If there is one very dark pit modern society is hell bent on careening headlong into, it’s the dangerous, dangerous, and I emphasize really fucking dangerous idea that demanding privacy is somehow suspicious, and tantamount to an open admission that you – indeed anyone who wishes to have it – must have “something to hide”. […]