Randy | 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 […]
Randy | October 29, 2014
I introduced you to Jonathan Button back on Day 2 with his take on the tale of Red Riding Hood, but as we near the end of this year’s season of Dark Sentiments, I can’t resist giving you one more taste. Behind Closed Doors is the story of Gregory; a little boy faced with no […]
Randy | 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 […]
Randy | 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 […]
Randy | October 24, 2014
“‘Darkness’, as it inspires me, isn’t limited to expressions of evil, mayhem, and bad outcomes. Something can also be considered “dark” if it is unknown, misunderstood, or incorrectly interpreted.” ~ The Book of Dark Sentiments The Artistry of Ray Villafane (sample above) and his fellow Artists Andy Bergholtz and Chris Vierra who together form the creative […]
Randy | 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 […]
Randy | October 21, 2014
Old Norse belief held that the skein of your life was woven long before your birth, and that the timing of your death was thus inevitable. Only the quality of it – how you conducted yourself in that final moment – would determine if you were worthy of an afterlife in Valhalla.
Randy | October 17, 2014
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 […]
Randy | October 16, 2014
Today’s Dark Sentiment is about things that some people permit to smell bad but shouldn’t, for there have been times and places in history, including very recent history if you get around much, when the olfactory senses have found themselves in need of assistance that has to be nothing short of supernatural. The poem that […]
Randy | October 15, 2014
Tessa’s miniscule sculptures reinvigorate a belief in fairies: not the sweet Tinkerbell image in popular conscience, but a biological, entomological, macabre species translating pastoral fable into nightmarish lore. Constructed from bits of organic material, such as roots, leaves, and dead insects, each of Tessa’s figures stand barely 1 cm tall, their painstakingly intricate detail visible […]