Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 15: The Taxidermy of Juan Cabana

| October 15, 2011

Mark Twain wrote, “When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not. But my faculties are decaying now, and soon I shall be so that I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do […]

Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 12: The Art of Ray Villafane

| October 12, 2011

Dark Sentiments 2010 included a profile of the work of incredibly gifted sculptor Ray Villafane. Famous for his artistry in pumpkin carving which I focused on last year, he began sculpting professionally in the field of toys and statues based on comic book heroes, and since 2008 has been working his magic at sand sculpture.

Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 11: Of Ambrose Bierce

| October 11, 2011

On 7 October 2010 I published here my article concerned the curious life and end thereto of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe. Tonight I’ll speak to another literary legend with his own dark baggage – Ambrose Bierce. Born 24 June 1842, Bierce was a prolific journalist and writer in such genres as the history of the […]

Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 10: Adele

| October 10, 2011

Last year in Dark Sentiments – Day 12, Mrs. LFM and I collaborated in assembling a playlist of songs born of the darkest sentiments; the kind we characterized as, “Sentiments ranging from the acts of tortured souls, the anguish that can sometimes be born of love, hate, wounds that will never heal, and doors that […]

Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 6: Cold Steel

| October 6, 2011

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the […]

Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 5: Seeing is NOT Believing

| October 5, 2011

A recurring theme in the horror genre is supernatural subterfuge that results in one person believing that another has become a monster, with predictably homicidal results. While such events are a matter of record, explained as arising from insanity, the human mind has yet to reveal all its dark secrets. Behold the “flashed face distortion […]

Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 4: Of Dolls Possessed

| October 4, 2011

Evil and otherwise supernaturally animated dolls or puppets are a recurring theme in the horror genre bringing us, among others, the Puppetmaster series that began with the movie of that name in 1989, and the better known Chucky franchise that kicked off with Child’s Play in 1988. If you spend any time in the world, […]

Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 3: Dagger Woods

| October 3, 2011

Dagger Woods is a small rural community located amid softwood forest and marshland slightly less than 10 kilometers east of the university town of Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Anyone driving Highway 104 to or from the eastern part of the province will be familiar with the turnoff. Tales of a malevolent being haunting the woods began […]

Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 2: The Griesly Wife

| October 2, 2011

I first heard The Griesly Wife recited to me late one night over a camp fire by a lake shore deep in the woods of darkest Nova Scotia. The person who recited it had learned the poetic tale without knowing its author, and believed the story was set somewhere in a remote part of northern […]

Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 1: It’s Back

| October 1, 2011

“I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres; thy knotted and combined locks to part,and each particular hair to stand on end,as quills upon the fretful porpentine!” ~ Hamlet; Act 1, Scene 5 As our regular readers […]