Randy | March 22, 2020
The title of today’s piece comes from the pilot episode of the excellent, and now both late and lamented, television series Life. Specifically, it’s part of a greater conversation between lead character Detective Charlie Crews (played by Damian Lewis) and his partner, Detective Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi): Dani Reese: “I don’t exactly understand you.” Charlie […]
Randy | March 15, 2020
“Some years ago, in 1936, I had to write to a very dear and honored friend of mine, who has since died, Sir Austen Chamberlain, brother of the present Prime Minister, and I concluded my letter with a rather banal remark ‘that we were living in an interesting age’. Evidently he read the whole letter, […]
Randy | February 23, 2020
Literature is effervescent with the weaponry of Heroism, binding the bearer to the facing of perils unimaginable to the mere mortal he or she subsisted as before the day of chosenness. With this endowment comes a sacred duty to right ancient wrongs and rid the world of the darkest evils in a fight unto death, […]
Randy | February 17, 2020
On the day I graduated from high school in 1975, my plans for postsecondary education were directed toward a career in Aerospace Engineering. It would be four years before I came to realize how the end of hostilities in a conflict half a world away had changed all that before it even left the […]
Randy | December 31, 2019
On the Long Winter’s Night of 29 December 2017 I proclaimed this morale booster. The Fire Without and the Fire Within By LFM It’s only just started, but coming to pass Is a Winter as cold as a well digger’s ass. Yet it’s still not extreme if the truth’s to be told, For it used […]
Randy | December 29, 2019
This Long Winter’s Night is dark indeed, coming as it does hard on the heels of yesterday’s preamble. Be warned that it will deal with extremely adult entertainments, the plurality of that word serving to set apart what follows from the distinctly singular “adult entertainment”, which term has come to define all things that are […]
Randy | December 27, 2019
Point of Vantage By LFM The higher that you climb a Tree, The thinner are the branches, And he who keeps ascending finds The slimmer grow his chances. Climbing Trees will teach a lad The need for solid roots, The virtues of a Trusty branch For questing hands and boots. A Tree will offer refuge […]
Randy | December 25, 2019
Merry Christmas Aulde Sotts one and all, Gods help us, every one! I pray you will all find some peace today, and in that spirit present you with this selection of seasonal offerings to punctuate your day.
Randy | October 31, 2019
Here we are again, Goode Reader, at the end of another season of Dark Sentiments. Our most heartfelt thanks to you all for joining us and staying the course As regular attendees will recall, this is not only All Hallows Eve, the night when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead […]
Randy | October 26, 2019
The melancholy ballad from which tonight’s Dark Sentiment draws its title was written by Charles Aznavour and released in his 1964 album of the same name. Translated literally into English (always a mistake, but here we are), it means “Yesterday Again”, and you may know it best in the English translation by Herbert Kretzmer from […]