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 28, 2019
A Long Winter’s Night is the perfect time for telling stories around the fire, and often those take a reflective bent on where things are, how they got here, and where they’re going in that handbasket. We’re doing that tonight to the chagrin of those younger members of the assemblage who suffer the stories of […]
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 22, 2019
Welcome back to the hearth Goode Reader, and this incarnation of A Long Winter’s Night. The Winter Solstice stole upon us at 12:19 Atlantic Time this morning and today offers 14 minutes short of 7 hours less daylight than at the occasion of the Summer Solstice in June. The bittersweet news is that it all gets […]
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 […]
Randy | October 23, 2019
This is a song I wrote based loosely on actual events. There is music and I’ll be recording it for your edification in a future fit of publication. In the mean time here’s — Dead Spider Serenade By LFM Dearest spider on the ceiling I won’t ask you how you’re feeling We’ve not spoken since […]
Randy | October 22, 2019
Another rite of passage piece with echos of last season’s Willie and the Bear. The term “traveller’s lantern”, perverted to Hunter’s lantern here, and not to be confused with Hunter’s Moon, refers to a time when safe travel was denied to the average bloke between the last quarter, through new, and to the first quarter of […]
Randy | October 11, 2019
“A label can be a physical object that, when applied to another object, conveys important information about it. What it’s made of, how to use it, how long it may be kept, and the best means of storage before use or consumption. Things like that. These sorts of labels abound in today’s world and are […]
Randy | October 8, 2019
“About 15 years ago a multinational company purchased an old cement plant near my place and started to incinerate dangerous waste. One day, when the smell of burning tires and plastic was particularly bad, I joined a local group of ecological activists. “We fought the cement plant and corrupt government officials for many years and […]
Randy | October 7, 2019
“In truth, most people really don’t understand the burden of responsibility they carry for their own safety and survival, and the commonalities that link every threat to life and limb. In truth, most people have accepted the idea that no matter what happens, all you need do is call “Them” and “They’ll” take care of […]