Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 27: Jasper and the Little Girl

| October 27, 2012

This poem is based on actual events that were earlier related in my piece titled Musings as Hallowe’en Approaches – Part the Second, published here on 7 September 2008.  On 20 September 2011, I also announced its inclusion in John Robert Colombo’s latest collection, Jeepers Creepers – Canadian Accounts of Weird Events and Experiences. I offer […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 18: Kate Clark

| October 18, 2012

Last year’s Dark Sentiments profiled the work of Juan Cabana, and described him then as, “… a taxidermist of a different sort, who plies his trade mounting the remains of sea creatures that never were.” The world is too full of artists working in the dark and bizarre realm of creativity for me not to […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 16: That Old Black Magic

| October 16, 2012

Back on Day 8, I wrote, “Children like to dabble in seances and Quija boards. They shouldn’t, but they do.” A similar comment could be made about the widespread practice, even in these days when the world has been repeatedly proven to be awash in bullshit, of people still clinging to mainstream news media as […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 14: The Year in Cannibalism

| October 14, 2012

In Dark Sentiments – 2010 we looked at the Wendigo phenomenon, and the strange case of Vincent Weiguang Li and Tim McLean in particular. In Dark Sentiments – 2011, the Wendigo was back, but we were also wallowing in what I might call more mainstream cannibalism – consensual and otherwise, with the added seasoning of […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 13: Joan

| October 13, 2012

This poem has been marinating for a while. It came to be from observing the self inflicted misery of several people – two in particular – and is presented here by special request from Mrs. LFM. I can deny her nothing. Suffice it to say that we’ve all met people who bring ugliness into the […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 12: Lesson Learned

| October 12, 2012

Back in the last century … I’m talking WAY back ’round about the autumn of 1975 … I was studying alchemy and arguments for and against the Earth being round, along with staying one step ahead of the Inquisition, at Nova Scotia’s prestigious Dalhousie University. Costly and time consuming as it was, most of what […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 10: While I Wasn’t Looking, Dark Sentiments and Worldly Wisdom Wednesday Had a Kid

| October 10, 2012

This was supposed to be two articles, but try as I might, they kept melding so bugger it. Obviously I’m having a two for one sale. Pareidolia is a phenomenon of cognition in which perception of a stimulus becomes connected with other present or remembered stimuli so that a pattern emerges in the mind of […]

Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – The Word of the Day is “Garniture”

| October 3, 2012

“Everything in Nature is about efficiency and balance, which is why life is, first and foremost, an exercise in energy management. For example, the Way of the Wild demands of each parent that their offspring be made self-sufficient as quickly and efficiently as possible. A tool need not be a physical artifact – rest assured […]

Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 1: Another Harvest

| October 1, 2012

October again, and the harvest is in, by every definition of the word. Welcome to another season of Dark Sentiments! If you’ve never experienced it before, “Dark Sentiments” is an annual series that appears here every October, each day of that month presenting observations and tales of people, things, doings, and goings on that come […]

The Noble Experiment

| September 15, 2012

No, I’m not referring to prohibition. I speak of an experiment in that most fundamental of transactions – Barter. Barter that, best of all, involves bacon as the basic medium of exchange. Josh Sankey is on a mission. According to his website – baconbarter.com – that mission is this: I need your help. I’m driving […]