Randy | October 9, 2011
Signs leading into some communities on the south shore of Nova Scotia read, “We love the beauty that surrounds us and welcome you to share it.” Such a sunshiny bit of prose, but ’twas not always thus. The town of Lunenburg and its surrounding area was settled by Protestant immigrants of German, Swiss, and French […]
Randy | October 7, 2011
“You know, I often say that the world’s a crazy place – “crazy” in a good sense, and in the sense that, for example, when you walk in the forest or over the fields, or elsewhere, you never know what you’re going to come across.” ~ Laurie Lacey One morning in the early autumn of […]
Randy | 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 […]
Randy | 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 […]
Randy | September 20, 2011
Back in October 2008, I finished reading a book titled The Big Book of Canadian Ghost Stories by acclaimed writer and story collector John Robert Colombo. At the end I found a note from the author that invited readers to submit stories of their own experience with the supernatural for possible inclusion in a future […]
Randy | June 30, 2011
I have no small number of non-Canadian friends and I never tire of educating them about customs in my country. Tomorrow is Canada Day and I will be far too busy doing that most Canadian of things – canoeing with my Mate – to write anything here, so on this Canada Day Eve I am […]
Randy | June 26, 2011
My father was the oldest of seven children, and he, along with every one of his siblings, suffered from heart disease and high blood pressure. My father was diagnosed with angina when he was 40, and by the time he was 55 ended up with a triple bypass that saved his life and at last […]
Randy | May 25, 2011
I told her a ribald joke And I still remember The thud of her upper denture Against the toe of my boot. She peed herself As I passed her teeth back to her On bended knee.
Randy | March 27, 2011
Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life. ~ John Muir The twenty-fourth […]
Randy | March 19, 2011
As the late unpleasantness in and around Japan continues to unfold, I’m seeing more and more media coverage that has a net information content of zero. On at least two cases, rather than informed, I actually felt stupider after listening to it. The constant soothing wordage and disclaimers like “slightly radioactive material” and “a small […]