Dark Sentiments Season 13 — Day 26: Musings on Shit Storms

| October 26, 2022

I long ago adopted the policy of placing gravity on observable outcomes and not on what people say about their involvement in them. I recommend you start doing that too. Another thing I adopted long ago was a sensitivity to how often I’m provoked to say, “Welcome to Canada — The country where nothing is […]

Dark Sentiments Season 13 — Day 25: Life and Death

| October 25, 2022

“I attended elementary school at Lunenburg Academy, a massive, brooding, castlesque pile completed in 1895 on a windswept hilltop in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The school grounds are bordered on two sides by the Hillcrest Cemetery, and my walk to and from school passed first in front of the local funeral home before following another two […]

Dark Sentiments Season 13 — Day 23: Who’s Hungry?

| October 23, 2022

Cultures the world over have funeral customs involving food. Food for the dearly departed to take on his or her journey into “the afterlife’, and of course food for those left behind. Relevant recipes abound and some funeral services will even provide suggestions for the menu. In these parts, and setting aside the still uncommon […]

Dark Sentiments Season 13 — Day 22: Der lästige Kavalier

| October 22, 2022

It was long enough ago that I can’t remember when I started referring  to them as “Fruit Flies”, but it’s become part of the LFM family lexicon. They’re males, generally older but on those occasions when not, youth is mixed with social ineptitude yet no lesser amount of self-entitlement, and I commonly find them buzzing […]

Dark Sentiments Season 13 — Day 21: Of Thorns and Roses

| October 21, 2022

“The thorn defends the rose, yet it is peaceful and does not seek conflict.” As you will surely know Goode Reader, I make little attempt to keep my appreciation for cold steel and those who deftly wield it any kind of a secret around here. Tonight, please join me in revisiting a representative rhyme from […]

Dark Sentiments Season 13 — Day 20: The Watchstone

| October 20, 2022

In the spirit of Stonefall, tonight’s Dark Sentiment reflects on another case involving rocks moving around with outside assistance, mixed with a little imaginative historical interpretation. The actual stone on which this is based, pictured above, is the largest of a small cluster of “glacial erratics” — stones picked up by advancing glaciers in the […]

Dark Sentiments Season 13 — Day 17: Fathercraft

| October 17, 2022

In past seasons I have written here of such Dark Sentiments as True Love, how to tell when it is, and its perils when unrequited. You can roll around in some samples from this list of links: Dark Sentiments – Day 28 (True Love) Dark Sentiments Season 9 — Day 21: When is Love “True”? […]

Dark Sentiments Season 13 — Day 14: The Art of Witchcraft

| October 14, 2022

I have written here in seasons past of the mystical magick manifest in Womanhood, from assorted angles and shades. It takes little effort to discern that much of what afflicts modernity both misses these lessons and has always been thus, so not unlike the defining character of Canada writ large upon the ages, nothing is […]

Dark Sentiments Season 13 — Day 9: Grim Hustle

| October 9, 2022

The “ABOUT” portion of the Grim Hustle YouTube channel says, “We are building a crime based cinematic universe.” Whatever they’re doing, I thoroughly enjoy everything about their short motivational films featuring wisdom and life advice from such worthies as “Russian Mafia Boss” and “our Ukrainian brother Roman, a.k.a. Kulak”.

Dark Sentiments Season 13 — Day 8: Don’t Get Too Comfortable

| October 8, 2022

What does comfort mean to you? Never having to worry about money? A warm safe place to sleep? Somebody to look after you should you become sick or injured? A bed that’s not too soft, not too hard, but just right? What about the median thermal content of the porridge? Those are all very comforting […]