Understanding: The Only Shortcut to Understanding

| July 3, 2023

The fundamental flaw inherent in the clamorously contentious phenomenon of identity politics is that the ticket to entry to the Promised Land of its adherents is a label, proudly applied to the self and demanded of others. You may note that this looks a lot like forced conversion as historically practiced by the Catholic Church […]

On Hunting

| March 18, 2023

“Everything in Nature encapsulates as part of its being certain dictates that are beyond its control. These exist first and foremost to facilitate the perpetuation of its kind in keeping with all that is desirable in progressive mutation — the kind that makes something better at what it does, and at sticking around a while […]

Dancing With First Principles

| February 20, 2023

As has been made more than amply clear here lo these many years, I have been studying the Nature and use of the Blade, from chisels to axes, pen knives to sabres, scythes to ploughshares, épées to corkscrews; learning, teaching, and writing about it for a very big part of my nearly three score and […]

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 24: A Sort of Duel

| October 24, 2022

The concept of Armageddon isn’t an invention of nuclear armed modernity. For those of us whose formative years were incubated in the warmest parts of the Cold War, Armageddon in those days looked like a short, sharp, war not unlike the one so recently ended back then, but that played out not in the span […]

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 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 19: … and then we’ll be okay ….

| October 19, 2022

About Exurb1a Exurb1a likes fiction with a metaphysical backbone. He enjoys trying to write that kind of stuff himself. He also runs a subpar YouTube channel of the same name. His words, not mine. We’ve previously met our feature artist only yesterday in Thoughts From Your Deathbed. Tonight we’re going back.

Dark Sentiments Season 13 — Day 18: Melancholia

| October 18, 2022

Money’s like a crop that can Be sown and reaped anon. Time is as a bottled dram, That, once it’s drunk, is gone. ~ Waste Not Your Dram ~ (Excerpt) Pissing your life away and regretting it in your dotage is a recurring theme in both art and life.

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”? […]