A Long Winter’s Night — 2019 Edition Day 2: The Day of the .303 Buck Saw

| December 23, 2019

When I was growing up in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, long before the cultivation of Christmas Trees as agricultural operations had become a major industry, my Father had innumerable friends and customers who owned woodland we were granted freedom to harvest our annual Balsam Fir from. It was a big deal because my Father had high […]

A Long Winter’s Night — 2019 Edition Day 1: Welcome Back

| 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 […]

Dark Sentiments Season 10 — Day 28: Pets

| October 28, 2019

Close on the heels of Day 26 comes this award winning German gem from 2018. Directed by David Wunderlich, Pets tells its story from that vantage from which the obvious conclusion is you should have been careful what you wished for. Take a draught of whatever you think will make the neutering hurt least — […]

Dark Sentiments Season 10 — Day 27: A Word From Mother Nature

| October 27, 2019

In the wake of a certain Swedish girl’s advent upon the world stage as the front man of a new crew of environmental influencers, legitimacy of urgency has come to be blurred so an already distrustfully polarized world is more entrenched than ever in Buridan’s Dilemma. Tonight’s Dark Sentiment is a well crafted word from […]

Dark Sentiments Season 10 — Day 26: Hier Encore

| 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 […]

Dark Sentiments Season 10 — Day 15: The Hour That Never Was

| October 15, 2019

A foundational part of our animal nature is a hefty dose of healthy opportunism, and it pains me to see it practiced on such an amateur level among humans these days. So here’s a lesson. The Hour That Never Was By LFM Consider now the question of what happens after death, What phantasmagoric wonders might […]

Dark Sentiments Season 10 — Day 11: Perennial Weeds

| 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 […]

Dark Sentiments Season 10 — Day 10: After the Apocalypse

| October 10, 2019

In keeping with the spirit of this season of Dark Sentiments, enlivened by the general air of gloom and doom casting its shadow across the land, we’ll be taking forays into an ever so special genre straddling science fiction and horror. I’m speaking, of course, of the post-apocalyptic tale, and this will be the first […]

Dark Sentiments Season 10 — Day 9: Wetiko

| October 9, 2019

I have come to know that my Esteemed Friend Master At Arms James Keating and I are joined at the spiritual hip, and so it came as no surprise when late last August he emailed me some articles on the Wetiko. If you come here often enough, you will know that I have previously written […]

Dark Sentiments Season 10 — Day 7: You Wouldn’t Know the End of the World if it Bit You in the Ass

| 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 […]