Large Fierce Mammal

Our research department has, as usual, been riding abroad all year, scouring the planet for the ingredients to bring you this most piquant of seasonal dishes! – [Départ pour le Sabbat by Albert Joseph Pénot (1910)]

So you’ve come back Goode Readers. Welcome, and may I say that it’s nice to see your faces again, even as I note more than a few of you are a little more scarred and worn about the chassis than this time last year. Ah well; you’re still above the sod, and time wounds all heels they say.

I also see some new faces, no doubt driven before the Autumn’s chill promise of coming Winter, and so attracted to the warmth of the hearth. Greetings to you also to this 2015 incarnation of Dark Sentiments, being our annual month long foray into the Darkness, in all its wondrous variety.

If this is your first voyage, or you feel you’d enjoy a refresher, by way of explanatory introduction to soil yourself in, I quote myself …

As our regular readers know, the month of October has a special significance to Mrs. LFM and me, and Hallowe’en marks the anniversary of our marriage. Last October we launched what will be an annual event here at LFM – 31 days of Dark Sentiments – one each for every day in this most meaningful of months. In keeping with our mission statement from last year, and in addition to regular programming, each day of this month we will be posting articles and items, music and movie reviews, film clips and book recommendations, memories and artifacts, all connecting straight back to the dark side. Some will make you laugh, some will trouble your dreams, and some will prevent sleep as we delve into the unknown, the misunderstood, and the better left alone. ~ Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 1: It’s Back

Also,

Darkness, as it inspires me, isn’t limited to expressions of evil, mayhem, and bad outcomes. Something can also be considered “dark” if it is unknown, misunderstood, or incorrectly interpreted.  So, depending on your sensibilities good reader, I believe that if the title of the series, let alone its author,  didn’t dissuade you from stepping inside, then you will find some modicum of entertainment in what follows. Nevertheless, you may also come to find, albeit too late because by then the arrow will have already found its mark, that some portions are best avoided by those imbued with that tortured combination of empathy, clarity of visualization, and a propensity for nightmares. ~ Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 1: Another Harvest

So, as in the dull guttering candle light of Dark Sentiments past, you ponder what this portends, I’ll leave you today with these lines of verse.

If you seek for the harvest that’s fruitful and green,
You’re in the wrong place, and it’s not very clean.
If a bright, cheery Autumn’s the way you would lean,
Look not here, for these pickings are dark and obscene!