Large Fierce Mammal

The 27’th Dark Sentiment of last year spoke of monsters, guardians, and most particularly Teddy Bears. Tonight we’re going to revisit the subject, only with the holders of those labels somewhat … redefined, and with all but the grimmest of realities stripped away.

When last detected, Montréal based Teresa Lang, (AKA smokingmoose) described herself as, “… a two-eyed, ambidextrous, opinionated, 2D, 3D animator, artist, writer, singer and amateur musician, with a sense of humour.”

I say “when last detected” because her online presence seems to have tapered off to silence in recent years, but not before a part of her body of work caught our attention.

Teddy’s Revenge is the story of an abused and neglected boy whose only “friend” is a Teddy Bear he wants, but doesn’t know how, to find comfort in, and that singular Teddy Bear’s own choices in the matter.

It was the extremes of behaviour expressed by the boy, and experienced by the Teddy Bear, that made this short film a part of DS Season 9. This is no fairy tale, and not a story for children. (more…)

My first year Physics Professor, the Esteemed Dr, Ernest Guptill who died tragically in a boating accident on 20 March 1976, used to say that you only had to know two things to earn a PhD in Physics:

1. That Force equals Mass times Acceleration; and
2. You can’t push on a string.

I’m constantly astonished at how many times in a year I find myself calling upon that second point in conversation, although interestingly never with my Wife.

Today, in response to the winds of our time, both stiff and flaccid, and in recognition of the Truth of point 2, I offer this reminder of the perils that lie in the extremes of flexibility.

Bendable

By LFM

The swordsman needs his timing
And a weapon he can trust.
An arm that’s supple in the play,
To stiffen in the thrust.

If rigid finds its breaking point
Before the job is done,
Its strength is rendered null and void
Ere battle can be won.

And flexible’s all well and good
But something that I’ve found —
It matters not if in the breeze
Your back’s against the ground.

Goode Scholar, learn these simple Truths
And cleave them to your mind.
Recline or topple in the test
Is not how Strength’s defined.

Be stiff, unyielding, hard as stone,
Or pliant as you please,
You won’t stand long for anything,
And fall for any breeze.

“… let not us that are squires of the night’s body be called thieves of the day’s beauty. Let us be Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon, and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.” ~ W. Shakespeare, Henry IV, Act 1 Scene 2

What ho Goode Reader, and well met! To the delight of our Comrades and the dismay of our Enemies, we find ourselves here again to experience the start of this most delightful of seasons — that being called Dark Sentiments. One that begins in the breathless anticipation born of hoping old and Esteemed Friends will announce their survival of the year past by a resounding knock of sword pommel or pistol butt against the door, and ends with the whirlwind of Lust that is the celebration of the LFM nuptials on the blessed day called Hallowe’en. The night on which the veil between the Worlds, and that obscuring Mrs. LFM’s Polish pulchritude, are at their thinnest.

For those of you who’ve made the pilgrimage, please know that we look forward to hearing the story behind the new scars, both inside and out, you’ve acquired on the road that brought you to join in this year’s sport and revelry. Should anything you find here invoke the beloved, “That reminds me of a story,” response, please do inform the assemblage in a comment. For now Goode Reader, take your ease while we endeavour to slake all your thirsts.

I had cause to use the word “cloying” today in a poem I’m working on. You’ll notice I didn’t say “writing” because that would imply some level of control.

My intention was to convey the conventional meaning as defined by Oxford, that being an influence that will, “Disgust or sicken (someone) with an excess of sweetness, richness, or sentiment,” while still embracing the Late Middle English “… shortening of obsolete accloy ‘stop up, choke’, from Old French encloyer ‘drive a nail into’, from medieval Latin inclavare, from clavus ‘a nail’.”

Being nothing if not thorough, I never use a word in its accepted application without also verifying its exposure in such august publications as The Devil’s Dictionary and the Urban Dictionary because, Gods know, I do like me some variety.

In the former, the word was conspicuously absent from the void lying between “Clove” —

CLOVE, n. A small spice that lures a man away from his girl between the acts at a theater or the dances at a ball. A man who has the clove-habit will leave a very nice girl to get a very poor clove.

and “Club” —

CLUB, n. An association of men for purposes of drunkenness, gluttony, unholy hilarity, murder, sacrilege and the slandering of mothers, wives and sisters.
For this definition I am indebted to several estimable ladies who have the best means of information, their husbands being members of several clubs.

but the latter offered this:

The deathbed scenes in the novels of Dickens are famously cloying: as Oscar Wilde said, “One would need a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.”

That works too.

Tanner the Barbie Dog, who shits wherever he is when you lift his tail. Read all about him at https://thepioneerwoman.com/confessions/tanner_the_barb/

The LFM Clan includes five Dogs, and of those, our Australian Shepherd Bruce is the most discriminating in the where and when of his every excretory deposit. We are not alone in this.

I have previously described Silvia Jay as a, “… deservedly respected Dog behaviour consultant, and tenured member of our extremely short list of Esteemed Friends,” and written of her that, “… when Silvia talks about Dogs, or anything else for that matter, you would be well advised to put your tail in a neutral position, shut the hell up, and listen.” This morning I read something she’d posted to her Facebook page in the matter of a similar issue with the Dog of her own family, Bowie.

By way of background, Bowie has proven impervious to any weather related incentive to relieve himself close to home, instead preferring the field across the road from his Family holdings. He sees his stool promptly disposed of, so its location after arrival is moot, but somehow this is inconsequential to Bowie.

So this morning I read this from Silvia’s electronic “pen”:

Bowie’s reluctance to potty in the morning on our property saga continues.
Part three, and final installment: He wins. He can now pee and poop in the field across from us. On bad weather days I will get dressed and stand in pouring rain and a blasting snow storm. My change of heart came when I watched Mike taking him over there yesterday morning off the leash and Bowie was moving to (sic) relaxingly with him, and so happily sniffing, peeing, having a dump, then waiting for Mike, then waiting again by the side walk and crossing with him, without any cues, just very fluid and organic like they were connected with an invisible bond – well which they are. That conduct needs to have a payoff, I think.

I think so too.

In the matter of Teachers, I once wrote:

It’s said that the more we learn, the more we come to realize how much more there is to learn, but I regard this description as being far too limiting, task oriented, and dripping with drudgery – as in the further down the road you go, the more you come to realize how much farther you have still to travel. I take a more exploratory angle on this. While the acquisition of knowledge certainly serves to highlight the need for more knowledge in those of us who thirst for it in our quest for that state called “Wisdom”, I see each thing learned as a lamp that further serves to light the way. Each lamp illuminates where we are as it sheds its glow upon what was previously unseen, while at the same time permitting us to perceive new paths diverging into the gloom, each leading who knows where? Of such is born the spirit of exploration and enlightenment!

Those on such a quest will follow these dim paths one by one. Sometimes in the darkness, another lamp is seen in the distance, carried by one who knows well that path, and others convergent and divergent. Who has knowledge of the most fundamentally important kind. If their knowledge includes paths we wish to travel, they may be convinced to impart that knowledge to us, and so become our Teacher, even as they themselves are following the glow of the lamp carried by a Teacher of their own. Even as the student may find himself approached by other lamp bearers desiring knowledge of the paths he knows best. Even as one of these may be the Teacher himself.

Anyone worth learning from makes no pretense of being a finished product, and such people are perpetual students invigorated by their passion, A True Teacher can effortlessly blend his own quest with that of his student.

All of this inspired me today to offer you two things. First that Silvia Jay is a True Teacher by my standards and her experience highlights the fact that not all lamp bearers are human.

Second is this bit of frivolity to offset all the scholastic solemnity in the room.

Ode to a Discerning Shitter

By LFM

Brucie, oh Brucie, oh Brucie, go POOP!
Drop a turd in the garden, or onto the stoop!
Your toilet’s no less than the whole out of doors!
Find a spot in the county that’s worthy of yours!

Mrs. LFM and Bruce, neither of whom is even considering pooping in this picture. (LFM photo)

Goode Reader,

I flatter myself in the expectation that my absence here of late may have been noted with some modicum of longing for my return, and should you find yourself in the throes of such paroxysms I cry, fear not!

This time of year calls upon my personal, creative, and professional energies on a level as no other, and as with squeezing a balloon, for more air to be forced into one place, it must however temporarily vacate another.

And so the shape of my Life, as for that of all things, burns its oyles in seasonally driven cycles — after all, Winter is coming! — but counterbalancing those that drain are the others that stand as restorative callings to Mindfulness of my chosen Path.

For us, September, and all that heralds it, brings a maelstrom of delights, and of those remembered upon this very day, are two of the most important — the moment in the early morning hours of this date in 2001 when I kissed for the very first time my incomparable Mate, upon whom I would sire my three sons; and another, 12 years later nearly to the minute, when the first of those met the world. To anyone who sees mere coincidence in the timing of those two events I would answer, Indie, you are digging in the wrong place.

On this, the 5th birthday of Viktor Ryszard Lawrence Whynacht, the only one of those he’ll ever have, my focus will be upon the air in his part of the balloon.

Until next time Goode Reader.

When last we spoke, it was on the subject of Masculinity and Rites of Passage through the personal experience of soloing an airplane. In case the point eluded some of you, the instrument of transformation — the airplane — didn’t actually need to be what it was. It didn’t hurt in teaching a young Man for it to be a thing viewed by the society around him as dashing and dangerous, but for the lesson to be conveyed, I simply needed to surrender myself irretrievably to a set of circumstances from which avoidance of death or disablement rested in my own hands, absent any option for outside assistance. What my Esteemed Friend Steve Kaufman has referred to as, “… singularity and sudden experience of total reliance on one’s own self  ….”

Lest there be confusion in the ranks, let me clarify that what separates a traditional Rite of Passage from the mere fortuitous survival of stupid chances taken by the ignorant is prior absorption of knowledge and experience from one or more Mentors. While undeniably and demonstrably there can, and will, be situations that come unbidden, notwithstanding all best practices at avoidance, and their successful negotiation constitute a valid RoP in retrospect, our focus here today is the orchestrated kind. The overtly Mentored kind. Most importantly, the kind in which the acolyte knows himself to be on a guided journey to an outcome the nature of which, in the end, will rely on him and him alone. A Ritual.

The Power of Ritual: The Rocket Booster of Personal Change, Transformation, and Progress is the final installment to The Art of Manliness series on the nature and power of ritual. It observes, in part:

“One of the primary functions of ritual is to redefine personal and social identity and move individuals from one status to another: boy to man, single to married, childless to parent, life to death, and so on.

“Left to follow their natural course, transitions often become murky, awkward, and protracted. Many life transitions come with certain privileges and responsibilities, but without a ritual that clearly bestows a new status, you feel unsure of when to assume the new role. When you simply slide from one stage of your life into another, you can end up feeling between worlds – not quite one thing but not quite another. This fuzzy state creates a kind of limbo often marked by a lack of motivation and direction; since you don’t know where you are on the map, you don’t know which way to start heading.

“For example, young men who do not undergo a rite of passage into manhood often struggle with still feeling like a boy trapped in a man’s body. They want to feel like a man, but don’t, and figure they’ll start acting like one when they start feeling like one. But this feeling never arrives, and the sense of being in limbo continues.

“Just thinking your way to a new status isn’t very effective: “Okay, now I’m a man.” The thought just pings around inside your head and feels inherently unreal ….”

To be a Man possessed of Masculinity, experiencing the near daily necessity to engage in social intercourse or commerce with the unschooled males abroad in the land today, is to know the reality in the spirit of the other of what, “… feels inherently unreal ….”. To be unsurprised at a society proclaiming the necessity to “redefine” what it means — or more accurately should mean — to be Masculine when those uttering the proclamation never knew what it meant to begin with.

Our next conversation on this subject will highlight the first of two, regrettably not so exceptional, examples of Masculinity lost in the wilderness wherein the blind but well meaning were called upon to lead the blind.

One fulsome morning in the late autumn of my 16th year, I was a student pilot at the controls of a Piper PA-28 “Cherokee” in the afterglow of the rollout from what had to be the best landing I’d ever accomplished. That took an epiphanous turn when I heard my Flight Instructor telling me to stop and drop him off before going around again.

Piper PA-28 Cherokee.

Granted the vote of confidence by my FI with a double bang on the cockpit roof and the words, “Off you go now! Come back and pick me up,” along with the admonishment, “Don’t bend it!”, I was soon smoothly accelerating down runway two-four on my way to just another circuit of the field.

Just another circuit. Only this time alone.

And why does that matter if you’ve already proven to yourself, and everyone else that matters, that you could do this simple manoeuvre flawlessly on demand with an FI in the airplane? Because in that instant when the wheels leave the ground, no matter how confident you may have been with an experienced hand riding the right seat, the singular aloneness brings a realization that perhaps for the first time in your life, there is only one person in the world who will get you back alive. For me, it was both sobering and life changing. A True Rite of Passage.

I tell you this story (again) because it illustrates the transformational power of Rituals like Rites of Passage in Human society, and why their lack, or worse their misunderstood and therefore misguided application, promises a diminution of the ranks of those who can lay claim to True Manhood and the Masculinity that fuels it.

As Oxford defines it, a “Rite of Passage” is,

A ceremony or event marking an important stage in someone’s life, especially birth, the transition from childhood to adulthood, marriage, and death.

We need Rites of Passage, for without them the members of a society cannot transcend adolescence. We’re living the fact of that today.

Soloing an airplane neither defined my Masculinity nor gave me claim to Manhood. I knew I had the skills to get that airplane off the ground, through the pattern, and back onto the runway of a busy airport in one piece, and in that alone nothing more was to be learned. The Lesson, and therefore the Rite of Passage on my way to the Man, Husband, and Father I am today, was that wherever you may be in the present moment, be the best Man and up to the challenge. After all, if you can’t trust yourself with your own life, what hope is there for anyone else who may come to rely on you?

We’ll continue this line of thought when next we convene.

The wee shite in action.

Title notwithstanding, today we started testing the Little Chief smoker by Smokehouse Products of Hood River, Oregon. For this first trial run, we’re doing a short flavour smoke on marinated pork chops and beef patties. Taste testing reports and a product review in a week or two as comprehensive testing proceeds.

The wee shite’s job done for today.

You can keep your bit coin mining. It’s a well known fact that nickel mining is an important component of the Canadian economy. Less well known is that the one in Sudbury, Ontario, is the biggest we’ve ever found.

This is Canada Day up here in the Great White North, on which all and sundry customarily gather to celebrate the day in 1867 when the citizenry got convinced it would be easier to keep track of one band of crooks rather than the usual mishmash of transient bandits from out of town. We all know it hasn’t worked particularly well, but there’s Canadian beer and whiskey to keep us laughing, and cushion the blow that this third July first in the inspiring reign of Trudeau the Second also marks the day Bourbon starts costing 10% more.

Yes, that sound you heard just after midnight was the first shot fired south in the trade war between Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump — less a war really than an amalgam of an argument among the Tim Horton’s brain trust over the merits of the Canadian Maple vs. Boston Cream, and a slap bet.

But enough dark musings on this day of days that dawned in a wash of what Environment Canada described in the advisory posted midweek —

A very warm and humid airmass will settle over the Maritimes on Monday and persist through the middle of the week. Over inland areas of Nova Scotia, maximum temperatures are expected to exceed 30 degrees Celsius with humidex values ranging from 35 to 40.

We’ve got the precursor to that today with conditions my Esteemed Father, a gifted amateur meteorologist in his own right, would have described as, “Some Jesus sultry!”

I last formally addressed this holiday four years ago in a piece I was oddly compelled to call Canada Day 2014, and in that I revealed some lore not only eye opening to those who ain’t from around here, but also to those who are but haven’t been paying attention. Read it here, and as you do, here are a couple of musical accompaniments. (more…)