Large Fierce Mammal

“If you know something, you know something. If you do not know something, it does not exist in your world.” ~ Musashi, What You Don’t Know

Whether you’ve spryly hopped the hedge to get here, crawled, or were dragged through it backwards, welcome back, Goode Reader, to this seventh season of Dark Sentiments!

Research for this acclaimed October event is a perpetual work in progress, even as its gleanings are in the very throes of their revelation on each of these 31 darksome days. Darkness has many flavours, and more than a few subtle shades; things you’ll learn as the banquet commences.

This season is unique as it is the first time we’ve introduced any kind of an underlying theme (beyond darkness I mean, and however loosely applied) to what you will find here. What’s on the menu this October is, for at least a significant part, “Forbidden Knowledge”, and in our quest for it ourselves all these long years, we’ve come to find it in as wide a variety of expressions as could be encountered in even the most earnestly pursued, globe spanning distillery tour.

Forbidden knowledge, which is different from secret knowledge, is used to describe forbidden books or other information to which access is restricted or deprecated for political or religious reasons. Forbidden knowledge is commonly not secret, rather a society or various institutions will use repressive mechanisms to either completely prevent the publication of information they find objectionable or dangerous (censorship), or failing that, to try to reduce the public’s trust in such information (propaganda). Public repression can create paradoxical situation where the proscribed information is generally common knowledge but publicly citing it is disallowed.

There have been times and places where everyone lived life under an alias, and one’s True birth name was never released into the wild, for to do so was to offer an enemy an easy avenue of magickal attack. The continuum of forbidden knowledge runs the scale from the banality of the simply private, as in it’s none of your business, through “need to know”, to the iron fist and bloody sword of absolute draconian control.

And let it never be forgotten, Goode Reader, the most dangerous and insidious kind of forbidden knowledge — that which is self-forbidden and willfully eschewed.

Simply put, the acquisition of forbidden knowledge is always dangerous because it inevitably changes your world forever. Its value to you will depend on who denied it and why, and whether or not you wield it will usually be determined by your own willingness to accept that Life is all about change, and risk. If down that one way road you go, you must either be in possession of yourself, choose your travelling companions very wisely, or preferably both.  Of course, then there are those times when the mere possession of forbidden knowledge unleashes the avalanche that obliterates every aspect of the comfortable, the understandable, and chaos reigns.

Obviously, and as you’ve come to expect, we’ll veer off the forbidden path onto worse ones now and again, but please do try to keep up. And again, welcome back.

The 7th season of our annual Dark Sentiments series begins tomorrow. We love the Autumn, and it evokes such joy in us that Mrs. LFM and I got married on an All Hallows Eve a long lovely time ago.

In celebration of all that, and a bunch of other things I could no doubt remember if this was being written immediately after my second coffee this morning and I didn’t have a cold, I’m presenting you with some beautifully animated Autumnal musings. Welcome to “the workshop of the seasons” where this very season’s namesake is hard at work. (more…)

Here’s an irony for you. On this day in 2011, reacting to yet another wave of panic of the kind that inevitably follows recirculation of the rumour that Facebook is about to become a pay for use service, I wrote on my personal Facebook page:

I gladly pay to have my websites hosted. There is nothing I get from Facebook that I would pay for – in fact if Facebook was a pay for use service, I would never have used it. I don’t think that makes me unique, and yet every time the fantasy spam of Facebook adopting a fee for use policy makes the rounds I see a panic stricken mob re-posting that the sky is falling.

One part of that isn’t True – I do get a great deal of value from Facebook of the kind that I would not now enjoy if I had turned my back on it completely. I have come to know people I would never have known existed, and who enrich both the personal and professional sides of my life every bit as profoundly as if they lived a holler and a short walk away. I can’t lay this splendid outcome at the feet of Facebook because it’s all in how I, and those with whom I enjoy associating there, choose to use it. Facebook is a tool, and even the finest hammer can bend the nail and mar the wood if not wielded with purpose, precision, and sensitivity.

One of those people I’ve joyously come to know is John, of whom I’ve previously spoken. In past months, John has undertaken, and exhaustively chronicled, his study of a subject that’s near and dear to my own black heart – uisge-beatha – water of life. Whisky or Whiskey depending on where it’s made, or History in a Glass as I like to call it. No Whisky/Whiskey snob, John clearly joins me in embracing the splendid nectar as ranking high on the list of Essential Supplies.

So enwrapped in the revelations of History in a Glass as only the devoted Scholar can be, John has just this day launched his new blog called The Whiskey Cowboy, and it’s not all about the drinkin’!

“This blog is for various things that interest me, and that others have expressed an interest in having me write about.  You will find articles on whiskey, reviews, cars, the outdoors, knives, guns, and more.  We will see where things go. and the directions we take.” ~ The Whiskey Cowboy – About

His portfolio including being, “… a former soldier, former police officer, entrepreneur, professional photographer, artist, man of the world, man apart from the world, thinker, doer, and in simple terms, a man ….”, John makes no apologies nor any pretense of being a professional whiskey taster, but he knows what he likes and is exceptionally gifted at describing why. As we’ve interacted over past months on some brands we both know, or have come to know, I can tell you that the reader can trust his judgement, and I would invite anyone who understands and shares an interest in the divine libation (or anything else John is threatening to write about) to seek out The Whiskey Cowboy forthwith and subscribe  straight away!

Bitey taking the piss.

“Long heralded and now about to become reality, let this stand as official announcement of a new and semi-irregular LFM feature – Al Dente – With Bitey McBighterson! Beginning Saturday, 30 March 2013 and appearing whenever he gives a shit, Bitey will give you his unbridled, well gnawed interpretation of current events. After all, what better source to bring order out of chaos than a herding Dog who’s not afraid to deliver a nip if he thinks it’s necessary?” ~ Al Dente – With Bitey McBighterson

Yes I’m back, so I guess that means I found myself giving a shit. Or at least a piss, and here’s some kind of a rhyming thing I wrote about it. My People told me it resembles a stupid ditty about going to market to buy a fat pig, but why would you buy something you can just round up and drag home by the nose? Anyway, they’re smart and know a lot of things, so sing it if you want to.

Taking the Piss

By Bitey McBighterson

To mark it, to mark it,
I’m cocking my leg!
Then jauntily on again
Jiggity jeg!

To mark it, to mark it,
I’ll put on a show!
Let’s crank up the angle,
How high can it go?

To mark it, to mark it,
I’ll let the piss fly,
And if you disturb me
I’ll piss in your eye!

To mark it, to mark it,
I’ll sprinkle my pee,
So any who smell it
Will know it was me!

In his comment on Troy Zwicker’s The Sidearm of “Swank Syd” Lawford, published here a few days back, reader Simon Tanner kindly wrote, in part:

May I recommend a book called “The Last Englishman”, an autobiography of Lieut-Col.Alfred Daniel Wintle M.C. (lst the Royal Dragoons). c.1968

Copies will be few and far between and most likely overpriced when found but if you chance to find one I believe you would highly enjoy it.

My maternal grandfather’s commander in the Second war, he definitely fits the mould of the English officer/gentleman of the time. I suspect that he and Lawford were two of a kind.

On the Goode Mr. Tanner’s advisement, I have set the sights of the incomparable Mrs. LFM on the undertaking of locating and acquiring a copy of said tome, but in the mean time as she works her magick, you may read more of Col. Wintle in the Wikipedia article on his life, located here and supplied to me just this evening by Troy Zwicker when I wasn’t even looking for it. And then there’s this delightful docudrama based on the story of a remarkable man. (more…)

Not to make light of such a dire situation, but yeah. It kind of seems that way.

As a Canadian bystander witnessing the bizarre train wreck that’s slowly and painfully morphed into what is now supposed to be the really serious part of the 2016 US Presidential Election, I’m reminded of a few things.

The first is an article I posted here on 20 January 2013 that highlighted one published to The Swordmaster’s Grimoire by the Esteemed Adam Crown some eleven days prior. Headlined To Live by the Sword: Integrity, you can, and should, read it by clicking the title.

A lot of parallels there, and lessons to be learned from comparisons with the late unpleasantness, even as it continues to unfold. I personally harbour neither a spirit of support nor enmity for either candidate beyond a tentative hope that Nature may see her way clear to bestow a couple of well timed heart attacks between now and November.

And then there’s the soundtrack that plays in my head, not just because of what the candidates themselves say and do, but more so the effect their words and actions have been having on supporter and detractor alike. And the Press. Oh, the Press. With this in mind, let’s move on to today’s playbill. (more…)

Introduction by LFM:

I first met Troy Zwicker when I joined what was then called the Bridgewater Fencing Club, now the South Shore Duellists, in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, back in the last century. I came to know him as among the most aggressive épée fencers I’ve ever crossed steel with, and it was at that time his interest in the collecting of swords had its genesis, only slightly confounded by his being only in his early twenties, and hence revenue challenged. A score of years hence, the somewhat older and slightly more careworn Troy of the current era is happily employed as a faithful servant of Her Majesty, and now pursues his primary passions of sport fishing and the collecting of British military swords with vigour from his home in the backwoods of Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia.

The sword under discussion today is a beautifully preserved Victorian era British infantry officer’s sidearm; specifically a Wilkinson made 1845 pattern blade mounted with a pattern 1897 hilt. It entered Mr. Zwicker’s collection in July 2011 by way of John C. Denner Co. of North Lancaster, Ontario, and in a conversation with him in March of this year he said this of what attracted him to the acquisition:

I really only remember vague details about the way the sword was listed in John’s catalogue. I think it was referred to as a “fighting” sword because of the slightly larger dimensions – 33 x 1 1/8 instead of the usual 32.5 x 1″, and of course the steel ’97 hilt which gives good protection. I bought it because it was all those things plus a Wilkinson with ledger paper so it at least offered the possibility of being researched!

I have seen many photos of ’95 and ’97 hilts on the older ’45 pattern blades and think they are rather handsome looking weapons. I remember having a phone conversation with John (Denner), and he was of the same opinion.

As it turns out, so is Matt Easton (Scholagladiatoria); he mentions this very thing in one of his videos.

Indeed he does, and before going further, let us pause to hear what the Esteemed Swordmaster Matt Easton has to say.

(more…)

Source: http://www.drewmonkman.com/columns/the-stingers-of-summer-are-wasps-hornets-and-yellowjackets-ruining-your-outdoor-enjoyment/

As you all know, I don’t mete out death lightly. That being said, there are some affronts that cannot be ignored and being the recipient of an unprovoked attack by a Wasp is one of them.

I would also point out that had I come to know the offender was a transient whose home was nowhere nearby, I would have rescinded my oath and let the matter go. As it turned out however, his offense was magnified by belonging to a gang that had invaded the sanctity of my Home, and that, Goode Reader, is decidedly not on.

This is a poem of insult and revenge, based on recent events.

Full Yellow Jacket

By LFM

One lovely day some weeks ago
While out to take the air,
By unprovok-ed ambuscade,
I was assaulted there.

A Yellowjacket Wasp came in
And stung me on my arm.
I knew not where he haled from then,
Nor why he meant me harm.

No single angry word had passed
Between the Wasp and I,
Nor will there ever be because
I quickly helped him die.

And standing o’er his corpse I swore
An oath most dark and deep —
I’d find and visit all his kin
With murder in their sleep.

The hunt was long and arduous,
And took me weeks to find
The door to Yellowjacket Hall
For canny are their kind.

They came and went by ones and twos
Thence sped upon their ways,
And never did they recognize
Me watching them for days.

They’d built their nest inside my wall,
Hard by my entrance door,
Their portal underneath the sill
Was easy to ignore.

And then one night all tucked inside,
A narrow rubber hose
Did find its way into their home,
So still in Wasp repose.

The nest, its halls and chambers now
Lie silent to their core.
A monument to perils found
By living at Death’s door.

My Mother always admonished me to put on clean underwear every morning because you never know when you’ll encounter a kind offer for sex. Or in case you get in an accident of some other sort. Anyway, that was a long time ago so the actual reason is vague, but the message was conveyed with sufficient clarity for me to continue the practice right up to and including this morning.

I also remember reading a memoir written by an accomplished and highly decorated soldier who served in an airborne regiment. I can’t for the life of me remember his name, and if what I’m about to reveal of him twigs any remembrance on your part, Goode Reader, do please remind me by leaving an enlightening comment.

He compared the way he would prepare for a mission with how he would get ready for a date with his “best girl”. Groomed and fresh smelling. Wearing his best combat uniform, cleaned and pressed. Boots polished and kit above reproach. Blades honed and oiled. Rifle immaculate. You can’t argue with that approach and it never failed him. Maybe you’re going to die today, or maybe you’ll help someone else do it. Either way, and at all points in between where nobody dies, it’s a day you’ll never get again, and that makes it an important day so don’t show up looking like a bum.

Dress and personal style are important to meeting every day with panache. Mrs. LFM is quite aware of my personal colour code and can pick out the hue of underwear I’ll be wearing on any day based solely on the morning’s discussion over coffee.

Dress From the Inside Out

By LFM

Black for facing evil,
Blue for speaking Truth,
Red for those contentious days,
And in the voting booth.

Grey for vague morality,
Both in and out of doors,
My state of mind’s reflected
In the colour of my drawers.