Large Fierce Mammal

Eat me. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobster)

The season of Yule, wherever and however it may be observed, is one festooned with traditions, not least of which are those affecting food. My own heritage comes from German and English influences, and since my blessed induction into the Polish fold, the flood gates have truly opened!

Celebrations and observances surrounding the Winter Solstice predate recorded history, and many of the culinary traditions included in today’s holiday feasts carry forward ingredients and methods of preparation that remind us of harder times. To me, this is part of the charm; but what is not part of the charm is the introduction of revisionist history into this otherwise mouth watering sequence of events.

I revel in being old enough to have “been there” when certain events transpired, and this coupled with my absolute disdain for revisionism, be it uttered through ignorance or design, routinely gets me up on my hind legs with teeth bared. A big contributor to the frequency of my outbursts is that fount of lower case knowledge and truth known as the internet, but source notwithstanding, I am here today to speak to you on a faux holiday “tradition” involving an ingredient my family has enjoyed from my earliest childhood rememberings, but that is widely held in the current era as THE traditional Maritime holiday feast – the Lobster. Quite simply, it’s not. (more…)

Click the image to enlarge. Source: http://www.themakerfilm.com/images/

The Maker is an award winning stop motion animated film in which, as its producers describe it “A strange creature races against time to make the most important and beautiful creation of his life.” (more…)

Klink, klank; anti-wank! (Source: The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice)

Here’s my poem of the day to set the tone. In case I wasn’t clear enough, and to save you from any concern that your mind went there because you’re a pervert, it is about masturbation.

Nocturnal Emissions

By LFM

Winter sun, horizon meets,
Bitter winds drive snows and sleets,
Dying fire no longer heats,
Drives nodding head beneath the sheets.

Cobwebbed mind for sleep a questing,
Nether parts less prone to resting,
Idle fingers move, molesting,
Muffled moans at hand’s behesting.

Sheen of sweat belies the chill,
Muscles twitch, bereft of will,
Taste of climax, bitter pill –
There is but one to grind the mill.

There was a time before video games and rap music offered adolescent males their pale simulacra of Manhood as an alternative to the biological imperative of learning to work imagination in proper concert with Nature’s joystick. While historically there have been but two types of people – those who would admit to masturbating and those who claimed they didn’t – the thought of self-inflicted carnal pleasure was a particularly prickly one for our Victorian forebears, and kept them up nights for entirely different reasons. (more…)

“Winter Trackers – Coyote” by Robert Bateman Click to enlarge. (Source: http://robertbateman.ca/paintings/WinterTrackersCoyote.htm)

2014 is coming to its conclusion in a whirlwind of blood and hate that shows every likelihood of staining much of the world for some time to come. Of course, this doesn’t make 2014 particularly unique because there has never been a time in recorded history during which you couldn’t find, at any given moment, someone using lethal force to end that moment’s conflict over a patch of dirt somewhere. Even before the advent of recorded history we turn up stark evidence of homicide, as in the case of Ötzi – the Iceman.

Let me remind you though, Goode Reader, that while this is going on, all that is Truly Good in the World has persisted in the inspiration of Happiness and Fulfillment in spite of what sometimes looks like a losing battle against zealotry in all its flavours. Good against Evil. Light against Darkness. It has always been so and always will be, for what a grave mistake it would be to domesticate Humanity based on the excuse that some of us have a bad habit of being part of the problem instead of the solution. That some actually find happiness and fulfillment in doing harm, all the while, to the annoyance of the rest of us, avoiding a knife in the eye.

It will come as no surprise to you that my inspiration for today’s offering is drawn in no small part from the depths of splendour engendered by daily Life with my incomparable Wife, Bairn, Bairn(s) yet to be, and Canine Kinsmen. You should also know that a big piece of what follows is also inspired by the Friendship and Comradeship I enjoy, and am honoured by, from those of you who embrace the True Warrior Spirit. Who call me Friend. Those who may choose to ignore the daily bullshit spewed out by the bullshitters of the world, but who won’t be so accommodating when somebody needs to stand in the face of it where the creatures and principles held sacred lie in harm’s way.

All that being said, here is …

The Woodsman’s Song

By LFM

This Winter settled gentle
Where I hold my Hearth and Home.
But hard or soft, we’re ready here
To meet Her early gloam.

A year of Life is ending
At the cusp of one to be.
In health and joy, my Clan is here,
As I would hope for thee.

Yet horns of war and strife now blow,
And echo through the land.
Loud enough, I hear them yet
From where I choose to stand.

For Peace is in that place, you see,
That strife is furthest from,
But no vantage have I ever found
Whence I can’t hear its drum.

So be vigilant, my Kinsmen,
And stay ready for the Test.
Treasure thee what Peace ye find,
And hold it to your breast.

He plans to fail who wastes his time,
Thence fails to plan, ye ken?
Raise up your girls to Womanhood,
And hone your boys to Men!

Cultivate stout hearts and minds
For meeting earthly woes.
To be the Truest Comrade,
And most terrible of foes!

This Winter settled gentle
Where I hold my Hearth and Home.
But hard or soft, we’re ready here
To meet Her early gloam.

Let he who holds his life so light
As dares to cross the line,
Know the blood upon the snow
Won’t come from one of mine.

Source: Huffington Post

For me, being 3 years old, I remember receiving the one thing I truly wanted. And I remember my favorite chocolate cake in the middle of a table covered with a poinsettia tablecloth. And I remember my handsome father finally being home with us.

I think of this brown pony Christmas, and it was perfect. I didn’t notice how many presents were under the tree; I don’t remember cranky parents or long lines or fights at stores for gifts. I remember magic — with a twinkling tree, and an enormous gift for my brother and me under that tree. Riding that pony together was more fun than riding it alone could ever be: I had my partner for our adventures.

I remember it as the brightest, shiniest Christmas a little girl could imagine.

Those words conclude an article by Alexandra Rosas titled The Gift of Not Getting Everything for Christmas, published exactly a week ago by the Huffington Post Parents page. It was Mrs. LFM who found it and brought it to my attention, and while we certainly don’t buy into everything that appears there, we both consider this particular item to be a gem.

As part of her preparations for writing this article, Ms. Rosas tells of some email correspondence about this singularly wonderful childhood Christmas memory with her older sister who had retained a startlingly opposite memory of the experience.

These are the bright and beautiful memories I have of a Christmas Eve when I was barely 3 years old. It was the first year my father was in this country. While I was preparing for this post, I emailed my older sister to see if she had any details to add. My sister is eight years older, and she would have been 12 years old that Christmas.

Typing with excitement over the memory I hoped to share, I asked her, “Do you remember that Christmas that Pachito and I got that rocking pony we wanted so much?”

“Oh. That awful Christmas.” Her response stunned me. “Yes, yes, I do. You two had to share a present. It was Daddy’s first year in America, it was awful… we had nothing.”

I sat at the other end of the email, the wind knocked out of me.

“Are we talking about the same Christmas?” I typed back. “It was wonderful. Daddy was here, we had the pony, we had the chocolate cake with pink frosting at midnight…”

“No. Don’t you remember how cold we were? Your pajamas were too small. We all had to share gifts. No one else got presents except the kids.”

“But we were so happy,” I insisted. “Daddy was dressed up in a suit and tie, and mama had on her flowered dress, and ‘buelita was cooking.”

“Daddy always wore a suit and a tie.” My sister’s email became an explanation. “Mama was pregnant and had on her only good maternity dress. And our grandmother was always at the stove.”

And so it goes, Goode Reader, that for one, the glass is half empty while for another it’s half full, while for yet another, that glass is just too god damned big.

Hold on to your memories. They become our story, for good or for ill.

Since 1739, Rare Exports Inc. of Finland has been delivering impeccable, well mannered, and extremely rare, original Finnish Father Christmases to over 150 countries every Yule season without fail. On this Christmas Eve we offer a rare insight into their methods; heretofore shrouded in secrecy. (more…)

Source: http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/A7fptqyj8Ry/Cath+Kidston+s+Gift+to+London/r-ZnWACJji5

“I figure that we are hard-wired to be hunter and gatherers, and somewhere, that whole shopaholic thing expresses some kind of visceral need to acquire and store items. Once upon a time, we might have been out finding acorns and tucking them away or putting a turnip away for winter. Now, we are buying an extra top because it just might come in handy.

“Whatever kind of acquisitional need we have to protect us from the elements has kind of been subverted and perverted into just a need to acquire.” ~ Lee Simpson

You may have noticed that this time of year comes with a strong gust of hurry uppedness. For the most part, it begins before dark on 31 October when it isn’t hard to find store employees dressed as witches and zombies busily knocking down Hallowe’en displays in favour of new ones featuring Christmas ornaments. A few have the decency to hold off until the evening of 11 November, but they get rarer every year.

The hurry uppedness to which I refer is a drive to buy and bestow gifts on everyone you’ve ever met based on the premise that the measure of treasure expended in the pursuit equates with the value placed on your relationships with the recipients. I would point out that the survival of most retail stores rests exclusively on the revenues obtained through this seasonal onslaught, and associated outriders – Black Friday and Boxing Day sales. You may want to think on that.

Today, I’ll be directing your attention to a very seasonal bit of journalism from which the introductory quotation was extracted. It treats the subject of local Reverend Lee Simpson’s pledge last New Year’s Day to embark upon a quest – her formally announced “Year of Buying Nothing”.

The United Church minister and former magazine publisher vowed on Jan. 1, 2014, not to purchase anything except food and prescription medications for twelve months.

As she approaches the end of her “Year of Buying Nothing,” as she calls it, she’s learned a few lessons.

“I learned to question everything about the whole consumer pattern of behaviour,” Simpson said. “The things that I used to simply assume, I now don’t. I now stop and think.”

Read the Chronicle Herald article on her gripping adventure here, and meditate on what you may find within it until next time.

Alone on a long Winter’s night, a man’s Dog helps him find the solution.

I’m paraphrasing the introductory passage used by its creators to describe this beautiful animated short film, originally produced in 2005 by the Digital Kick and Lehrner Whyte companies as a holiday card for private distribution to their clients, family, and friends. I am most pleased that they saw fit to offer it to the rest of us in this HD version. (more…)

A Kriminal Kristmas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriminal)

Lore holds that the Wendigo is a malevolent forest spirit most active in Winter. While, under the right circumstances, it can be seen in its spirit state, it has no corporeal form. It feeds upon human flesh but is impotent to do so without first inhabiting a human host that provides it with the physical means to hunt, kill, and devour its prey.

There is no known way to destroy the Wendigo, and the only way to remove it from its host is by rendering its physical being uninhabitable through complete and utter destruction.

The Wendigo seeks its host from among the morally weak and corrupt, the envious and covetous, the malicious and blindly vengeful. Those motivated by zealotry, in all its complexions. It favours people with dark motives and axes to grind. People that can’t be trusted. Just as no one knows how to destroy a Wendigo, likewise where they came from is lost to human ken, but what is understood is that every moment a Wendigo spends languishing without a host it is unable to feed, and so it grows weaker.

It cannot be starved to anything approaching our understanding of death, but its degree of depletion will decide the quality of the host it can hope to inhabit, for even among the morally weak there are degrees of strength, and a weak host does not promise as swift and sure a hunt as one that offers greater mental and physical resources.

Similarly, the Wendigo gains greater power from the devouring of an upstanding person of the highest character than one of baser sort, and it will abandon a weaker host for a stronger one as its own power grows. In this way it steadily improves its chances of securing nourishment of the highest quality.

Evil is like the Wendigo. Study (and I really mean study) reports of the past year’s events and its footprints can be clearly seen. But here we are again, and our Spirit is strong!

I remind you, Goode Reader, that all is not lost simply because of the evil that men do; for on this Winter solstice, as on many going back into the mists of remembering, Winter is a harsh Mistress whose wrath descends upon the meagre – those who would curl up in the face of adversity – for even a quadriplegic can spit in the face of doom whilst revelling in the joy of comradeship.

Tonight, we wish you all the merriest of Yule tidings, and invite you to join our Esteemed Company on yet another jaunt into this Long Winter’s Night!

Picture trouble originates at the web host. Please stand by.

Those of you who, like me, usually start the day with a visit to Master At Arms James A. Keating‘s Ezine MAAJAK World will have noticed that the last update was a week ago today. Knowing Jim lives in the mountains where power, internet access, telephone, and even traversable roads can be an iffy proposition at times, I wasn’t concerned because combining that with the demands of his business has always dropped him off the radar from  time to time.

In response to a polite inquiry of my own – Jim? Jim? Iz you daid? Should ah be touchin’ yo eyeball wit’ a twig, seein’ if y’all blink? – I was delighted late Friday night to get a reply that told the tale, although I was more than a little gob smacked at the magnitude of it all. A combination of severe weather and web host shenanigans have put our Man with his nose to the grindstone, his shoulder to the wheel, and his ear to the ground, all while trying to stay alive and get shit done in that position. On the subject of the weather situation, he had this to say:

The day after Thanksgiving — November 27th things rapidly began to deteriorate. Temperatures were running in single digits, 6* -8* F were the norm with sleet. So we became encrusted in ice. For two days we could even leave the place due to snow and mainly thick ice. Four wheel drive didn’t cut it. We lost power. The horses can’t walk on that shit, so it kept us double busy. Then unexpectedly one of our best mares died. Something with her heart. The entire ranch was devastated – spirits down.

Then things went real chaotic and temperatures raced to 60* F and the flooding began. Power returned for about 5 hours. I couldn’t believe what was happening, such rapid changes. Right on the tail of the warm up & flood came an incredible wind storm with hell-winds well over 60 mph. It flattened everything. Trees down, uprooted and branches too many to count scattered all over. One of our friends had their roof ripped off last night. We lost power again. Spent the day and night in the cars. The trees about the house were falling – huge branches like spears coming down driven by howling winds. We couldn’t stay inside – just too much danger/damage.

The pressure from the storm blew windows out all over down in the town. From the inside outward!  Including those behind my studio. Pieces of glass (big pieces) sailing like frisbee’s out into the alley and street. Thank God no one was killed. Lots to clean up for weeks to come. Some people will have a shitty Xmas and New Year (me being one of’em). The power just came back on today Friday around 400pm. We were cooking on the Bar-B-Q since nothing else worked. Pouring rain, freezing temps out there in our coats and POW – suddenly lights came on. At two days, we were getting damn cold even with our woodstove and by the third day with no juice I was ready for a change. Was VERY happy when power was restored!! Let’s hope that it stays on for more than a few hours. Here in the mountains it is quite surreal at times. The silence, the solitude and then no power – wow, it’s like a feeling of being on Mars at times. Heh heh – psyched out.

Psyched out? I hereby grant you yet another title Goode Sir – Master At Understatement!

On top of all this, all of Jim’s personal and Comtech websites are hosted with Homestead, and here is his experience there in his own words:

Homestead (the company I use) decided to MOVE to Houston Tx from San Jose this week. They notified few if any of their millions of clients. Mind you they do this SHIT during the busiest sales time of the year for us all. One day a few days ago my shit was just gone, could not update or connect. Still can’t! Called and called, no answers…  finally I got thru after an hour wait, the poor Homestead operators are hammered w/ pissed off folks. It isn’t their fault. The one fellow told me this “I get paid to have people yell at me”.

If you operate a website, or worse yet, a web based business of your own, you’ll feel his pain. The upshot is that the down time by Homestead to get back to full operation was originally estimated at 2 to 3 weeks, however the wind and rain storm that hit Jim’s locale hit San Jose the day after. Storm damage may now push Homestead’s plans into the 6 weeks plus range, but right now, nobody knows for sure.

Anyway, as of last night Jim had power, email, and telephone restored, so if you were planning on making any Yule tide purchases from Comtech, show them folks some LOVE. Just remember though that they’re putting the world back together over there, so be patient my Friends.

So for Jim and all the rest of the Keating Clan, however many legs you may walk on, I’ll close with those among the words of Winston Spencer Churchill that always come to mind when events converge to put any of us to the Test – “If you are going through hell, keep going.”