Large Fierce Mammal

News coverage of the so called “knockout game” should have your blood boiling by now. This was inspired by it, although you are cautioned not to take it as a template for,  or recommendation of, vigilante justice. Just stay aware and always strive to ready yourself to do what needs doing, in all things.

The Game

By LFM

I learned about a game today
Called “knockout” I believe.
It’s played by those who don’t know what
To take and what to leave.

Long story short, a dare is made.
The group their target picks.
Some random stranger in the street
That will be punched for kicks.

They have no care what harm they do,
Nor if they kill or maim.
Old or young; man, woman can
Be targeted the same.

I looked into this evil thing,
And figured something out –
The victims walked familiar streets
Distracted ere the clout.

I took my theory to the street
And acted just the same.
A toothy demon seeming but
More fodder for the game.

It took some weeks but one fine day
A young man blocked my path.
I’d seen him watching me a while,
Now come to earn my wrath.

His giggling friends across the street
Now watched and egged him on,
Then fell to silence when they saw
His rightmost hand was gone.

His cock sure plan now transformed into
Flailing spray and squawking,
I split his nose, removed an ear,
My knife did all the talking.

I spared his life and sent him hence
To get his parts stitched on,
And wasn’t in the least surprised
That all his “friends” were gone.

He’ll never use his hand again,
And never look the same.
All because he picked me out
To play his stupid game.

But I hope that in the future,
When his wounds have come to heal,
He’ll not forget the message
From a foot of tempered steel.

Best “selfie” ever. (Source: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/englund-9.jpg)

Thanks once again to the unflagging vigilance of doppelgänger “Uncle Jim” Keating, I found myself laughing my way this morning through the brilliant work of Swedish Artist Andreas Englund – specifically his growing series of oil paintings depicting, “… the candidly humorous life of an anonymous superhero who has probably seen better days. Though he still puts up a tough fight, the wear and tear of battling crime has taken its toll on this elderly action figure.”

“In a kind of tender comic on a huge canvas, Englund describes the hero who is slowly but surely spending his remaining years with human traits as a link between the artist himself and the viewer. It was extremely important to Englund to portray the aging process with an intensified presence. If you want to accord credibility to a character, the character himself needs to face up reality and the aging process. He has to acknowledge to himself that he cannot live up to expectations and that the “perfect life” is nothing more than wishfulness. Englund’s artworks are focused on the maturing process. Even in the old age it is still possible to achieve something valuable although someone’s drive and vigour won’t bluster out explosively. Nevertheless everybody in his advanced age deserves to be recognised and respected for what he has achieved in life.” ~ Philipp Windmüller

Tuckered out but still in the fight. (Source: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/englund-5.jpg)

The image that tops this story is my all time favourite from the series so far, but most of the rest aren’t far behind. You can bask in the talent of the good Mr. Englund on his official website here, and read more about him in this Colossal article.

The Artist’s website elaborates on this and other subjects that bring him inspiration:

Other themes include horses and muscle cars. The horses are painted as dalecarlia horses, a famous symbol from the Swedish region of Dalecarlia, where Andreas was born.

Sit back and watch this riveting motion picture of brilliance at work. Make it full screen for maximum effect.

Beyond the announcement of his birth, I still haven’t given you my complete perspective on the experience of bringing Baby LFM into the world, but that day will come. Some of it will no doubt be revealed in snippets sprinkled here and there in items written here by either Mrs. LFM or me, and still more in dedicated collaborative articles. Mrs. LFM has her The Bared Breast series that will address the specifics of being a breast feeding Woman in Nova Scotia, and I will soon be starting a new series tentatively titled Fathercraft that will look at the philosophy, methods, and practice of raisin’ up a boy to be a Man, as us LFMs know and teach the meaning of the word. But all this is after the fact because remember, I started off today by saying that, “I still haven’t given you my complete perspective on the experience of bringing Baby LFM into the world,” and by that I specifically refer to those 45 harrowing hours of labour, an episode of fetal distress, and the ensuing emergency C-section that brought Baby LFM into the world. Both Mrs. LFM and I are still a little too close to that experience to be able to speak to it with the clarity and sensitivity it deserves, so be patient good reader.

All the darker causes of hand wringing drama aside, My incomparable Wife Mothered a perfect boy at the end of it. What I have for you today is a pictorial essay chronicling, as the title says, the advent of a Small Fierce Mammal. Most of the images will be enbiggened if you click on them.

Mrs. LFM in our driveway just before we departed our home for the South Shore Regional Hospital. While you can’t see them in this picture, there were a lot of Bees visiting the flowers on the bush next to her, some of whom became interested in her. She told them that she’d already been pollinated, thank you, and they all went back to the flowers. Yes, she’s in labour here.

Expectant parents are encouraged to prepare a written birth plan that is used by attending medical staff as a guide for providing care to Mother and child through the birthing process. As with everything else we do, Mrs. LFM and I crafted ours together, in the full understanding that Nature will do what She does, no matter what we decide. (more…)

“It takes no more than one generation of removal in time to distance human understanding from any heretofore common experience, no matter how horrific, and history has shown that people can function through pretty much anything, using it as a motivation for improvement (As Winston Churchill said, “If you are going through hell, keep going.”) Two generations of removal will also remove most of those with direct experience to relate from the late unpleasantness, and so the new reality becomes the expected one. The real one. The only one. The one that’s supposed to be owed to you and yours. ~ Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 16: The Dark Side of Child Rearing

I was born in 1957, and for Canadians of my generation, World Wars 1 and 2 can be compared to what can be said today of cancer, in that it would have been a difficult task during our formative years to swing the proverbial dead cat without hitting a member of a family that had been touched to its very marrow by war. Someone near and dear had died or been indelibly changed for the worst by it.

As I’ve previously written on the occasion of another Remembrance Day:

“… most of what matters to me in life was shaped by growing up surrounded by people who lived through, and/or served in some capacity during, World War 2. Of the next door neighbours, one couple consisted of a British engineer who had flown bombers for the RAF, and his Canadian wife. She had been a military nurse who met her husband in England while tending to his wounds in hospital after his bomber was shot up. Those two taught me how to fish and I spent many happy enthralled hours in their company.

On the other end of the block was another couple, the husband of which had served in the Royal Canadian Army, finishing out his service as a small arms instructor to the end of the war. A founding member of the Lunenburg Rod & Gun Club … he taught me to shoot, and I am privileged to own the service pistol he carried during his time in uniform.

In adulthood, I either am, or have been, honoured to know a Lancaster pilot, a US Navy F4U Corsair pilot who served both in World War 2 and the Korean War, two men who went ashore on D-Day, and another who landed with an armored unit the following day. Along the way, I’ve also spent some enjoyable hours with a Spitfire Mk.IX pilot and a week getting to know a retired RCAF Sabre pilot while we were attending the same course and practicing our drinking and limerick recitals in the evenings. No bombast or chest beating. Just ordinary people who did extraordinary things. Things we all need to be eternally and unforgettingly grateful for ….”

To this list of people who matter to me I would also like to add Esteemed Friends I have come to know who have put their asses on the line in Vietnam, Israel, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in places where they were called upon to do their Duty as they saw it. If you think those wars and the things these people were or are called upon to do, are horribly wrong, then I would suggest that every one of them might agree with you, for let it never be forgotten that the soldier hates war worse than anyone, but being good at waging it does not make the soldier the cause of war, only the one who puts a temporary end to it for as far as he can see from where he’s standing, and justifiable pride can be found in winning the fight without it being misinterpreted as a glorification of war itself. My maternal Grandfather, who served as a sniper in WW1, when sufficiently provoked was wont to tell the provocateur, “I killed better men than you in the war,” meaning that while he never got to know the full measure of those men, he knew enough to make a comparison with what stood before him in the present moment. Think on that sentiment.

I began this piece with a reminder that time distances those now living from the lessons to be learned from the lives of those who have come before. Let me add this – Adolf Hitler didn’t invent genocide, and ideals of world domination exist as strongly today as they have always done. If it only takes a single generation to forget this, then the same can be said of anything, including skill at arms and a willingness to stand in harm’s way. When the Wolf is at the door, you will be happy that a few have never forgotten.

Ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Today, the word “hero” is entirely too freely flung about, but its true meaning has been thoroughly defined, and I will give the closing spotlight to crime novelist Raymond Chandler as I have previously quoted him:

“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean; who is neither tarnished nor afraid. (He) must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man…. He talks as the man of his age talks; that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.”

“… He is the hero, he is everything. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honour; by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.

“… he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honour in one thing, he is that in all things….

“He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. … his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.

“The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.”

Take this to your heart before you condemn this day of Remembrance as a celebration of war.

The late but meddlesome Harry Houdini.

This past Hallowe’en, a seance was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia in keeping with a long standing tradition:

“Each year since his death 87 years ago, a séance has been held somewhere in the world on Halloween in an attempt to contact Houdini. This year it was held in Halifax.

“Organizers said about 85 to 90 people gathered at the Halifax Citadel to celebrate Houdini and attempt to contact him on the anniversary of his death.

“‘We live and hope. He hasn’t yet,’ said magician Mr. J, who performed at the séance.” ~ Harry Houdini summoned at Halifax seance

Really? So how is that the SFM has suddenly developed an ability to escape from swaddling? Thanks one fuck of a lot Harry.

A closing message from your hosts. (Izabella Kleszczynski photo – click to enlarge.)

Hallowe’en has come, and with it the 5th anniversary of one of the greatest moments in my life – the day in 2008 when Mrs. LFM and I were married.

We’re big on the anniversaries here, and so too are the forces of Nature that surround us it would seem, for many of ours coincide with interesting dates in history. In my article 11 September 2001 Changed My Life Forever, I commemorated the crossing of paths of a particularly dark day in the lives of many with a particularly brilliant day in mine. The birth this year of our beautiful and much anticipated son Viktor, herein referred to – at least for a while – as the SFM (Small Fierce Mammal), occurred at almost exactly the same time, and on the 12th anniversary of, the first time I kissed his incomparable Mother, and he was 10 days late in coming just so he could make the connection.

And so we’re off to celebrate many things, and thank you all for coming.

Until next year.

Of all the peoples in all the lands, none harbours such a brooding darkness as the Irish, and of the history of their nation, there is none anywhere dark enough to compare. Even the national drink is impenetrable.

Today we have the tale of a hapless traveller serendipitously gifted with an encounter that will leave him both wiser and poorer. I give you today a very special education in the History of Ireland. I apologize in advance for the lack of subtitles bearing English translation.

Reproduced by permission of Erin Zingré.

Back on Day 13 I made reference to The Order of the Good Death, the mission statement of which is, in part:

The Order is about making death a part of your life. That means committing to staring down your death fears- whether it be your own death, the death of those you love, the pain of dying, the afterlife (or lack thereof), grief, corpses, bodily decomposition, or all of the above. Accepting that death itself is natural, but the death anxiety and terror of modern culture are not.

Source: http://ostrobogulation.com/2011/05/11/memento-mori-victorian-era-postmortem-photography/

This departure from times not so far removed that now governs the way we treat death and dying – a timely news flash that we have not “evolved beyond all that”, and that Death is neither obsolete nor gone out of fashion – is presently undergoing a renaissance of sorts, and it is informative to learn that such a timely organization as The Order of the Good Death is attracting the minds and talents of medical and funeral professionals as well as, “… filmmakers, poets, musicians, artists, and writers exploring ways to prepare a death phobic culture for their inevitable mortality.” The Order’s member portfolio is most impressive.

It was my personal interest in such topics, the healthy move back to embracing Death as an inextricably linked and unavoidable part of Life, and most particularly my research into the phenomenon of the Memento mori, that first brought to my attention the talented woman whose work is the subject of today’s Dark Sentiment.

Erin Zingré describes herself on her website as, “… a young graphic designer from Kansas, harboring a passion for cats, whimsical illustrations, and design that rouses discussion.” It’s that last of her passions that brings us here today – to review her award winning book Likeness: Early Postmortem Photography and the Pornography of Death. (more…)

Mrs. LFM on our wedding day – Hallowe’en 2008.

The beauty of the feminine eye can lend itself to embellishment that transcends natural gifts, and as the ecstatically happy Mate, Husband, and co-conspirator of a Woman with eyes both to live and to die for, it is my decree that today’s Dark Sentiment is all about seasonal eye candy.

This year has seen the appearance of such strikingly artistic examples that it’s almost a shame to consider their falling afoul of makeup remover at the end of the night. Taker a peek, as it were.

The first one is called “Virus Infection” (source could not be reliably verified) but it puts me in mind of the Old Ash Tree Katy Towell warns us all not to go near.

Next, a look inspired by a Bat themed party (source here).

I enjoy the asymmetry of this (source here).

With no offense meant to the artists involved, this next one is my second favourite of those I’ve found this season. Not your average “eye shadow” (source here).

And now, winner of the Dark Sentiments 2013 LFM favourite award for inspired and incredibly artistic use of an eyebrow (source here).

On the heels of yesterdays Dark Sentiment that spoke of magickal invisibility rings and the weakness of Man in favour of evil doing in the face of certain – or at least perceived – anonymity, today I present something a bit more uplifting.

A School History of England was written by C.R.L.Fletcher and Rudyard Kipling, and a modest printing occurred in 1911. Counted among Kipling’s contribution are twenty-two poems (or twenty-three, depending on who you talk to), including the one we’re going to look at here.

“Dane-geld” is a term used to describe either the paying of blackmail or protection money, or the figurative taking it up the ass to get the easy way out instead of solving the issue once and for all. Regardless of application, the philosophy is the same – paying Dane-geld is not on.

Rudyard Kipling has been given credit for inventing the term, but he really only deserves credit for making it a thing of common usage. Ah, how I yearn for those heady days of yesteryear before the decay of literacy saw overt misspellings of even simple words granted official acceptance in dictionaries of the English language on the grounds of “common usage”.

You may wish to read the poem in its entirety here while listening to this entertaining musical version performed by Michael Longcor, from his CD titled Norman and Saxon.