Large Fierce Mammal

As promised yesterday, here we are for a romp on the dark side. What else is new?

Northern Europe is home to a rich cornucopia of mythology centered around the doings of entities, deities, and personalities that practice their own rituals at this time of the rolling year. Born of harsher times, these are naturally harsh affairs, and not always the kind of things you would like to get mixed up in.

The hoary old folk tales originally loosed upon the world courtesy of the Brothers Grimm were nothing like the cutesy stuff now read in nurseries, something Mrs. LFM touched on in her Dark Sentiments – Day 29 article. Similarly, that jolly old elf modern children know, love, and lay out snacks for on Christmas Eve wasn’t always so lovable. After all, we are known by the company we keep.

What misbehaving children in those good old days had to fear was a lot worse than the idle threat of a lump of coal in their stocking, because St. Nick was only one side of a very nasty equation.

St. Nicholas travelled through the land accompanied by a demonic creature known by a variety of names, but most commonly Krampus. Most often depicted as more than a little Satanic in his appearance, if Krampus punishes your bad behaviour with a lump of coal, it will involve lighting it on fire first and shoving it up your ass. Not diligent in your school work? He’ll drown you in a lake of ink, fish your saturated carcass out with a pitch fork, and fling it into  the deepest pits of Hell. In a world before Young Offenders Acts and restorative justice, Krampus had it covered. Meanwhile, St. Nick was busy rewarding the true believers who really were good all year.

For lighter offenses, Krampus carried an assortment of switches with which to whip the offenders, and a large supply in a wicker basket on his back so breakage at inconvenient moments wouldn’t slow him down. In countries where children put out their shoes instead of stockings for St. Nicholas to bestow with treats, a child might receive a warning from Krampus instead, by way of a stout stick left there to facilitate some parental discipline before he had to come back some future night and take matters into his own claws.

A repository of all things Krampus is the aptly named Krampus.com – Home of the Xmas Devil. The site contains a rollicking good collection of Krampus lore, images of historic greeting cards (presumably for sending to people who needed a warning to pull up their socks), and generally all the ingredients for hours of dark fun for the black of heart.

Krampus is enjoying a resurgence in popularity as the world unearths its dark Yuletide past. Krampusnacht (Krampus night) is once again being celebrated, with participants dressing as devils, demons, wild men, witches, and every other delightful thing normally associated with that other dark time – Hallowe’en. I think it’s time for Mrs. LFM and me to adopt a new tradition.

Krampus – He’ll whip you pious!

This picture has only peripheral connection with the subject of this article, thanks to effing Martin.

Every time I embark on a series of articles that connect with a theme, for example Dark Sentiments that runs the entire 31 days of October each year, and now A Long Winter’s Night which will likewise be an annual event running from 21-31 December, my fevered brain generates content that far o’erflows the allotted time. Not to worry though, we throw nothing away, and it all goes into the LFM cellar where it mellows for a future tasting.

Some days I start off with a plan to publish one thing, and then thanks to the Gods of Serendipity, I’m inspired to take a different tack. Today is one of those redirected days, and you can thank my esteemed, though rarely seen, crime scene investigator friend Martin for that. You will remember my references to him in an article I put here back on 3 October 2010, in the first incarnation of Dark Sentiments. An article festooned with a pumpkin’s ass crack, published on a date that coincided with his birthday. Martin’s birthday, not the pumpkin’s.

Well I mention Martin because as I entered one of my local grocery stores today I first espied his wife and daughter, both of whom looked lovely by the way, and then the man himself. I wouldn’t do him but he looked pretty good too. Anyway, seeing Martin reminded me of my 17 years in the emergency dispatch business – bastard – and then of the times I was MC at Lunenburg – Mahone Bay Police Service Christmas parties. That put me in mind of a persona I created specifically for those times – a nasty son of a bitch that came to be known as Fuck Off the Christmas Elf.

You will remember I referred to Fuck Off in a Hallowe’en bent back on 24 October in Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 24: A Night on the Town, but he/it was born on a night when my bony ass, clad in camo, elf booties, and pointed green hat, sat upon Santa’s equally bony knee. Santa was played by my esteemed friend Kevin the Sauerkraut King, who, as his nom de guerre implies, when not playing Santa at police Christmas parties is a professional maker of magically wondrous sauerkraut … but I digress.

Santa asked this thing on his knee what its name was. The answer I’m sure you guessed, so Santa replied, “I’m pleased to meet you Fuck Off!” and the rest is history. The back story is that Fuck Off has a condo in Hell and fills in for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse whenever one of them goes on vacation or stress leave.

In later years, Fuck Off sported combat boots, woodland camo pants, a black shirt, chain mail vest, Gargoyle sunglasses, a Santa hat, and a Cuban cigar, filling in for Santa after the jolly old elf decided to stop presiding over police Christmas parties because he found them too phlegmatic. I regret I have no photographic evidence of these appearances, and invite anyone who was victimized by the sarcastic, mean tempered bastard, and managed to record it, to send your pictures to me via this website.

Tonight I intended to write about a certain other Christmas demon but now, thanks to Martin, that will have to wait for tomorrow.

“Relax the Eyes, See The Candle ‘Breathe’ ~ Now Take Time ~ Take Time for Reflection – Thank Your Ancestors, Regain your Direction & Become ‘Ready’….” ~ Master at Arms James A. Keating

For those caught up in its currents, a lot of you are now in that all too familiar state of holiday depletion and not quite rightness that comes of a combination of too much drinking, excessive eating of unaccustomed things at irregular intervals, too little sleep, and the throbbing head pressure that inevitably results from the exercise of diplomacy by amateurs. Some of you are constipated, some in the midst of migraine attacks, and still others both. By now, some of you have been, are presently, or shortly will be, in jail. By New Year’s Day, some of you will be dead.

The Winter Solstice has passed, a new year is born and the days grow longer, but for all truly practical reasons, winter is still coming. Take a moment to sit back, relax, and be in the moment as you find that rhythm of breathing you truly need right now,  even as the candle has found its own.

Meditate on the advice of Wise Ol’ Uncle Jim. Our calendar year begins with its most challenging months, and you will need to find Nature’s harmony within yourself to meet them.

Last evening Mrs. LFM and I did something that’s an annual tradition for some people, but we’ve never done before – I took her to the Christmas Day opening of a movie. Specifically, we viewed the 2011 incarnation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Clicking on the embedded link will take you to the official movie website where I was amused to find myself greeted with the English translation of a Swedish proverb, “What is hidden in snow, comes forth in the thaw.” While it sounds very deep and I can think of a number of applications for it, my amusement springs from suspicion that it was first given voice by a Swedish dog owner after surveying his garden one spring morning long ago.

This is another interpretation of the first in a three part series of crime/espionage novels written by the late Stieg Larsson – the Millenium Trilogy –  that was first put to film in what to our minds was a superior Swedish production released under the original literary title, Män som hatar kvinnor  (Men Who Hate Women)  in 2009, and in 2010 as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in Swedish with English subtitles. Both films were well acted and more or less equal in production quality, but speaking for ourselves, Mrs. LFM and I would much rather watch a film in its original language supported by subtitles than one that features, as in this case, British and American actors doing their lines in Swedish accents. By contrast, Stellan Skarsgård, who actually is Swedish, performed his lines without any native accent at all, sounding more American than anything else, and Englishman Daniel Craig didn’t even try.

All things considered though, this is a worthy way to spend three hours, and I will say that the 2011 version contains more elements of the amount of eating and drinking that appears regularly in the novels, pointing to Stieg Larsson being a man who enjoyed his food and drink, than the Swedish one. I first wrote of this literary phenomenon in my 20 September 2010 article, The Sandwich with the Dragon Tattoo which chronicles the LFM Kitchen’s interpretation and development of a particular open  faced sandwich featuring pickled herring in a mustard sauce with hard boiled egg and chives, that captured our interest as soon as we read its description in the novel. Clicking on the title of that article will take you there, and I will add that as soon as the bread is done baking, Mrs. LFM and I will be dining tonight on this very same delicacy.

It’s particularly timely to note that pickled herring features prominently in the winter cuisine of countries steeped in the skills of surviving harsh times, and not surprisingly, variations on the dish routinely appear in traditional Christmas time menus throughout northern Europe as well as in other countries with ancestral cultural ties to them. A little internet digging for Scandinavian and Polish Christmas vittles will inevitably turn up pickled herring recipes in no time, and from the LFM house to  yours, we’ll save you the time and offer you ours.

Bon appetit.

Whether you be celebrating or just suffering through it, here we are on Christmas Day! Most of you probably are at a point where reading one of my usual diatribes will be impossible because you’ll be scanning the same line repeatedly, so I’m going to spare you in favour of a brief introduction to some seasonal musical accompaniment.

As I’ve said previously in this series, the road to the celebration of Christmas as we know it today has given birth to some traditions, legends, and beautiful musical expressions that the world would be much worse without. Christian believer or not, a classic Christmas carol, beautifully arranged and performed, is a thing of magick not to be denied.

Some years back I heard an interview with now retired CBC Broadcaster Frank Cameron. He had started his career in radio, and along the way had acquired a reputation for hating all Christmas music. He set the record straight, stating emphatically that he had nothing but love for true Christmas carols, and what he actually hated was the accumulation of contrived Christmas songs that every popular musician seemed hell bent on throwing together in the inevitable Christmas album. Songs, I might add, that his occupation required him to play, year after year. I don’t believe any of us need to think very hard before we start to feel his pain – I myself have a permanent callus on my left thumb from reflexively fingering the edge of the nearest blade whenever I hear Feliz Navidad. Nevertheless, the advent of musical talent is not a thing of the past, and uncontrived original creations of incredible beauty continue to appear outside the realm of traditional carols, from all genres, inspired by this season. I regret to say, not everything that follows conforms to that description. (more…)

Mrs. LFM and I had traditional Christmas experiences in our mutual upbringings. We both grew up steeped in that peculiar amalgam of Christian observances,  family traditions, seasonal flavours and smells,  feverish preparation, and breathless anticipation that, for us kids, began with the arrival of the first Christmas gift catalogues mere weeks following the annual return to school in September. The first hint of frigidity in the air, white frost replacing dew on the grass, and the appearance of the first snow flakes that spent their brief lives fanning the fires of youthful frenzy before perishing with the first touch of the as yet unfrozen ground; all these had meaning born of a steady indoctrination each child growing up in Canada was, and is, subjected to. I know it’s the same elsewhere, but neither of us had the time to try out growing up in other places for comparison, so I’ll restrict my observations to The Great White North.

Notwithstanding that we were born 25 years apart, as children of less than affluent families, we saw the preparations – all the buying, the organizing, the calendar checking, the baking – from a child’s perspective, so we each believed our parents were having as much fun as we were. That they were involved in doing all these things year after year because they were actually having fun doing it. We didn’t see how much the strain that came with the arrival of autumn and the return to school, and the promise of winter with its own seasonal stresses, was being compounded by the runaway obligations of Christmas time. (more…)

Click the picture to enbiggen. Source: http://th08.deviantart.net/fs50/PRE/i/2009/326/8/9/Happy_Festivus_by_PoSmedley.jpg

If you’ve ever met anyone who watched even one episode of Seinfeld, you’ve heard of Festivus, AKA “A festivus for the rest of us”. If you’ve dug a little further, you’ll also know that today is the day.

The origins of Festivus are not lost in antiquity. They lie in the writings and family practices of Daniel Lawrence O’Keefe of Chappaqua, New York, who was an editor for Reader’s Digest, and made the first known references to the holiday in 1966. Theories have been espoused that the twenty-third of December date is significant because it lies between the day of the Winter Solstice and Christmas Day, but O’Keefe himself explains that it actually marks the anniversary of his first date with his wife Deborah, and so became an annual day of celebration well before the couple had children.Traditions associated with Festivus developed until, as son Daniel the Younger reports, they came to include:

• A wrestling match among the celebrant children;
• An airing of grievances recorded on audiotape for posterity, in which each person present would explain in  detail all the ways they have been disappointed by their family in the past year;
• A clock in a bag, and if there is anyone now living who knows what the hell that was about, they aren’t saying; and
• A theme that changed every year, including such choices as, “Too easily made glad?” and “Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?”

Festivus wasn’t widely known outside the O’Keefe family until son Daniel, employed as a writer on Seinfeld, introduced it into the show where it took on a new life all its own. In the show, Festivus grew out of a combative department store epiphany experienced by Frank Costanza (Jerry Stiller). It will save me a lot of typing if I let him explain it in his own words … and actions.

I felt pangs of déjà vu as I listened to that the first time, because back in the midst of the first wave of the Cabbage Patch Kid craze, I personally witnessed a similar event that occurred between two women and resulted in complete destruction of the prize before management were able to restrain both combatants and throw them off the premises. That’s a tale I promise to relate in more detail before this Long Winter’s Night is through.

As it evolved through Seinfeld, the trappings and traditions of Festivus saw further refinement until they included:

• The traditional Festivus feast – meat loaf;
• The Festivus “tree” – the bare aluminum pole Frank referred to;
• “The airing of grievances” remained, but got expanded outside of family to include friends who, after all, are the family you pick;
• “The feats of strength” became an event where the head of a household challenged someone to a wrestling match which signalled the end of Festivus when one or the other got pinned. Wikipedia lists a rule for the challenged that states, “A participant is allowed to decline to attempt to pin the head of the family only if they have something better to do instead.”

Speaking for ourselves, Mrs. LFM and I have practiced our own version of “The Feats of Strength” for pretty much as long as we’ve known each other. The exception is that, in our case, no matter who wins, there really isn’t a loser, and the party just begins when somebody gets pinned.

Festivus continues to grow in popularity for reasons I think this quote, attributed to the Boston Globe, puts best:

“Behind its popularity, devotees say, are its absence of presents, accent on idiocy, and refreshing lack of familial psychodrama. Festivus may have its own quirky rituals, they note, but none involving theology, batteries, reindeer, political correctness, or parental guilt.”

“We plunged into the cornucopia quivering with desire and the ecstasy of unbridled avarice.” ~ Adult Ralphie narrating about diving with his brother into the gifts under the Christmas tree, A Christmas Story (1983)

Winter Solstice at Stonehenge 2005 (Chris Young photo)

Today is the very day I talked about yesterday – the Winter Solstice is upon us and tomorrow the sun begins once again to ascend the sky, bringing with it the promise of renewal with each lengthening day. We humans like to believe that celestial events such as this only have meaning if their significance can be recognized within the context of mythology, but go no further than your own  back yard and you will see how fundamentally the season of winter, its onset heralded by shortened daylight hours and cooling temperatures, influences every other living thing. In truth, the existence of the Winter Solstice has influenced all life on this planet since long before there were humans to recognize it.

Most recent of the major religions to adopt the Winter Solstice as a focal point is Christianity, with the festival of Christmas celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Biblical scholars differ on the actual timing of Christ’s birth, but the general consensus is that it was nowhere near the 25th of December, and much historical evidence points to the date having more to do with making it easier for Christian practices to mesh with those already in use by people targeted for conversion. This is a time tested practice for spreading religious convictions that was in use long before anyone ever heard of Jesus Christ, and facilitates relatively peaceful assimilation with minimal blood shed, at least none when anybody is looking.

While in North America we have a broad spectrum of thriving and vibrant non-Christian systems of spiritual understanding and practice that energize their own festive celebrations at this time of year, we live with a peculiarly feverish secular seasonal phenomenon that bears the same name as  the Christian festival. While I will not accept any shred of truth inherent in the trite expression, “Jesus is the reason for the season”, because he isn’t, I will accept the moral truth in a rewording to read, “Jesus is the reason I celebrate the season”. That’s not my reason, but if it’s yours then you should feel that way. Another often heard saying is, “Let’s put Christ back in Christmas”, and that one I have no problems with, as long as the person employing it sincerely adheres to Christian beliefs, and is therefore expressing their righteous outrage at the way enterprise has so successfully usurped the entire affair. Or rather, has been permitted to do so, because it’s not like the marketing moguls staged a hostile takeover.

The meaning of Christmas in the minds of most North Americans is a miracle of brand consciousness. In the same way that every facial tissue gets unthinkingly referred to as a “Kleenex”, and all ASA tablets are spoken of as “Aspirin”, the shopping, partying, drinking, eating, and gift exchanging season of debauchery that first rears its head as soon as Hallowe’en is out of the way is called Christmas, even by non-Christians who have their own observances. No bloody wonder there’s confusion in the ranks of the Great Unwashed.

For my own part, I don’t believe there should be hints of Christmas ornamentation in stores any sooner than the 12th of November, the day after Remembrance Day, and yet as I picked up some groceries at the local Superstore on the afternoon of this past Hallowe’en, I found bargain bins full of Hallowe’en clearance items, their places on shelves taken by a glittering assortment of Christmas trimmings. The entire scene was rendered all the more incongruous by the staff member breezing by them, dressed as a witch.

There is much of true value to be found in this season, as there has always been, but you won’t find it by letting the din that’s hell bent on leaving you exhausted, hung over, and broke on the first day of January drown it out.

If the Winter Solstice came to a forest clearing in the middle of nowhere, and nobody was there to notice, would it still have happened? You bet your ass it would.

If there is one thing to be learned from history, it’s that from a practical standpoint, people don’t learn anything from history. The winter solstice – the interval of time that surrounds the shortest day, and likewise the longest night of the annual cycle, has held deep spiritual meaning for human societies as long as there have been humans to organize societies worthy of the name.

Winter, in latitudes where sub-freezing temperatures can occur, brings with it harsh realities that only frantic and organized preparation in the months prior can meet with any hope of success, leading to the passing down of parables such as the story of the ant and the grasshopper, and the legend of the Wendigo. This is not hard to grasp, but the significance of the winter solstice is so profound that it has not gone unnoticed even by the inhabitants of lands with much more benign climates, where the season doesn’t ride in sharing a horse with the Angel of Death.

Pre-Christian history is full of spiritual beliefs that personify the sun as a deity who dies and is resurrected, even as the sun that reaches its shortest period of life in the sky is reborn to linger just a little longer each day in the blessed march toward what is hoped to be a new year full of hope and prosperity. With Christianity came a similar legend in the story of Jesus Christ, who gave his name to the festival we call Christmas. And so it continues.

Spiritual observances surrounding the winter solstice, even in such climes of winter dearth as northern Europe and North America, are often characterized by feasting and revelry of a degree that seems logistically ironic to the point of negligence if taken from a purely practical view, but ill befall him who shows lack of trust in his Gods by hoarding instead.

These facts are the launching point for what will be an annual event. Beginning today and running up to include New Year’s Eve, this will be the first in an eleven part series of articles in which I will make personal observations on the season of Yule as I have come, and am still coming, to know it.

The incomparable Mrs. LFM and me in a picture taken at last weekend's SHAID Animal Shelter fund raising piss up. $600.00 were raised, which may not sound like much, but it's actually quite an accomplishment. Congratulations to the organizers! In these parts, when it comes to the fight for animal welfare, we're used to shovelling shit against the tide.

“In judging a book by its cover, never forget that you may come to be afforded a closer view while you are being bludgeoned with it.” ~ The Large Fierce Mammal’s Small but Weighty Book of Etiquette, Vol. 1

Abroad of a recent evening, Mrs. LFM and I were exiting our local shopping mall at the same time two twenty something males were entering. Because they were both obviously intoxicated, had likewise (not surprisingly) clearly fixated on Mrs. LFM’s feminine pulchritude through the glass of the door without noticing I was even there, and were clearly going to arrive at the door approximately the same time we would be, I interposed myself with predatory eye. I got noticed.

As the two continued on past, no doubt on their way to be refused service at the watering hole within, one was heard to say to the other, in tones dripping with horror at the injustice of the world, “How does a guy like that get a hot woman like her?”

The words of an unkempt male drunk, hitting the bars with another male of the same description. Neither Mrs. LFM nor I heard the reply to his query, but we doubt either will ever find the answer.