Treats for Halloween

For my favorite holiday in my favorite season, here are some favorites for Halloween...

The inimitable Vincent Price reading A Hornbook for Witches:



And one of my favorite stories for Halloween, Poor Little Saturday by Madeleine L'Engle. It's collected in A Newbery Halloween, which is a sweet, spooky treasure.

Happy Haunting!

Groundhog Days

A little mixtape for Groundhog Day, or for going around in circles waiting for spring:

October Tricks & Treats

Here's a roundup of images from my annual weird roadtrip (this year's destination was Pittsburgh), and general October spookiness. Included is a link to this year's Halloween mixtape. Happy Haunting, and many eerie returns!

(the Cathedral of Learning)

(hanging object by Thorsten Brinkmann at La Hütte Royal)

(an excellent record store find... listen here)

(the oldest funicular railway in the United States)

(crypt stained glass in Homewood Cemetery)

(Cathedral Commons Room)

(an old favorite... listen here)

(horse chestnuts or conkers)

(our favorite bat cat)

(homemade ginger wasabi chocolates)

And last, but not least, this year's Halloween mix:

Everything's gone green

Dorothea Lange, Michael Kenneally, County Clare, Ireland, 1954

My grandpa, known as Red, loved his Irish heritage (his father was a half-Irish horse trader). In their honor, here's a little mixtape for St. Patrick's Day. Wishing you love and luck.




(playlist direct link)

another Halloween mixtape

Another little mixtape for my favorite season (listen to last year's mixtape here, and the 2014 mix here)!



Happy Halloween!

Memento mori day trip

This year's weird October road trip included a visit to Edgar Allan Poe's house and grave, the final resting places of Johnny Eck, sideshow performer and star of Freaks, and Ouija board inventor Elijah Bond, lavender milkshakes at Papermoon Diner, John Waters' favorite bookstore, and oddity shopping at Bazaar.

Poe's house in Baltimore, where he wrote Berenice, and other stories

Poe's memorial grave, Westminster Hall Burying Ground

Westminster Hall, Baltimore

a crypt in Westminster Hall Burying Ground

a statue in Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore

Johnny Eck and his twin brother Robert,
both buried in Green Mount cemetery

Sadly, one place I would have loved to visit on my weird day out, the Shipley-Lydecker house in Baltimore, no longer stands:

built in 1903, the design of its facade was lifted almost wholesale by
Imagineer Ken Anderson for the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland

October viewing...

I keep a list of spooky, autumnal films I love to watch in October. As a Halloween baby, this is my favorite time of year. To mark the season, here's a list of 13 favorites:

The Exorcist (1973)...

It's scary, and disturbing, and even sad, but there are also beautifully shot scenes of Autumn in New York and DC.

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)...

This movie has one of my favorite trick-or-treating scenes of all time. Margaret O'Brien trying to be the 'most horrible' feels the way Halloween did for me when I was very little.

Over the Garden Wall (2013)...

Like most of my favorite Halloween things, Over the Garden Wall is spooky, beautiful, and a little bit heartbreaking. It has its roots in classics of early animation, as well as 19th century folk music.