Vincent Speaks!

Halloween Countdown Day 28

It just isn't Halloween without the mellifluous tones of Vincent Price and now, courtesy of a LiveJournal friend of my friend Anne, you can experience his full range with The Twelve Greatest Things Vincent Price Ever Did (A Personal List--Your Price May Vary).

I'd forgotten about the Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture Kit (1975) until I read this article. I'm 53 and I still want one!



Addendum: a YouTube video of the 2008 Richmond (VA) Zombie Walk!

Skulls Again

Halloween Countdown Day 27

Spotted today on Boing Boing Gadgets:

"A zygomatic bone glommed together from old sauce pots; a mandible constructed from rusty whisks; a maxilla ossified from dinner plates and moustachioed with unwashed spoons. This gloriously sepulchral skull constructed entirely from old cookware and crockery was on display in London's Regent Park a couple weeks ago as part of the Frieze Art Fair."

Oh, what I wouldn't give to have this on my front lawn (such as it is). Properly lit, this would be the coolest, bestest, awesomest Halloween decoration ever!

More Music, Please!

Halloween Countdown Day 26

Novelty Halloween songs are all well and good (examples: the classic "Dinner With Drac" and yet another version of "The Monster Mash," this one featuring Mannheim Steamroller and William Marshall), but we all know Halloween is less about monsters and more about the lifting of the veil between the living and the dead.

Which leads us to Teen Death Songs (YouTube links): "Leader of the Pack," "Teen Angel,"Last Kiss," "Tell Laura I Love Her,"and so many others, all shrewdly calculated to make teenage girls of the '50s and '60s go gooey inside.

But how about the ultimate Teen Death/Halloween crossover?



Yeah, liven...uh...deaden up your Halloween party with that!

And before I leave:



One more (though I've posted it before), for Wayne:

G. W. Posts! Zombies Invade Richmond! Other Halloween Stuff!

Halloween Countdown Day 26

My friend Wayne writes:

"I've been Major Tom this week, I took my protein pills and put my helmet on . . . Just out in space deciding what direction seemed the one I needed to take. Then I realized it was Hallowe'en coming up, and last year around this time I was posting on the way cool song 'Frankenstein's Den' by The Hollywood Flames."

I relate, especially to the second sentence, except in Wayne's case he's been productive while all I've done is watch reruns of House and NCIS (not surprisingly, I have an incredible crush on Abby*) while sorting through my late father's coin collection.**

I even skipped out on the 2008 Richmond, VA Zombie Walk.

Well, it was cold and rainy and dreary, perfect zombie weather, but not so good for zombie photography,*** so I stayed home with the cat, figuring maybe they'd postpone the event to Sunday.

They didn't. Here's the proof.

*sigh* There's always next year.

In other Halloween-oriented news, Boing Boing links us to some Insanely Intricate Pumpkin Carvings...


And some seasonally appropriate artwork by horror virtuoso Clive Barker...


*And anyone who knows me and the character will understand why, but STAY AWAY! I saw her first on The Drew Carey Show!


**It's actually more of a coin accumulation, but that's a post for another time.

***And since I've only gone so as to document the event in years past (see my 2007 photos) I had a hard time mustering the motivation to go out into the drizzle. Yeah, I could have dressed up and left my camera at home and I may do so next year--with my body proportions I'm thinking of going as the zombified version of the Skipper from Gilligan's Island--a simple costume to put together assuming I can get the make-up right and find a willing individual to walk along with me as a half-eaten Gilligan.

Halloween Miscellaneous

Poopie-bears. I got distracted (don't ask) and wound up ignoring the Halloween Countdown for an entire week. In fact, I just realized I never even finished my supposed catch-up post. Sucks for me that life interferes with my having fun. Ah, well; better late than never.


Halloween Countdown Day 15

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I said I was going to play catch-up and then wussed out on Day 14, but I have an excuse--last night my friend (and Hugh Laurie look-alike) Robio* dragged me to the The National for the Buckethead concert, which is vaguely-- vaguely--Halloween-related. To wit,

Buckethead wears a (KFC**) bucket on his head and a white plastic (William Shatner) mask similar to that of Michael Myers.*** He was inspired to wear both items on the night he watched Halloween 4.^[1] Whenever dressed like this (most of the time during performances) he represents a character who was 'raised by chickens, and has made it his mission in life to alert the world to the ongoing chicken holocaust in fast-food joints around the globe.'

Here he is leading off with some specifically Halloween-appropriate music:



When he wandered offstage he probably sucked down a few frou-frou Halloween Cocktails:


*His name is actually Robert, but a few years ago when his hair was much longer we used to tease him that he was going for the Fabio look. The name stuck. Mea culpa.

**But not last night; he wore a generic white fast food bucket instead. My guess is the KFC people caught wind of his act and expressed a little... concern, since guitar music fully capable of sterilizing toads at 2000 yards is probably not something they want associated with their corporate image.

***Don't forget the boiler suit! We musn't forget that!

Halloween Countdown Catch-Up

Halloween Countdown Day 13
("Thirteen...thirteen...thirteen...")

Anti-virus software fixed. Computer all better now. Sissy Spacek crush in remission. Countdown resumes. Randomness (i.e., few transitional phrases) ensues.

The banner link above should tell you all you need to know--I'm not the only freak who worships at the altar and cauldron of Halloween (no, I didn't make it, you goofballs; I ain't that skilled). Seems there's a whole (g)host of people doing a "31 Days of Halloween" thing and you really need to check 'em out--cool stuff a-plenty!

Speaking of cool stuff...



Mr. Gervais will even sell you a DVD loaded with this and other animations.

Shifting gears abruptly, my belief is that a good Halloween party demands a good Halloween game and Mafia variant Do You Worship Cthulhu? looks to be a winner:

"One person acts as moderator, overseeing a village of people, one (or more) of which are secretly Cthulhu worshippers! The worshippers begin sacrificing other villagers one by one. Deceive your friends and lie through your teeth..."

Because, let's face it, any game based on deception and lying to your friends guarantees hilarity will follow.

Eventually, I'm going to do what everyone else seems to do around this time of year--post my favorite Halloween-related music links (and there are many); meanwhile, let's get the obligatory "Monster Mash" (interesting trivia on the Wikipedia link) out of the way, but this time with a twist. See, the song was originally co-written and recorded by Bobby "Boris" Pickett then, much to his annoyance, immediately covered by venerable Horror Host John Zacherle. Forty years later the two of them performed what no less a light than Elvis Presley (allegedly) called "the dumbest thing he'd ever heard."

Version 1



Version 2



(Boris Karloff voice) "So Elvis, if you're out there listening, we're still here"

Not A Halloween Post

You may be wondering what happened to the Halloween Countdown.

Well, the other night I was online, cruising' along, minding my own business, having a grand ol' time reading this and posting that when a little pop-up informs me there's a nice little update for Norton Antivirus and I really, really need to download and install it right damn now or else dire things might happen to my computer, to me, to my friends and family; in fact, failing to do so might hasten the heat death of the universe and I certainly wouldn't want to be solely responsible for that.* Besides, it comes free with my subscription, so, being one of those people who like to keep his/her security software current, that's exactly what I do.

Now, Symantic products are fine, not great, good enough, but as many of us know from bitter experience they're damnably slow to download, install, and activate. One gets used to, nay, expects the inconvenience, and when the screen says "please wait while we rid your hard drive of all those decidedly inferior versions and replace it with something newer and shinier and even more bloated and slow than what you're using now," I figure it's time to read a book, watch a movie, and/or go to bed. In the meantime, my computer is naught but a heat-generating paperweight, otherwise useless.

Several hours later my computer remains a heat-generating paperweight, otherwise useless, which just seems wrong.

Damn. Okay, time to stop the installation and do it again.

Uh-uh. Won't do it. In fact, Norton refuses to respond at all except to refer me to all kinds of online help which, as I discover after couple of hours of pointing and clicking and downloading and extracting and re-booting and re-re-booting, is perfectly useless for solving whatever the problem happens to be.

Fine. I'll do something different later.

Later comes and I try again...and again...then I try some different things...and some more different things...and begin to wonder where, at this hour of the night, I can find a dead chicken to wave over my computer.

Poopie-bears.

To make an incredibly long and boring story just a wee bit shorter, I finally contact Symantic's help line where a lovely woman named May, for whom English is a second language, takes control of my computer and finally...finally...after four long hours...restores my antivirus software to its original state--sans upgrade.

Three days, people. Three days of a balky computer.

Meh.

Now you know why my wallpaper is a picture of HAL 9000.

In other news, I ran into my good friend Sissy Spacek at Barnes & Noble Friday evening.

Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. We don't actually know each other (duh!), but this is the third time we've been in close proximity:

--Back in the late '80s when I worked for the University of Virginia my friend Roy and I were heading to The Corner for lunch when who should be walking towards us but Sissy Spacek and her father (who was a patient in the U. VA Med Center at the time). Roy was chattering away about some inanity or another**, completely oblivious, and I wasn't about to point and shout as Sissy walked toward us. No, I waited till they passed and then said, sotto voce, "Roy, if you turn around right now you can catch a glimpse of Sissy Spacek's butt."

--In the early '90s I was Chrismas shopping for my Dad at some fancy-ass men's clothing store in Charlottesville, checking out the hideously overpriced shirts when this woman sidles up to me and starts asking about socks. Yep, Sissy Spacek! We continued to chat while we waited in the check-out line, though we spoke of nothing more profound that how huge the Holiday crowd was that year.

--And last night as I entered Barnes & Noble there she was, daughter and daughter's boyfriend (I'm assuming) in tow, muttering something about how the boyfriend had yet to read the books he'd already bought.

That's all. The Halloween Countdown will resume in the evening.

My Gal-Pal Sissy

*Well, on most days.

**As he was wont to do. Roy's dead now, but I'm positive he's currently bending God's ear about yet another imagined slight he received from some snooty Seraphim.

...Wearing Clothes That Were Not His Own

Halloween Countdown Day 7


It simply wouldn't be Halloween without a passing mention of Edgar Allan Poe, who died (I almost said "passed") on this day in 1849. Strangely enough (or suitably enough, your choice), in yet another example of life imitating art the exact cause of his death remains a mystery. Alcoholism? Syphilis? Rabies? Brain tumor?* Cooping?

We'll probably never know and maybe that's for the best--a little mystery (above and beyond the Poe Toaster) is a good thing.

Postscript: Jeebus Murphy, am I the only online entity acknowledging Poe's death today? I've searched all the usual suspects and no one's sayin' nuthin'. Guess I'm going to have to light a candle.


And if you think all this is a descent into the morbid, well, go read Horton Hears A Heart.

Then go read The Poe Shadow.

Vintage Creepy

Halloween Countdown Day 6

Direct from Boing Boing: "Steve Chasman is posting one old timey Halloween photo every day during the month of October."

Halloween in the Time of Cholera

Ya Want Pumpkins? We Got Pumpkins!

Halloween Countdown Day 5

Yeah, it ain't Halloween without Jack-o'-Lanterns, but while settle for the dull and boring when you could have something weird and wonderful?



Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories really love(s) Halloween, detailing all sorts of DIY projects like the Cylon Jack-O-Lantern (see above), the too-adorable-for-words Robotic Snap-O-Lantern, and my particular fave, the Robotic Dalek Pumpkin:



Sure, you'll need a bit of eye/hand coordination, some mechanical/electronic skills, and the ability to wield a soldering iron without causing third-degree burns, but look at 'em! They're worth the risk!

And speaking of pumpkin carving, last year Wired ran a post asking readers to Show Us Your Geeky Jack-o'-Lanterns. The results were both impressive and inspirational.

You may as well check out all the Flickr pics tagged with "jackolantern" while you're at it.

--from minipixel's Halloween 2007 Flickr set

Time To Terrorize The Kids!

Halloween Countdown Day 4

When I was in elementary school--probably in third grade-- one of my favoritest books of all time was Robert Arthur's Ghosts and More Ghosts. Oh, it was great stuff and certainly not a mere collection of ghost stories (which were popular at the time... and boring)--far from it! No, these were creepy-ass tales ranging from the outright scary ("The Rose-Crystal Bell," "Footsteps Invisible," "Do You Believe in Ghosts?") to humorous ("Mr. Milton's Gift," "Don't Be A Goose") to wistful fantasy (the frequently anthologized "The Wonderful Day," "The Marvelous Stamps From El Dorado") to, well, strange ("Obstinate Uncle Otis," "Mr. Dexter's Dragon," "Hank Garvey's Daytime Ghost").

The interesting thing is these stories were originally written for an adult market (pulp magazines) and not for children, which may be why I loved them so much.* People die (sometimes the monster gets them; sometimes they're killed by irony); people disappear, never to be heard from again. In fact, this may be why the damned thing remains out of print (that, and a few anachronisms that puzzled me in '63**)--some of the stories are pretty intense for children even today. Still, they were anthologized and marketed for "young people" in 1963 with a bit of retro-fitting: see Arthur's A Note to the Reader from the 1st edition:

Most of the stories in this book were written at a time when I lived in a large house in the woods in New York state. The house was called Many Stories; first, because it had three floors, plus an attic and a cellar, and secondly because many stories had to be written to pay for it. It was a house just right for the writing of strange and spooky stories. When I moved in with my family, the house had stood empty for years, and it was supposed by the neighbors to be haunted. Late at night, as I wrote, I could hear strange, ghostly sounds in the house--small scurryings in the cellar, scamperings and whisperings in the walls, squeaks and rustlings in the attic just above my head. The sounds in the attic, I discovered, were made by a whole colony of bats that had lived there for many years while the house stood empty. Sometimes, as they came and went through the cracks they used for doorways, the bats made a wrong turning and got into my third-floor workroom by mistake. One night three bats at once were swooping and gliding in the air around my head, as if weaving some ancient magical spell about me. I knew they didn't want to touch me any more than I wanted to touch them. So I kept on writing, and the rustlings in the walls and the whisper of leathery wings in the air all around me made a spooky accompaniment to the tapping of my typewriter keys. It was a grand atmosphere in which to conjure up ghosts and demons and spirits and spells and witchcraft. I hope some of it found its way into Ghosts and More Ghosts, and that you will enjoy reading the stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Astute baby-boomers will recognize Arthur as the originator of the (then) wildly-popular Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series; he also edited Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful and Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery (among many other things; see this nice biography by his daughter).

Bottom line? Do yourself a favor, track down a copy of this book, and read it to your kids on Halloween night. You owe it to them to leave them properly terrified!




*Picture me at 8 or 9 huddled (and near-suffocating) under the bedcovers way past my bedtime reading and re-reading by flashlight.

**The story that disturbed me the most*** was "Do You Believe in Ghosts?," which involved a weekly radio show (Dare Danger With Deene!) and its thrill-seeking host. By the time I read it (1963-1964), commercial radio consisted of either round-the-clock news or Top 40 music programs, so I was a little puzzled by its use as a story-telling medium.

***Nick Deene hosts a weekly radio show wherein he travels the world seeking excitement and danger; however, his "travels" are entirely studio-produced and Nick never leaves the comfort of his broadcast booth. Nick realizes his listeners are becoming more sophisticated and significantly less gullible, which means his ratings are dropping precipitously, so he decides to pull off a real-life stunt--spending the night alone handcuffed to a bed in a haunted house. It's all humbuggery, of course, though he really does broadcast alone, handcuffed to a bed, while his crew and a couple of newspaper reporters wait just down the road. At the last minute he rejects the idea of a run-of-the-mill ghost and conjures up a story of some ghastly "oyster-faced" thing that lives in the swamp adjacent to the house, successfully thrilling his listeners and crew as he details his imaginary midnight encounter with the Curse of the Carriday mansion. The broadcast ends, the crew goes to pick him up...

And something happens.


Crystal Head Vodka Update: You may recall my previous post on the subject; apparently there's a sizable Intarweb contingent who believes this is some sort of viral video intended to generate pre-buzz for Ghostbusters III or the DVD release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Well, I can't rule out such things entirely, but Crystal Head Vodka is real enough!

Smells Like Goth Spirit!

Halloween Countdown Day 3
Being mostly a motley collection of vaguely Halloween-ish links with a Gothic edge I need to purge from my Google Notebook:

What Halloween Party would be complete without a Skeleton Disco Ball? It's exactly what you think it is--a motorized, revolving 8-inch skull covered with little mirrors. Though smallish, is still perfect for an apartment-based Zombie Prom Night theme!

From the original post on Boing Boing:

"If only we'd had one of these skull-shaped disco balls in the Malden High gymnasium during prom night. A magical night, in which I convinced the DJ to play 'Bloodletting' during the last dance of the night, which I spent futilely trying to slip my hand under the blood red corset of my consumptive-looking goth date. Sigh. Our love making? It would have smelled of cloves."

Poor guy. He might have had better luck if he'd first arranged an intimate, elegant Halloween dinner and used these skeletal serving forks (again from Boing Boing).

Or, had his finances been tight, a simple Gothic cook-out with the Cthulhu Roaster. Add a couple of My Little Cthulhu ponies (see the comments on MetaFilter) and various items from the Gothic Garden as a centerpiece and, yeah, the clove smoke would have filled the room. And should there be a little, uh, accident, there's always the Gothic Cradle!


*sigh* I have got to start dating.

Skullbuster(s)?

Halloween Countdown, Day 2
A couple of things to covet...

You know you're going to need something to wash down (or distract you from) Penn & Teller's Bleeding Heart Gelatin Dessert, right? Well, according to MetaFilter* there's a new booze in town and Dan Aykroyd is pimping it: Crystal Head Vodka.

Quadruply-distilled alcohol blended with water from the aquifers of Newfoundland then triple-filtered through Herkimer diamonds to infuse it with...

Well, I have no idea, but Dan talks about it real purty, almost as if his Bass-O-Matic salesguy character had finally gotten his bipolar disorder under control and yeah, there's a lot of hoo-ha about paranormal phenomena and UFOs and ghosts and mysterious doings and the crystal skulls, but the bottom line is this:

I don't drink anymore so I don't care if it has mystical powers and/or tastes like rat urine mixed with cow dung; IT'S A DAMN COOL-LOOKING BOTTLE O' VODKA AND I WANT ONE!

No, two! For my skull collection!

And wouldn't your drunken Halloween Bash be just a leeeetle cooler if your bar was well-stocked with these?


Just remember to send me the empties.

And speaking of skulls and paraphernalia for your drunken Halloween Bash, Brass Goggles reports on an artist who's made a pinhole camera that incorporates the 150-year old skull of an 13-year old girl child:



*See also the comments on reddit. They're a hoot!

Halloween Approacheth!

Day One




Oh, yes, YES! It IS almost time! The weather is cooler, the leaves are turning, it's getting dark earlier... there's rain and wind and menacing clouds*... my Halloween Tree is up, the skull collection is dusted and nicely arrayed, and the cat is quaking under the bed for fear of being dyed black. I'm in the process of untangling the purple mini-lights and illuminated eyeball strands, and maybe this year, just maybe, I'll find the perfect Deathly Door Decoration.

Sweet Zombie Jeebus, I am SUCH a Halloween Junkie!

All I need is a party invitation.

C'mon guys; now is the time to be planning some Spooky Festivities and by including me you will automatically gain access to my vast collection of trashy horror movie.s my Halloweenesque mix CDs, my delightfully morbid/cynical sense of humor, plus, assuming you'll allow me to use your kitchen (mine is something of a disaster area), I'll even make a special dessert!

*crickets chirping*

No takers, huh? Well, let me give you the dessert recipe anyway because, well, because it's too good not to share:

Penn & Teller's Bleeding Heart Gelatin Dessert
(from Penn & Teller's How To Play With Your Food)

The title says it all. It's the perfect coup de grace for your intimate dinner at home. As your guests sip their coffee, you unveil a glistening pink gelatin heart on a pedestal cake stand. Then you whip out a carving knife and stab it. Dark, gooey blood issues majestically from the wound. You cut dainty slices off the lobes of the heart and flip them onto dessert plates. You hold each portion under the oozing gash until it is nicely sauced with gore, add a dollop of whipped cream, and serve.

INGREDIENTS
4 cups of water
4 3-oz. boxes or two 6-oz boxes of peach (pink; think of lung tissue) or strawberry (redder; think of livers and hearts) gelatin dessert mix.
4 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1 12-ounce can unsweetened evaporated milk

1/2 cup grenadine syrup
1 cup light corn syrup
1 small bottle (0.3 fl. oz.) red food coloring
3 drops blue food coloring
1 1-gallon food-storage bag (the plain kind without the zip closure)
6 1/2 cup heart-shaped gelatin mold or cake pan

PREPARATION
Boil the water. Put the packaged gelatin dessert and unflavored gelatin in a bowl and pour the boiling water over it, stirring constantly. Cool to room temperature (very important or the next step may present problems). Stir in the condensed milk. Note how it already is acquiring the color of freshly skinned flesh.

Pour the mixture into the gelatin mold. Cover the bottom of the mold (this will be the top when you serve it) with a layer about half an inch think. Refrigerate until it gels firmly.

Meanwhile, prepare a nice bladder of blood. Stir together the corn syrup, grenadine, and food colorings (we do it right in the measuring cup to save dish washing--every erg saved in preparation is an erg one can use to enjoy the Payoff). For the bladder (the bag that keeps the blood together inside the mass of gelatin) take the gallon-size food-storage bag and turn it inside out. Pour the blood mixture into one corner of the bag and twist it closed so that no air bubble is caught between the sauce and the twist. Tie a knot in the twisted plastic. Adjust the position of the knot so that when the bag lies on the counter, it's about 1 1/2 to 2 inches high, and tighten the knot. With a pair of scissors, snip off the frilly extra plastic outside the knot.

When the gelatin on the bottom of the mold is stiff and firm, position the bladder of blood in the mold, with the point of the bag just inside the point of the heart. Make sure there is at least 3/4" of space between all sides of the bag and the walls of the mold (this will ensure that your guests don't see clues ahead of time). Pour in the remaining gelatin until the mold is as full as you can handle. Don't worry if you see a little of the blood-bladder grazing the surface of the gelatin, as longs as it doesn't project too much; the side you are looking at now will be the bottom when you serve it.

Refrigerate until gelled firmly to the texture of fine, lean organ meat. It takes about 4 hours.

To unmold, put about 2 1/2 inches of hot, but not boiling water in your sink. Set your mold in the water so that the water comes just below the edge of the mold for 15 to 20 seconds; the time depends on the thickness of the mold pan. Remove the mold from the water, and run the blade of a knife around the edge of the gelatin. Invert your serving platter, ideally a white pedestal cake plate, on top and hold it firmly in place. Then use both hands to turn over the mold and the plate. Remove the mold; you may need to tap or shake the mold slightly to free the gelatin.

PRESENTATION
The blood looks prettiest when it flows over white plates, doilies, and table linen, which it may stain permanently--but what the hell, it's the effect that matters. To serve, use a nice, big Psycho-style chef's knife and stab the side of the gelatin about one third of the way up from the pointed end of the heart. Twist the knife slightly, and blood will start to ooze out. Bare your teeth like a Marine jabbing with bayonet, and widen the wound. When the blood is coming at a good slip, grab a dessert plate, and cut a slice from one of the lobes of the heart. Flip it onto the plate, and drizzle it with blood by holding it under the edge of the pedestal. Add whipped cream and serve.

This dish delights all five senses:
1. Sight: red, glossy, and elegantly surreal when the blood starts to flow.
2. Taste: sweeeet.
3. Smell: classic artificial-fruity
4. Touch: cold and wiggly.
5. Hearing: the screaming of guests.

I don't particularly like the Valentine's Day mold, myself, but fortunately there are... other... options at The Anatomical Chart Company, The Anatomy Warehouse, and all over the Web.

On the other hand, since zombies are all the rage these days this particular recipe might be even cooler with... BRAAAAAAAAAAINS!

Brain Jello Mold From The PrankPlace
Quiggle Adult Size "Brain" Gelatin Mold (warning: annoying music)
Archie McPhee's Zombie Brain Gelatin Mold
The Brain Gelatin Mold at Steve Spangler Science
Brain Gelatin Mold from Anatomical Chart Co. (via Amazon)
Or simply search the Intarweb--there seem to be dozens of varieties.


Mischief managed.**

*Which also means it's time for the State Fair because tradition demands a drizzly opening.

**Geezie-peezie, did I just make a Harry Potter reference? Someone really needs to assault me with a +5 Gauntlet of Bitchslapping.***

***Damnation, now it's Dungeon & Dragons references. What is wrong with me tonight?