We have our usual boxes of full size candy bars (my husband’s motto for the season is: “Fun sized isn’t!”). We have picked a couple of movies to watch tonight (Hocus Pocus and Witches of Eastwick). I have some pumpkin spice drinks ready. It will be a night of spooky fun!
I hope yours is a great, spooky All Hallow’s Eve as well!
Donald Duck: Trick Or Treat Folks ☻1952 Halloween Cartoon:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
My love for Halloween began long before I knew that it used to be considered the high holy days of queers everywhere. Which was true at least since the 1920s until the straights co-opted it for Heteroween2. But I recognize that at least some of the reasons I loved Halloween back then are the same reason the holiday appealed to queer people for so long:
…which fits right in with Halloween!
Of course, when I say I could dress as silly as I wished, that wasn’t entirely true. I remember, for instance, the year that I really wanted to dress up as the character of Witchie-Poo from the Saturday morning live action show, H.R. Pufnstuf. Mom didn’t act appalled, but she argued with me until I gave in and let her buy me the really tacky H.R. Pufnstuf costume. Pufnstuf was supposed to be a dragon who was the Mayor of the enchanted island where the show’s action took place, but the store-bought costume was just a weird shaped green mask and a generic green onesie that had a picture of the character printed on the chest. My sister mentioned that I had wanted to dress up as Witchie-Poo within earshot of my dad and I got yelled at quite seriously about how boys don’t dress up as witches!
It wasn’t even that the character of Witchie-Poo appealed to me that much3. My recollection is that the store-bought costume for her had a magic wand prop, and I really wanted the magic wand. Of course, she was the villain of the show and I quite frequently find myself sympathizing with the villains.
Our friends that have been hosting a Halloween party almost every year for about 30 years are skipping this year. So I don’t think either of us will be making a costume. And although they gave us plenty of warning that we could have opted to host our own party, all of the years of going to their themed and wonderfully decorated parties casts a more-than-slightly intimidating shadow over the notion.
Maybe we’ll just try to get together with some people on the Saturday before.
But I have been working on my new Halloween playlist. I spent a lot of the last week listening to every single Halloween playlist I have made in the past4 as I decide what kind of list to put together this year. I have one assembled, I just haven’t decided if it is finished or still needs some tweaking.
Whether there is a party of not, or any dressing up, I still intend to enjoy myself, getting my spook on in various ways for the rest of the month.
Let’s have fun!
Footnotes:
1. My husband and I don’t believe in handing out so-called “fun size” candy. We usually get a few cases of full sized bars in hopes that we will get lots of kids.
2. But that’s okay. Straights need a socially sanctioned night to dress up as sexy nurses or sexy firemen. They’re so reppressed the rest of the year!
3. I mean, I thought she was hilarious, but…
4. Fifteen such lists in my iTunes library, by the way.
Our plans for this evening are to do the usual handing out of candy while we watch some spooky movies. The movie plans are Young Frankenstein and The Three Stooges in Orbit. I usually pick out three movies, but Michael never stays awake for the third. And at midnight I’m supposed to start NaNoWriMo (even if I can’t stay up very far past midnight, since it is a work night), so we’ll probably stick with just the two. We’ll see. It’s not as if it’s very difficult to pick another movie out of the 970-or-so that my hubby has uploaded into our digital library from our vast disc collection…
I hope we get a few more trick-or-treaters than last year. I realize I’ll increase the odds if I manage to get at least some decorations up before sundown. I’m currently planning to slip out of the office early to make sure I’m home before then, so there is still hope. Some years we get a lot, but usually it’s a few handfuls. One of the problems is that a lot of other folks on our street don’t do the candy thing and/or their houses have no decorations so our whole block often looks gloomy and deserted.
Though truthfully, as long as we get more than we did the year a neighbor parked a huge U-Haul truck in front of our place and spent the evening trying to get moved out of their apartment (we got exactly one person – my godchild, who doesn’t live in the neighborhood, but would be brought to our place and to the homes of some relatives of their other godparent who lives nearby).
I love handing out the full size candy bars. And I love seeing kids in costumes. Especially the younger ones who get so, so excited when I kneel down and hold out the bowl packed with big candy bars! As my husband likes to say, “Fun size isn’t!”
Anyway, if you celebrate Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, or the Day of the Dead, I hope that it is a great holiday for you. And if you’re feeling a little down, enjoy this clip from the Woodland Park Zoo of an otter and a jack-o-lantern:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
This week was better at work. Still scrambling toward crazy deadlines. At home, still trying to wrap things up before NaNoWriMo starts.
Anyway, here are links to some of the interesting things I read on the web this week, sorted into various topic areas.
Deodorant Ad Perfectly Nails What’s Wrong With The Trans Bathroom Debate.
Kickstarted in the Butt: A Chuck Tingle Digital Adventure.
Bundy Brothers Acquitted in Takeover of Oregon Wildlife Refuge.
Ballot selfies: A look at where they are allowed or not. Bet you didn’t know that it’s illegal to take a picture of your ballot in some states…
As Standing Rock Protesters Face Down Armored Trucks, the World Watches on Facebook.
Developing: 100+ Militarized Police Raiding #NoDAPL Resistance Camp Blocking Pipeline’s Path.
Former WikiLeaks Employee James Ball Describes Working With Julian Assange.
Ex-gospel singer drags black Christians in song who shame him for being gay.
Why ‘LGBTQ’ Will Replace ‘LGBT’.
Most football fans would have ‘no problem’ with gay players – but 8% would.
This 93-year-old gay man powerfully explains why he doesn’t want a pardon from the U.K. government. A pardon implies it was a crime that needs forgiving, whereas the crime was that the original laws against being gay existed at all.
Politicizing Homophobia: How Director Otto Preminger Challenged Hollywood—Then and Now.
Remembering Jerry Smith, a gay NFL star who never got his due.
Loving the Whole Me: A Bisexual Mom on Coming Out to Her Family.
Gibraltar unanimously legalizes marriage equality.
Orlando Magic honors victims of Pulse Orlando terror attack.
Gene Study Clears ‘Patient Zero’ As Cause Of U.S. HIV Epidemic. Scientists have long suspected that HIV had been circulating in the U.S. for a decade before the first few AIDS cases were identified in Los Angeles 1981.
Physicists Beat Yet Another Challenge To Dark Matter’s Existence.
Six contractors have begun work on NASA’s gateway to deep space.
Larry Niven’s Ringworld: A Sexist Sci-Fi “Classic”.
The Election and Productivity.
Almost November again, and that means it’s NaNoWriMo time!
IF WOMEN WROTE MEN THE WAY MEN WRITE WOMEN.
7 Things You Need to Know About Plotting and Editing.
Chinese IoT device manufacturer recalls products amidst mass DDoS attacks.
MARLON JAMES: WHY I’M DONE TALKING ABOUT DIVERSITY.
Democrats Draw Line Over LGBT Provision in Defense Authorization Bill.
Voter Suppression Is a Much Bigger Problem Than Voter Fraud.
Support of Trump exposes ugliness, hypocrisy of religious right.
Trump’s popularity with evangelicals is a disaster for the religious right.
A Lawsuit Challenges Utah’s Ban on Students and Teachers Saying Nice Things About Gay People.
Church drops lawsuit on transgender bathroom issue.
The Mormon church has a new campaign for LGBTQ acceptance—but it’s still insanely homophobic.
LifeWay pulls Hatmaker books over LGBT views of the author. For some christians, dehumanizing LGBT people is more important than loving us.
WHY DONALD TRUMP HAS NEVER WON A LIBEL CASE.
Man waving “Blacks for Trump” sign at rallies is former member of violent cult.
Many Trump Supporters Want Trump TV — But Don’t Want To Pay For It.
Jill Stein Blames John Oliver for Declining Donations, Continues to Double Down on Dangerous Ideas.
Defense Secretary Orders Suspension of Attempts to Recoup Bonuses From Veterans.
Sanders is prepared to be a liberal thorn in Clinton’s side.
anders raises $2.4 million on Ryan’s budget panel warning.
Attempting To Woo Latino Voters, Marco Rubio Gets Booed At Orlando Festival.
Why Do So Many People Hate Hillary? Meet Your Press.
Rep. Ellison calls for DOJ to investigate Joe Walsh tweet.
Chris Christie’s epic collapse.
Meet the Dapper White Nationalist Who Wins Even if Trump Loses.
White high schoolers in Miss. put noose around black student’s neck and ‘yanked,’ NAACP says.
Sci-Fi and Mystery Author Sheri S. Tepper, 1929-2016.
Pete Burns, frontman of Dead Or Alive, dies aged 57.
Dead or Alive singer Pete Burns dies at 57.
R.I.P. Jack Chick, comics scaremonger.
Dead To Rights: Based on characters created by Jack T. Chick.
Oppressed oppressors: make America great like it was before The Homosexuals….
Why I hate hay fever reason #6312.
Stay Sane Inside Insanity – more of why I love sf/f.
Hallelujah – Pentatonix:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Eli Lieb acoustic cover of Britney Spears’ Make Me:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Sweet Transvestite as performed on September 17th 2015 in the Playhouse Theatre, London, with David Badella as Frank N Furter:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
I Put A Spell On You – Bette Midler – Hocus Pocus :
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
And tomorrow night is HALLOWEEN!!!
Once again, I’m really, really, really glad that the weekend is upon us! Between throwing my back out last weekend and crazy deadlines converging at work, I’m wrung out!
Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared. Sorted into categories with headings so you can skip more easily:
Elusive Himalayan snow leopard and cub inspect camera.
What the row over banning Germaine Greer is really about.
GLAAD Report: LGBT Representation on TV Is Up, But Still Very White.
Funny Is Funny: Homophobia, Misogyny and the Lack of Diversity in Comedy.
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS SERVE AS PALLBEARERS FOR HOMELESS VETERANS WITHOUT LOVED ONES. (Thanks to Foxraven for the link)
Dateless, Singled Out, And Not Taking It Anymore.
A D.C. cop tried to break up a group of teens. It ended in this impressive dance-off.
A true 12’s response to a fair-weather Seattle Seahawks fan – ‘We don’t need you’.
4 Things They Didn’t Teach You in Sex Ed.
Library Board Votes Against New Logo and Name Change. Here’s What Happened at the Board Meeting.
How an industry of ‘Amazon entrepreneurs’ pulled off the Internet’s craftiest catfishing scheme.
Cracked! American Egg Board CEO Resigns Over Eggless Mayo Scandal.
In October at least, America runs on pumpkin.
Snow leopards rebounding in Afghanistan amid concerns the species are verge of extinction.
Drug engineered from bananas shows promise in fighting deadly viruses.
And now the Pluto family portrait is complete.
Puget Sound orcas welcome sixth baby born to endangered pods this year.
Six-inch long teeth of ancient Megalodon shark found on North Carolina beach.
Dinosaurs are extinct, but the business of smuggling them is thriving.
Ancient Pterosaur Used Four Huge Fangs To Snack On Ancient Crocodiles.
September blew away the margin for Earth’s warmest month on record.
Ancient super-predators could take down a mammoth.
Hungry Baby Otter Found on California Beach Is Recovering.
Einstein Is Right About General Relativity — Again.
A Lack of Animal Poop Is Causing a New Environmental Problem.
Astronomers make a remarkable discovery in the center of the Milky Way.
Before-and-after pictures show how climate change is destroying the Earth.
Clouded Leopards Threatened by Sudden Increase in Poaching and Live Trade.
Ash vs. Evil Dead Prep: Your Guide to the Evil Dead Franchise.
Starz Renews ‘Ash vs. Evil Dead’ Ahead of Premiere.
The Case For Queer Superhero Films.
LE GUIN’S ANARCHIST AESTHETICS.
25 Years Later, ‘Darkman’ Remains the First Horror Genre-Driven Superhero Film.
Why ‘The Flash’ And ‘Arrow’ Are What Young Science Nerds Have Been Looking For.
Some Writing Advice That’s Mostly Useless (And Why).
Find the Conflict: Unblocking (or Actually Planning!) your NaNoWriMo Novel.
Post on tools useful in planning the first draft of a novel.
Zadie Smith’s 10 Rules of Writing.
Never quote a rock lyric in a book unless you’re rich.
3 Steps to Rev Up Your Writing Momentum.
Remember the Guy Who Gave His Employees a $70,000 Minimum Wage? Here’s What Happened Next.
Florida’s New Anti-Gay, Anti-Woman Bill May Be the Most Malicious Yet.
All Republicans agree: America is a hellhole.
This Hacker is Destroying Racist and Homophobic Websites One by One.
When Bigots Freaked Out About Campbell’s Ad With Gay Dads, This Man Had A Brilliant Response.
How Utah’s Anti-Gay Birth-Certificate Law Got Crushed in Court.
Cruz, Huckabee And Jindal Will Join Pastor Who Wants Gays Put To Death.
Jeb Bush’s campaign continues to freefall.
Ben Carson says as ‘volatile’ teen he ‘went after people with hammers’ and tried to stab someone. Keep in mind: he brought this up as an attempt to prove that he’s got the passion and energy to run a full presidential campaign. What?
These GOP Candidates Were Born Into Privilege But Want You To Think Otherwise.
Trump to Iowa Voters: ‘Get Your – in Gear!’.
Ted Cruz’s damaging shutdown delusion.
No, there is no constitutional problem with an all-Florida presidential ticket. The headline isn’t exactly accurate. There will be issues, but the article is correct that it isn’t technically unconstitutional. Given how bitchy Rubio and Bush got with each other at the debate, I suspect it isn’t going to be an issue.
‘Captain Underpants’ banned from school book fair over gay character.
New Bill Would Allow Doctors to Refuse to Treat Women and Gay People.
At debate, Ben Carson says he has no connection to Mannatech.
The next president should break up some big companies.
Sorry Joe Biden, But the Republicans ARE Our Enemies. “…Republicans are our enemies simply because they’d decided we are their enemies, targeting our rights, our livelihoods and our families”
How Dennis Hastert’s sex abuse scandal led to him pleading guilty to a banking crime.
Wisconsin Governor Signs Bill Limiting Political Corruption Inquiries.
What in the world is a ‘Freedom Foyer’?
Ryan Makes Immigration Reform Deal With Freedom Caucus Member.
The One Guy Who Can Fix Politics Is the One Guy Democrats Won’t Let You Hear About.
In first, Democratic hopefuls fight to be most pro-LGBT.
Anonymous Vows To Unhood 1,000 Ku Klux Klan Members.
Death threats and civil complaints after People of Color Yoga controversy.
The Unbearable Whiteness of Pro-Lifers and Pundits.
White America will ignore this video: The hideous & predictable violence of our schools, our legal system, our society. For the record: the actual video was shared with me on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook at least four dozen times before this particular article went by, and it was white people who were sharing it, so, um… what?
South Carolina Deputy Ben Fields Fired After Body Slamming Student [VIDEO].
Video Shows NYPD Officer Tackling, Choking, and Pepper-spraying a Skateboarde.
This Is Not a Game: How SXSW Turned GamerGate Abuse Into a Spectator Sport.
How SXSW really, really blew it.
I Was on One of Those Canceled SXSW Panels – Here is what went down.
Pop Matters does a retrospective on the album that, 25 years ago, contains the most poignant, heart-wrenching song about the AIDS epidemic: All The People I Was Kissing, Some Are Here And Some Are Missing.
I am outside, and I am wearing a dress. This is a new experience, wearing a dress in public.
How The Words “I Dare You” Changed My Life Forever.
Nasty Baby Is the Gay Film We’ve Been Waiting a Decade For.
‘We still love each other’: meet the man who came out after 20 years of marriage.
The Trope of the Evil Television Bisexual.
Gus Kenworthy Responded To This Idiotic Gay Relationship Question Perfectly.
Sylvia Rivera becomes first trans American to have portrait in the Smithsonian.
Dallas Police Respond To String Of Violent Attacks Targeting Gay Community – VIDEO.
Gay North Carolina high school football player was depressed despite ‘having it all’.
Rainbow Smoke and Glittering Mirrors: How not to tackle homophobia.
‘50s Hollywood Sex Symbol Tab Hunter is still a Young Love at 84.
Maureen O’Hara, spirited movie star, dies at 95.
What you like, what other people like….
Storms, Brains, and Reanimated Flesh – more of why I love sf/f.
Weekend Update 10/24/2015: Bigot Backpedals, Others Sued.
Music as a Language: Victor Wooten at TEDxGabriolaIsland (thanks to Deeptriviality for the link):
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Of Monsters And Men – Thousand Eyes (Official Lyric Video):
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Pet Shop Boys – Being Boring 1990 HD ( 25 years ago this week… ):
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
NERVO feat. Kylie Minogue, Jake Shears & Nile Rodgers – The Other Boys (Official Video):
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
I Put A Spell On You – Bette Midler – Hocus Pocus 1993 – HD edited:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
The Best Gay (ish) Halloween Flicks:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Anything Can Happen On Halloween:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
I love Halloween. Seriously, I do. I love a well-done vampire story. Or a good fantasy tale with interesting witches and/or monsters.
But I’m not good with scary movies. Now I should qualify that: I’m not good with a lot of horror films, particularly the gory and/or very intense ones. I wind up having nightmares. The kind of nightmares where I wake up other people in the house because I either wake up talking very loudly, or worse: I sleepwalk around the house, intentionally waking anyone I can find, and explaining very emphatically how we’re in danger and we have to do something to defend ourselves/thwart the monster, et cetera. The more intense the movie, the more likely I am to do this for several nights in a row.
There are exceptions. I do better when it’s a movie I’ve seen before. I also do better if I watch the movie on a TV or computer instead of going to see it in the theatre. Being able to look away at familiar surroundings whenever I want without the overwhelming presences of the enormous screen and THX sound seems to help a lot. Watching it with someone I know and trust helps. I have been known to physically cling to friends (not just people I am romantically involved with) at particularly scary parts of some films.
I own a lot of movies that I classify as Halloween/horror films. And every year, I select some to watch on Halloween (and sometimes nights leading up to it). But my collection isn’t full of things many people would think of as scary. Movies that appear in my Halloween fests a lot include:
I could go on. A friend posted a similar list on her blog yesterday. I’m glad to see I’m not the only person who likes this kind of less-than-nightmare-inducing spooky movie.
I have all of the “Abbot and Costello meet…” cross-overs with the Universal Monsters, as well as the Universal box sets of their classic horror franchises: Frankenstein, the Mummy, Dracula, the Wolf Man. And a bunch of the Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” episodes on disc. I only recently acquired Munster, Go Home on disc, and it was a candidate for this year’s Halloween fest.
Since my husband has spent so much time converting the rest of our (nearly a thousand) DVDs and Blurays into the media computer and database, I spent a while scrolling through the list looking for films that maybe we haven’t watched in a while because they were on a different shelf than the other Halloween movies. I noticed, while scrolling through the sci fi section, The Black Hole (the 1979 version with Maximilian Schell), which I haven’t watched in many years. When I said that, Michael said that he’s never seen it.
My husband has never seen it!
So I said, “Well, that’s one of the Halloween movies this year, definitely!”
Then he asked me if I could remember when I last watched the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie (with Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry, and Donald Sutherland), and I couldn’t remember, so we both said, “Guess that one’s on this year’s list, too!”
And, of course, the premiere of the new series starring Bruce Campbell, Ashe vs the Evil Dead is happening on Starz on Halloween. And Starz is a channel I have in our line-up, so I’d been planning all along to watch it that night.
I should mention that the Evil Dead movies are one of those cases where the gore is enough that normally I wouldn’t watch them, but I love work that Bruce Campbell does elsewhere (and was so, so, so happy when he was cast in the major supporting role in Burn Notice which went on for several seasons without getting canceled or jumping the shark before they ended it in a really good way). Plus, after being enthused at about it many, many times by our friend, Sky (who is one of those people who I know really well), in some ways I felt as if I had already seen them. So I finally watched The Army of Darkness and one of the earlier ones.
Sky was sitting on one side of me and my husband on the other. (I spent most of bloody-cabin-in-the-woods movie with my eyes covered, even then!).
I… will not be surprised if Campbell’s new series gives me nightmares. But I’ll probably watch the whole thing, regardless.
Because I love the mix of comedy and horror tropes! And did I mention that I love Halloween?
The Nerds Ropes nearly ran out by the end of the night. The Kit Kats were popular early on, but we had fewer of them and ran out. Every teen-age kid that showed up and took candy had real costumes. The only teen-agers I saw without costumes were each carrying a much younger sibling.
My favorite of the night was the very small child in the most adorable dinosaur costume who could not decide between two candy bars (I think it was a Milky Way Caramel and a Hershey’s Chocolate). When his mom said, “You need to pick one, honey,” I stage-whispered, “Take both!” His grin was incredible. But he also looked up at his mom to make sure it was okay with her. She was, “Wow, that’s so generous!” While I was thinking that seeing a little kid that happy was worth a whole lot more than two candy bars.
There were several other fun ones. A group of four in leopard-print homemade-looking body suits and wearing store bought kitty ears. The teen-ager with a spot-on Shaun of the Dead costume. The rainbow colored fairy. The tiny astronaut with Mom wearing a NASA Ground Crew coveralls.
The only decorations I had put up in advance were two light-up pumpkins in the front window and the light up spider-web. When I got home from picking up Michael, I turned on the oven for the pizzas and started getting out the outdoor extension cords to put up the purple icicle lights around the porch and the pumpkin LED strings on the rails, when Michael announced he was going to the store for more decorations. “I want something pumpkin-y for the porch.”
Now, I’ve had these two ceramic jack o’lantern candle-lanterns for years that I always put on the porch steps. I’m still not sure if he forgot about them (I hadn’t pulled them out of the Halloween decorations bag yet) or if he wanted something bigger. Anyway, he came back with a hanging skeletal bride thing that didn’t light up, but he’d also bought will battery-operated LED “candles.” He also picked up a string of multi-colored strobing lights with bat-shaped reflectors. That were also battery powered.
We clearly had enough lights to attract trick-or-treaters, so that was good.
I need to find some more light-up things that we can put out near the curb, as most of ours older ones died last year. I forgot, actually, until I was unboxing yesterday, or I would have been out looking for stuff earlier in the month.
Still, we got 42 trick-or-treaters total. Which is up from last year. The last few years it’s been trending up again. I would love it if we started getting around a hundred as happened the first few years in Ballard. (If for no other reason that we wouldn’t have so many leftovers!)
Ghouls and goblins and mummies and werewolves on the prowl! We have a pile of candy to hand out, the house has some spooky decorations, and I have picked out some scary movies. We’re going to have a great night.
Anyway, here is a collection of news and other things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared:
Happy Heteroween: In Defense of Sexy Pirates, Sexy Nuns, and Sexy Cadavers.
5 Years After Passage Of Hate Crimes Law, Religious Right’s Dire Predictions Still Haven’t Come True.
Dear Author breaks down the actions of the Author who stalked a Good Reads reviewer. (Thanks to shipperx for the link!)
There Really Is an Evangelical Christian War on Halloween.
Tim Cook Speaks Up …and comes out.
Why it matters where — and when — Tim Cook spoke up about being gay.
Totally True Horror Story: A Shocking Tale from the ’80s—Illustrated.
Once you see this small typography tweak Apple made in OS X Yosemite, you can’t unsee it.
Last of the Crow war chiefs turns 101 in Montana.
Lonesome George, the Last of His Kind, Strikes His Final Pose.
Woman sues to use wife’s name on South Carolina driver’s license.
Godless millennials could end the political power of the religious right. We can only hope!
Top Ten Most Famous Swords of the Middle Ages. Note: it’s not a slide show, so you don’t have to click-click-click to see them!
#GamerGate Supporters Demonstrate They Don’t Know What Ethics in Journalism Means.
Every Other Planet in the Solar System Would Fit Between the Earth and Moon. Factoid I knew long ago, but the image is nice.
Cassini Spies Methane Ice Crystals in Titan’s Atmosphere.
WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO BE GAY IN COMMUNIST ROMANIA.
Brownback Covered Budget Deficit By Tossing Disabled People Off Medicaid.
And Halloween, Jack Chick, and Anti-Catholicism.
And Colbert is on it: War on Halloween – Costume Swapping & Jesus Ween. (Video plays automatically)
On the other hand, Stop Celebrating the Pope’s Views on Evolution and the Big Bang. They Make No Sense.
Time magazine is just an embarrassing Internet troll now.
SOUTHERN BAPTISTS TELL PASTORS: HOLD LINE ON GAYS.
Couple plead guilty to torture death of 8-year-old they believed was gay.
The Universe Might Be A Billion Years Older Than We Thought.
Five science ‘facts’ we learnt at school that are plain wrong.
Digging through 316,669 tweets from three days of Twitter’s two-month-old #GamerGate trainwreck. He really digs into the metadata. It’s fascinating!
Viewpoint: Arrow of Time Emerges in a Gravitational System.
They don’t all have to be heroes, but….
Fairy rings and h/a/y/ fungal fever.
Are you participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? Let’s be writing buddies!
HALLOWEEN PARTY MIX:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Jessica Lange – Gods and Monsters (Lana Del Rey Cover):
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
GROOVIE GOOLIES MUSIC VIDEO – MONSTERS ON PARADE – GHOST BAND:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Monster Mash:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Beetlejuice – Day-o (Banana Boat Song):
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Melanie Martinez – Carousel (American Horror Story: Freak Show Theme) (Official Video):
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
LOL! “Don’t TOUCH My Girlfriend” Pres.Obama! Couple Interviewed – Chris Hayes:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
The Endless Night: A Valentine to Film Noir:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Avengers: My Ultron Will Go On (setting the visual of the Avenger’s trailer to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” is surprisingly awesome):
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
It began way back when a sub-group of the Elfquest/sci fi fan groups we were associated with went to the Evergreen State College the weekend before Halloween to celebrate K’s birthday. Our friend, Mark, bought a piñata shaped like a Pokémon. I think more time was spent trying to figure out how to hang it from the window of the dorm/apartment and a nearby tree than anything else at the party. Though I also recall that the piñata was really difficult to break.
Anyway, K, D, and Auntie have been hosting Halloween parties ever since. The parties always have a theme, and one of the activities at the party is a piñata that matches the theme. There was a skull representing Horatio at the Shakespeare party, for instance, and a moon with little stars floating around it for one of the space themed parties.
There was never any requirement that one wear a costume that matched the theme of the party, but for those of us who are procrastinators and indecisive, having the theme could give you some ideas. The year the theme was “Antarctica” Michael and I showed up in shorts, Hawaiian shirts, leis, and sunglasses. We had a little act we did where we fumbled with a map of the Hawaiian islands. Our costume was “Lost Tourists.” I don’t remember what the theme was that had me dress as the Next Doctor and Michael dressed as his companion, a 1950s hard-boiled detective.
Anyway, having the deadline of our friends’ party pushed us to make a decision, and having the theme gave us something to either conform with, make a joke of, or just ignore.
Then, because of a series of events which culminated in a major appliance failure at their house and has kicked off a long-delayed kitchen remodel, they didn’t host a party this year. Which is understandable, but also a teensy bit of a downer.
So I thought I wasn’t going to be doing a costume this year.
Then one day at work I got an e-mail with the subject line “Top Secret!”
I don’t want to go into all the background, but during the last year among the changes and shakeups have been that the person who had been the VP of Sales for our group has been promoted to the head of our business unit. In some ways it was a very big change, as the guy who had been leading the unit had been in that position for well more than 10 years, and the company (like a lot of American corporations) didn’t have very many female executives. She’s not entirely conventional. She almost always wears black, for instance, and among her definitions of office attire (and not on casual days), is Levi jeans.
Anyway, it had occurred to someone that all of us could get long blonde wigs, and just show up wearing all black and with the wig. Then we could surprise her by coming into her office, all of us dressed as her. We even had “masks” that consisted of a printout of a photo of her that we could hold in front of our faces.
It wasn’t a very complicated costume, and it wasn’t something that anyone outside the company would recognize without an explanation, but it was fun, and silly, and what else is Halloween for?
Sometimes I don’t know why I try.
So, I saw in iTunes radio a new station called Halloween Party, and I felt like listening to something different, so I clicked it. First song? Stevie Wonder singing “Superstition.” Nothing the slightest bit spooky or Halloween-like about the song. Oh, sure, the word “superstition” could be related to something Halloween-like, the actual lyrics? No.
Almost any time someone posts a so-called Halloween playlist, the songs are chosen because the titles of the song have some tenuous connection to sort of scary-ish concepts, regardless of the content of the song. If you’ve ever done such a thing, I have a news flash for you: the title of a song is not the song. There are some songs whose titles don’t even appear in the lyrics, so when I’m listening to the playlist, if I don’t happen to remember the title, the reason it has been included will be a complete mystery.
Now, you have the right to create a playlist anyway you want. If you want to collect songs together with altogether incorrect criteria and name said playlist a Halloween playlist, of course you can do that.
I happen to believe that a Halloween playlist should consist of tracks where the content of the track has some connection to ideas, moods, et cetera, that people associate with Halloween, trick or treating, monsters, and so forth. So, my 2013 Halloween playlist (yes, I make a new one each year) is:
1. “Theme from the Ghost and Mr. Chicken” – if you aren’t familiar with this comedy send up of various Hitchcock-esque movie tropes starring Don Knotts, you really need to Netflix it or something. And the organ music is suitably spooky and silly, at the same time.
2. “It’s alive!” From the Young Frankenstein soundtrack. This isn’t a song, it’s the dialog for one of the funniest scenes in the movie, when Dr Frahnk-in-steen finds out that he put an abnormal brain in the body of his creation.
3. “The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun” by Julie Brown. “Everybody run! The Homecoming Queen’s got a gun!” and “…it’s like the whole school was totally coked or something!”
4. “Over at the Frankenstein Place” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
5. “”Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” Yes, the theme song from the original cartoon series.
6. “Body Snatcher” by Billy Idol. With lyrics about demons, creeping shadows, and so forth, this is where the list segues from the strictly comedic.
7. “Double Trouble” from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Spooky.
8. “I Can’t Decide (whether you should live or die)” by Scissor Sisters. Includes lyrics like, ” I could bury you alive but you might crawl back with a knife and kill me” which is definitely creepy!
9. “I Can Make You a Man” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
10. “Dark Shadows” the original eerie, spooky, haunting theme song from the ’60s gothic horror soap opera.
11. “Rest in Peace” from Once More, With Feeling, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode. “Whisper in a dead man’s ear doesn’t make it real.”
12. “Funeral March of a Marionette” an orchestral piece which was used as the theme for the old Alfred Hitchcock show.
This year’s is silly and harkens to horror movies and horror-related TV shows. Last years was a bit different, with songs like “Zombies Ate Her Brain” by The Creepshow and “Zombie Jamboree” by the Kingston trio.
Many years my list includes “Monster Mash” or “Thriller.” Which are obvious choices, but sometimes obvious is good.
Font Folly 