In October the sky becomes grey and watery while the leaves blaze with color, even on the quietest of days. In one of my favorite cemeteries there is a hill, tucked back beyond its farthest end. It is embraced by a hug of unhindered oaks that stand tall into the sky, even as they check their footing to avoid the the deep ravine that cuts the earth behind them. On this small hill there are a few gravestones scattered, leaning, in disrepair. Mosses and lichens live silently, and snails and worms are the tigers in this forest.
Silence, I have found, likes this corner of the graveyard best. There are no upstart blooms, no ornate crypts, no ostentatious flags. Letters on the headstones have become blurry, and seem to whisper the names of their owners in worn, weary voices.
Johanssen—hush. Wingquist—quiet. Lars—shhhhh! Only the hot orange leaves threaten the peace as they fall to the ground. Untrammeled in this forgotten end, they cover the graves like locusts and murmur to the dead.
“Wake up!” they say in their rustley voices. “Halloween will be here soon!”
The dead shift in their dirt beds, wishing to be left alone.
“Wake up!” say the leaves. “Wake up! We have a gift for you.”
As harbingers of half-life, the leaves’ color leeches into the soil, and slowly stains the sleeping spirits. Orange oozes through their ectoplasmic veins, slowly at first, until enough glowing hot October reaches their ghostly hearts.
By Halloween, the spirits have gained enough strength to sit up. Slowly, as evening falls, they shamble to the edge of the graveyard. The iron bones of the gate creak in their sockets as the ghosts swing it wide open, into the unsuspecting neighborhood. The silent ghosts step out. Hollering children stampede past! Fiery pumpkins flicker and wink. Hissing cats, flapping bats, crappy rats, and ding-donging doorbells reverberate through the night.
“TRICK OR TREAT!” yell the wax-nosed witches.
“TRICK OR TREAT!” howl the plastic ghouls.
“TRICK OR TREAT!” scream the bedsheets, “TRICK OR TREAT!”, “TRICK OR TREAT!”,”TRICK OR TREAT!”
“Forget this noise,” says Johanssen. “I’m going back to sleep!”
As Raoul once more passed through the great crush-room, this time in the wake of his guide, he could not help noticing a group crowding round a person whose disguise, eccentric air and gruesome appearance were causing a sensation. It was a man dressed all in scarlet, with a huge hat and feathers on the top of a wonderful death’s head. From his shoulders hung an immense red-velvet cloak, which trailed along the floor like a king’s train; and on this cloak was embroidered, in gold letters, which every one read and repeated aloud, “Don’t touch me! I am Red Death stalking abroad!”Paris, in the year 1910, Gaston Leroux’s novel—Le Fantôme de l’opéra—was published. It has captured the imagination of the world ever since. The story follows the beautiful young singer Christine and her arrival at the Paris Opera House. Soon her adventure turns to horror as a mysterious and bloodthirsty stalker murders all who stand between him and the imperiled Christine.
Then one, greatly daring, did try to touch him…but a skeleton hand shot out of a crimson sleeve and violently seized the rash one’s wrist; and he, feeling the clutch of the knucklebones, the furious grasp of Death, uttered a cry of pain and terror. When Red Death released him at last, he ran away like a very madman, pursued by the jeers of the bystanders.
—The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
Many times Leroux’s novel has been adapted—for films, made-for-tv movies, miniseries, rock opera, and broadway musical. If one is interested, one may learn about the other versions here, or one may simply read the novel itself.
Of course the good phantom doesn’t stay away for long. Even though Andrew Lloyd Webber’s smash Broadway hit debuted 18 years ago, our Opera Ghost will be back in a movie version of Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, expected to be released December 22. Watch this for an early taste.
According to Aunt Selena and her acolytes at the Nocturnes, an eclipse of the moon is scheduled for the evening. Superstitious peoples will be throwing rocks to scare it away. I must tell you, I find that throwing candy corn has always been just as effective.
Recently, whilst Googling myself, I ran across an article by the good people at Fortean Times. It seems that in their endeavours to scare up some fresh info on one Miss Katie King, they discovered my musings on the subject.
The spirit of Katie King, as some of you may know, was the daughter of John King, who became quite well known in séance circles as one of the most popular and colorful ghosts of that era. It certainly didn’t hurt that John King’s spirit was also a swaggering pirate. In the repressed Victorian Era, swaggering pirates were almost as alluring as young pirate daughters dressed in diaphanous cheesecloth—depending on your tastes, of course.
Unfortunately, when Fortean Times mentioned my little tryst with Katie King (at the far end of the article), they neglected to note anything about her father’s vocation. So the quote from me—taken completely out of context—seems to depict me babbling about some random pirate as if I’d misplaced my Haldol in FuFuLand. Perhaps it was merely sloppy editing on their part. That, or the evil Deros were controlling their minds from the center of the hollow Earth using a beam that eminates through the hole at the North Pole in a sinister plot to discredit my good name. No matter. If the Forteans can’t do it, one may always count on Ned Mercury to set you straight on the comings and goings of souls that collect within the walls of the Mercuriosity Shop.
My new shipment of shrunken heads arrived today—plenty of time to pass them out for Halloween!
You may remember that in September I mentioned that I no longer met with my compatriots on Friday mornings for my usual chai due to workers of mass construction. Fear not! We have moved our gatherings of card cheats, hipster/shamans, anarchists, screenprinters and yours truly to a lovely spiaza that we will be attending for the nonce. And the selection of edibles goes far beyond mere scones. I will be sorely tempted by the canoli, gelato, and the triple chocolate mousse cake. And I must train the caffeinaiads to make the chai tea just the way I like it—large, spiced, two percent, and hot!
Now if you prefer your company a little hotter, here’s a place where the coffee never gets cold. Or sit with the damned for a stiff drink. Take a trip to the past and visit Hell’s Cafe.
Or should I say alien squash? While it may look bizarre, this squash is indigenous to Earth, I assure you. This particular specimen is called a turban squash. Now that the weather has gotten a bit chilly, the smell of a squash baking in the oven makes the whole place cozy. Try one slathered in butter and drizzled with maple syrup. If you don’t like that idea, epicurious.com has lots of squash recipes to choose from.
Although there are lots of ways to detect spirits nowadays, back in the sixties (the 1860s, that is), the preferred method of proving the scientific existence of a ghost was the use of the newly invented camera.
Unfortunately, the camera—and the gullible public—are quite easy to fool. At the outset of photography, the photographic plates needed a long exposure time. Which is to say, the person sitting for the picture would need to sit still for quite a while—sometimes up to a half an hour. Let’s say that a photographer is taking a picture of a family. If a stray sheep would enter the field of view for even a minute, traces of that sheep would register on the plate and appear in the picture, before being shooed away. While the family—who sat for the full half-hour—would appear solid, the sheep on the lam would appear blurry, transparent, and ghostly.
Another trick was to pre-expose a photographic plate with some image on it—let’s say, a man wrapped in a sheet. When an unsuspecting person arrived to have their picture taken, the photographer could use the pre-exposed plate. After developing the image, the customer (and duplicitous photographer alike) would gasp and the customer would say something like, “why that sheet resembles my dear Uncle Unctious, who passed away from spotted mountain ennui just last year!”
The idea of seeing spirits in photographs was quite natural to the general public at the time. Due to the long exposure times requiring the subject to sit still, most early cameras were used primarily to document the recently departed still on their deathbed. For spirits to begin appearing in the picture was merely a (super) natural development.
For a more detailed look, Ghosts of the Prairie magazine has more information about spirit photography.
And here is a Gallery of Spirit Photography from the American Photography Museum.
Oh, and the “spirit photograph” which you see here does indeed show real ghost, and not a rumpled paper towel at all. Truly.
With spectral nuns, poltergeists, and a headless coachman—no small wonder the Borley Rectory has been called the “most haunted house in England”. Go here to find out some key points about why people were convinced of spectral goings-on at the Borley Rectory. For access to more information, go here.
For you armchair ghost hunters out there, Dave Juliano of Shadowlands has compiled a list of books to get you in a frightful mood.
Has anyone heard from Prince Vlad? He used to skulk around here quite often. I was probably a bit short with him when I was discussing Dr. Martin Luther King Day and he was talking about drinking blood. My apologies. Anyway, I ran into his father and he agreed to let me take his picture. One doesn’t see too many bats with oxygen tanks.
The monsters are coming! The monsters are coming! With Halloween only weeks away, that shouldn’t be a surprise. But at least now you can pick the one you want!
These plush monsters are all handmade by Steve and his partner, John. Most of the pieces are 6 - 15 inches tall, and range in price from $10 - $25. Many of the pieces on the site have already been sold, but they are constantly making new, similar creatures. And tell them Ned sent you.
And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away,
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low,
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, ‘The night is dreary,
He cometh not,’ she said;
She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!’
—Mariana by Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Poplar tree is the tree of the Autumnal Equinox and is symbolic of death. The ghostly grove of Persephone contained black poplars and old willows whose roots drank from the cold river Styx.
The artist Arnold Bocklin knew this when he painted
The Isle of the Dead. In fact, he painted the same scene five times. The painting shows the ferryman rowing a soul to its final resting place—an island of sheer cliffs that stand as a fortress. At the center of the island stands a grove of tall black poplars.
Hello, friends! The doors are once again open at the Mercurosity Shop. I must admit I sometimes have trouble remembering which number corresponds to what month. I often think of October as the eighth month. Before you pat me on the hand and recommend a good neurologist, allow me to explain.
The months were named by the Romans. They named them things like Martius—for Mars, Aprilis—for Aphrodite, Maius—for Maia the mother of Mercury, Juniius—for Juno, Queen of the Gods. They even had a month named Mercedonius after Mercury. Mercedonius was a month that was inserted now and again to rectify the discrepancies between the Roman calendar and the solar year. During the latter part of the year, the months were simply numbered in Latin. Quintilis was the fifth month, Sextilis was the sixth, and on to names more familiar. September—seven, October—eight, November—nine, and December—ten.
In those days the Roman calendar consisted of 304 days. The year didn’t start over at the end, however. The remaining 61 days were essentially “not observed” during winter. But when the farmers who followed a lunar cycle started planting, it was time for the calendar year to start again, beginning with Mars. (For those of you who don’t remember, this is why Mars would start off the year). The Roman Emperor Pompilius decided that he should fix the wintertime gap, and added two months. He named the first one January—after the god Janus who looked to the past as well as the future. And since in the spring everyone’s fancy turns to love, Pompilius named February after Februa, a minor goddess of passion (remember, Aphrodite was already ensconced in April).
Why he decided to place these two months at the start of the year instead of at the end of the year is beyond me. Surely he could have made them month eleven and month twelve. What is wrong with Elevember, I ask you? Alas, he put them at the very beginning, thus throwing off the perfectly sensible numeric-based names. So you may think this is the tenth month, but like eight-sided octogons, eight-legged octopi, and eighty-year-old octogenarians, I think of October as the eighth month.