Did You Know? Some Fun Halloween Facts

~John Keats was born on Halloween in 1795.

~The ancient Celts thought that spirits and ghosts roamed the countryside on Halloween night. They began wearing masks and costumes to avoid being recognized as human.

~The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

~If a candle flame turns blue, there is a ghost in the house, according to legend anyway.

~Bobbing for apples is thought to have originated from the roman harvest festival that honors Pamona, the goddess of fruit trees.

~Dracula, in Romanian, means 'the son of the devil'.

~The Native Americans believed that the owl escorted the dead to the spirit world.

Trick-or-Treating at the Amherst Museum

Friday night, we had the privilege of attending the Halloween event at the Amherst Museum in Amherst, New York.  The Amherst Museum is a museum complex set up like a 19th century village of 12 historic buildings, moved from their original site. These include homes, one-room schoolhouses, a barbershop, and a church.  Each building had its own stop on the trick-or-treat trail, and they really decked them out in all the Halloween finery!  One of the schoolhouses was set up for "Eternal Detention", filled with the skeletons of students who had been there for "ages".  Also, there was Zombie Detection school for training in defeating zombies, and the "Undecorated" Show house, filled to the brim with deconstruction advice.  The hanging skeleton barnyard was a place to store any unused skeletons and their parts.  There were zombies in the barber chairs, as well as a place to buy your ghoulish goods, such as eyeballs and lizard tongues.  It was great fun.  Now, on to the real deal, tomorrow night!

What Will You Be For Halloween?

This painting is called "Sirin Bird on a Grape Tree" from 1710






Suggested musical pairing:
"Prospero's Speech"
"Penelope's Song"
"Marrakesh Night Market"
"All Souls Night"
"The Old Ways" (#35 on my playlist)
all by Loreena McKennitt
scroll to bottom of play list for the rest of the songs


I myself have been researching my own costume for the past couple weeks. I have a pair of black wings and some birdlike make-up stencils, so I wanted to transform myself into a combination of woman and bird, somehow. If I had to choose an animal to become, it would be a bird because there would be nothing better than having the ability to fly. So, of course, I had to start googling to find out if there was such a creature. When I put in a search for half bird, half woman, I came up with "sirin" which is the Russian form of the traditional Greek siren. And, this is what Wikipedia had to say about sirins: Sirin is a mythological creature of Russian legend with the head and chest of a beautiful woman and the body of a bird (usually an owl). According to myth, the Sirins lived "in Indian lands" near Eden or around the Euphrates River.

These half-women half-birds are directly based on the Greek myths and later folklore about sirens.They were usually portrayed wearing a crown or with a nimbus. Sirins sang beautiful songs to the saints, foretelling future joys. For mortals, however, the birds were dangerous. Men who heard them would forget everything on earth, follow them, and ultimately die. People would attempt to save themselves from Sirins by shooting cannons, ringing bells and making other loud noises to scare the bird off. Later (17-18th century), the image of Sirins changed and they started to symbolize world harmony (as they live near paradise). People in those times believed only really happy people could hear a Sirin, while only very few could see one because she is as fast and difficult to catch as human happiness. She symbolizes eternal joy and heavenly happiness.

The legend of Sirin might have been introduced to Kievan Rus by Persian merchants in the 8th-9th century. In the cities of Chersonesos and Kiev they are often found on pottery, golden pendants, even on the borders of Gospel books of tenth-twelfth centuries. Pomors often depicted Sirins on the illustrations in the Book of Genesis as birds sitting in paradise trees.

Sometimes Sirins are seen as a metaphor for God's word going into the soul of a man. Sometimes they are seen as a metaphor of heretics tempting the weak. Sometimes Sirins were considered equivalent to the Polish Wila. In Russian folklore, Sirin was mixed with the revered religious writer Saint Ephrem the Syrian. Thus, peasant lyrists such as Nikolay Klyuev often used Sirins as a synonym for poet.

How appropriate! "Sirin" as a synonym for "poet". I am definitely onto something here...

I guess I'll have to also research the Polish "Wila":

This is taken from Monsterpedia:

In Polish mythology, the Wila (VEE-lah) are reputed in Poland to be female fairy-like spirits who live in the wilderness and sometimes clouds. They were believed to be the spirits of women who had been frivolous in their lifetimes and now floated between here and the afterlife. They sometimes appear as the swans, snakes, horses, falcons, or wolves that they can shapeshift into but usually appear as beautiful maidens, naked or dressed in white with long flowing hair.

It is said that if even one of these hairs is plucked, the Wila will die, or be forced to change back to her true shape. A human may gain the control of a Wila by stealing feathers from her wings. Once she gets them back, however, she will disappear.

The voices of the Wila are as beautiful as they are, and one who hears them loses all thoughts of food, drink or sleep, sometimes for days. Despite their feminine charms, however, the Wila are fierce warriors. The earth is said to shake when they do battle. They have healing and prophetic powers and are sometimes willing to help mankind. Other times they lure young men to dance with them, which according to their mood can be a very good or very bad thing for the lad. They ride on horses or deer when they hunt with their bows and arrows and will kill any man who defies them or breaks his word. Fairy rings of deep thick grass are left where they have danced which should never be trod upon (bad luck).

Offerings for Wila consist of round cakes, ribbons, fresh fruits and vegetables or flowers left at sacred trees and wells and at fairy caves.

Well, I don't plan on being naked this Halloween (don't want to scare the kids too much), or wearing white (I will probably be in mostly black to match my wings), but offer me round cakes, ribbons, and flowers, and I may change my mind.;)

Happy Halloween Everyone! May your evening be as mystical as mine...

Despair by H.P Lovecraft

Now, is this a perfect Halloween poem, or what?
Suggested musical pairing: Spem in Allium by Thomas Tallis
Help, I'm Alive by Metric, Haunted When the Minutes Drag by Love and Rockets

Despair by H.P. Lovecraft

Despair O’er the midnight moorlands crying,
Thro’ the cypress forests sighing,
In the night-wind madly flying,
Hellish forms with streaming hair;
In the barren branches creaking,
By the stagnant swamp-pools speaking,
Past the shore-cliffs ever shrieking;
Damn’d daemons of despair.

Once, I think I half remember,
Ere the grey skies of November
Quench’d my youth’s aspiring ember,
Liv’d there such a thing as bliss;
Skies that now are dark were beaming,
Gold and azure, splendid seeming
Till I learn’d it all was dreaming —
Deadly drowsiness of Dis.

But the stream of Time, swift flowing,
Brings the torment of half-knowing —
Dimly rushing, blindly going
Past the never-trodden lea;
And the voyager, repining,
Sees the wicked death-fires shining,
Hears the wicked petrel’s whining
As he helpless drifts to sea.

Evil wings in ether beating;
Vultures at the spirit eating;
Things unseen forever fleeting
Black against the leering sky.
Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,
Clawing fiends of future sadness,
Mingle in a cloud of madness
Ever on the soul to lie.

Thus the living, lone and sobbing,
In the throes of anguish throbbing,
With the loathsome Furies robbing
Night and noon of peace and rest.
But beyond the groans and grating
Of abhorrent Life, is waiting
Sweet Oblivion, culminating
All the years of fruitless quest.

The True Halloween Experience: The Continental

photo courtesy of The Continental Facebook page-the existence of which tells all!

For the following, my suggested musical pairing would be "Every day is Halloween" by Ministry, "Dig It" by Skinny Puppy and "Lucretia, My Reflection" by Sisters of Mercy. Just scroll down to my play list at the bottom of my blog, and then scroll down to the last songs.



The Continental nightclub in downtown Buffalo, New York was a place where you could live Halloween, any weekend night of the year. The nightclub had a first floor, where the indie bands of the time played, a second floor, where the cool people danced, and an outdoor courtyard in back, where there was a lot of marijuana aromatherapy, bat watching, and, if you were lucky, good old fashioned making out. You were never really quite sure what was going on out back.

For those of you from good ol' Buffalo, and old enough to remember, the Continental was quite the unique place. As we used to say, one is either a tourist merely there to watch the unique goings-on of the crowd, or a regular part of the crowd, which was the cool, and only, way to be. Needless to say, the regulars despised the tourists. Nowadays, we would call it a goth bar, but back in the 80's, I'm not even sure if that phrase was coined yet. It was a ritual getting ready to go out on those Friday and Saturday nights. I think we must have owned stock in black eyeliner and white make-up. And, lest we forget, we never wore anything but black.

The Continental night club is now defunct. It closed a few years ago after changing a few hands and the popularity died out, or as I like to say, the patrons grew up and moved on. But, in it's heyday, it was THE place to be, if you were interested in breaking into the alternative music scene, or, in the early days, punk scene. I remember we were friendly with a couple of guys who seemed to play every weekend in their band. They were known to us as Johnny and Robby (my friend Kim had an ongoing flirtation with Johnny). Nowadays, everyone knows them as Johnny Rzeznik and Robby Takac and their world famous band, The Goo Goo Dolls. We just knew them as that blond good looking guy, and his short friend.

I pretty much did my "growing up" at The Continental. I starting going there around 1986 or so, around the time I entered college and got my first car, a 1976 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale, medium blue with a white vinyl top. And, boy, was I proud of that car! My best friend at the time, Kim, and I would arrive early, just after dark. We would park in the parking ramp across the street, so we could spy the door to check when our favorite bouncer would arrive (I don't remember his name, but he was quite large, African American, and completely bald). When he did, we made our move. Copies of our birth certificates in hand, the date changed to protect the innocent, we made a run for it before he left the door and someone else took his place. Although I really don't think we were ever thrown out, and I look back now and laugh at how we would get so nervous about it. I mean, come on, we were 18 years old and quite pretty, and the Continental was a DIVE. Why wouldn't they let us in?!

We never really got into too much trouble back then. I only remember a handful of nights when we drank too much, usually Kim more than me because I was driving. I do recall a night in the bathroom, Kim just a pile of skirts and combat boots lying on the grime-encrusted bathroom floor. I believe that was also the night I dropped her off on the front lawn of her house, literally on the front lawn passed out. It was a "Sixteen Candles" moment. Kim was the one with the midnight curfew, too! I don't think things even got started at the Continental until midnight. That's when all the freaks come out, after all.


I wrote a little story, a sort of memoir, a few years back, in September 2007. It is about a night that will remain ingrained in my memory, and it is perfect for this Halloween time of year. And, here it is:

The Continental

I moved up to the bar, self-aware and hesitant, to order our usual first drinks of the night. This decision was usually made after 15-20 minutes of commiseration about who was at the bar, which bartender was there, and how much tip did we really need to leave. I remember those drinks, Blue Hawaiians, and how they actually glowed in the dim, reddish light of the Continental. I also remember the smell of the place before the evening got under way, the smell of sticky drinks, old cigarettes, Kim's perfume (Lauren by Ralph Lauren) and lots of leather in various states of decay.

The Continental was our haven, our shelter. Our elders expected something totally different of what a teenager should do and be. Kim's parents believed that at 19, she was still a child and should be locked away like Fiona in her dragon-guarded castle. My parents expected perfection, but never gave me any rules or guidelines in which to plan my life, leaving me floating around aimlessly, which I did for years. But, I was always the responsible one. Go figure.

So, every Friday and Saturday, like clockwork, we would enter our dreamlike state through a combination of alcohol (buy one get one), dim lighting, and very shady characters at our place of choice. Little did we know, it would form our future, our personalities, and our social life for years to come. (Well, at least mine. I lost touch with Kim after college. Last I heard, she had married quite young and has twin boys.). For me, the Continental formed my imagination, heightened my creativity, even to this day.

One night in particular, I swear to God, I'm sure, I met the devil. He was one of those few standing at the bar, earlier in the night, as the first band was playing. It was one of those nights that we did our commiserating at "the mushroom" (a spool-shaped bar table), but that particular night, it was so smoky, I almost couldn't breathe. When I decided to finally walk up to the bar, I walked up beside him. He turned to me and shook my hand. Somehow, with this handshake, he left red marks on my palm from his long, black fingernails. And, his hair, how can I possibly describe it? It was a wild mass of dreadlocks, but different. They were more like long strips of black tattered rags. It was almost as if he shaved his scalp between the rags. He seemed to appear like a demon from an angst-ridden teenager's wild imaginary drawings. His voice was a scathing whisper that still resonates with me still to this day, more than 20 years later.

I saw him in my bedroom later on. I'm not sure if it was days or months later. I just know that I saw him, and he seemed real, yet wasn't. I saw him twice in one of the hallucinatory nighttime visions I have been having all my life. He sat in the corner of my bedroom at my parent's house, quietly, but unmistakeably him. Clear as a bell, him.

I sometimes look back at this time in my life in disbelief. The girl from a mostly Polish-Catholic Cheektowaga, New York who thought she wanted to be a forensic scientist, but somehow, through life experience, realized it wasn't science that grabbed her soul. It was the unknown, that which we will never know, the spirits that still lurk within the walls of that place on Franklin Street, the spirits that lurk within our minds just dying to come out into the great world. The Continental was the essence of emotional inspiration, proof of the slippery slope of humanity.

"In a Bind", My Feeble Attempt at Flash Fiction, Freshly Rewritten

Since I seemed to have been writing with an unconscious emphasis on Halloween this week, I decided to pick up this old story and rewrite it using my recent inspiration as a guide.

For an extra bit of atmosphere while reading my recent posts, may I suggest that you scroll down to my play list and find "Lullaby" by The Cure? Enjoy!:



The key rests lightly on the tartan scarf I had worn yesterday evening. They both seemed to have been placed gently, patiently, there by someone who cared whether they stayed on the hall table, or tumbled down onto the slick, marble floor below.

This key alone knows the truth, the whole truth. It knows that someone had tried to kill me last night in my bed, but to no avail. The key knows the time, the place, and the M.O., and it, alone, knows the man himself, intimately.

Apparently and interestingly, he arrived late for dinner, just after 7:30 and left at 2:30 am, but not in a rush. All clues lead us to this determination.

I lay breathless, in a limp heap on my bed, but still full of life a short time after 2:30. I then rose, walked into the kitchen, and poured myself a glass of water to quench my parched thirst. I saw then, out of the corner of my eye, the key and the scarf on the hall table, both lifeless, but present. The scarf is the same that I had purposely draped around my neck earlier in the evening, and the same used as a reluctant accessory to attempted murder.

My first impulse was, after presumably slipping on gloves, to place them both in a plastic bag as evidence, but I let them be, their presence as proof of the crime. Suddenly, the phone rings, startling me, and I jump, my heart pounding. A lone raven caws in the yard. I let the machine pick up the call as I quickly close the rear window in the bedroom, fearing invasion by another intruder.

"Hi. You've reached Rachel. I am unable to come to the phone right now, but if you please leave a message, I'll return your call as soon as I can." Beep...."Hi, uhh, Rachel, are you there? Just wanted to call to say thanks for the pleasant evening [pause]... by the way, you didn't happen to find a skeleton key there by chance? It's the key to my coat closet. Don't mean to put you in a bind, so I'll just stop by later this afternoon. Also,(he chuckles) will you wear that scarf on our next date? I had a fantastic time..." Beep....

Perhaps this tape will only confuse investigators. I press "ERASE" quickly, before the machine stops, and get back to my water.