Erin O'Riordan writes smart, whimsical erotica. Her erotic romance novel trilogy, Pagan Spirits, is now available. With her husband, she also writes crime novels. Visit her home page at ko-fi.com.
14. "Joke's On You" Charlotte Lawrence - this is on the soundtrack of the Birds of Prey movie and therefore somewhat Joker-related, and therefore included on my Folie à Deux playlist
13. "Want You Bad" Bite Me Bambi - ska cover of the Offspring song from the year 2000
12. "I Want a Little Sugar In My Bowl" Nina Simone
11. "1979" The Smashing Pumpkins - probably my 2nd favorite SP song, lyrics-wise. It genuinely captures, impressionistically, the feeling set of teen years fading into dawning adulthood
10. "Malibu" Hole
9. "Pink Pony Club" Chappell Roan
8. "Already Gone" Kelly Clarkson - I very specifically associate this song with fictional Vicky in "A Broken Man & the Dawn."
7. "Drunk In Love" The Dan Band - this tongue-in-cheek Beyoncé cover slotted nicely into the Destiel playlist
6. "Poet" Bastille - I know I've been listening to this writing-themed song at least since September, when I shared in this Linda Pastan post.
5. "Spider Pig" Hans Zimmer
4. "Cruel Summer" Taylor Swift. I came late to this song, but I was hung over from watching Good Omens season 2 and the line "Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes" pulled me in. (The Aziracrow of it all, yes, but also Gabriel and Beelzebub. I thought Gabe and Bub made a nice celestial couple.)
Taylor Swift really is a very talented lyricist. The more lyrics I learned, the more I liked this.
3. "Crazy For You" New Found Glory - Madonna Louise Ciccone was coming up in too many of my playlists, so I banished her and made a playlist exclusively of Madonna covers. This happens to work for Destiel playlist too
2. "Ava Adore" The Smashing Pumpkins - these are my favorite Billy Corgan lyrics; there’s a lovely symmetry to them. I love the guitar parts, and I love Ms. D’Arcy Elizabeth Wretzky’s bass part at the end.
30. "What's the Frequency, Kenneth? Live at the Palace 1999" - R.E.M.
29. "20%" Hans Zimmer - instrumental, from the Rush soundtrack, went onto my Daniel Brühl playlist
28. "Come As You Are" Nirvana
27. "II Most Wanted" Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus - this was my favorite song on Cowboy Carter
26. "Red Wine Supernova" Chappell Roan
25. "One Night In Bangkok (US club remix)" - Murray Head
24. "Ralph Wiggum" - Bloodhound Gang
23. "Wicked Game (Live, Acoustic)" Stone Sour - Destiel playlist
22. "Fake ID" Riton, Kah-lo - I first heard this one when Tit Elingtin had Sirius XM satellite radio in his car and we listened to the Chill channel the first time we drove down to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to visit my cousin's son. That was Memorial Day Weekend this year.
Riton is a dj from the UK; Kah-lo is the Nigerian-born American singer
50. "Disease" Lady Gaga - the song came out on October 25th and Spotify cuts off its metrics a week or two into November, so that gives some indication of how much I've had this track on repeat
40. "Loverboy" Billy Ocean - I heard this song randomly in a CVS drug store and I thought, yes, that was a pretty good song from my childhood. So I listened to it some more.
Written by Billy Ocean, Keith Diamond, and Robert "Mutt" Lange, this song masterfully combines '80s synthpop with soul. It's really well-crafted, from the back-up singers' "oooh-waahs" to the galloping bassline.
Also the video is giving Lando Calrissian and I love that for it.
Mutt Lange is Shania Twain's ex-husband. This recent podcast episode dives deep into the careers of two Canadian pop stars, Twain and Celine Dion.
39. "Till the World Ends" Britney Spears
38. "Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein or Dracula" The Diamonds - Halloween playlist. Note that there was also a LVCRFT cover that came out this year.
60. "Buffy Theme" The Breeders - instrumental, on the Reading Playlist. My mom watched Buffy; I never did. But I know it had Anthony Head, the brother of Murray Head.
56. "Baby Daddy's Weekend" Elle King - fluffy summer party song about getting drunk and high
55. "Fictional Men" Peggy - is this the only song on the list that makes explicit mention of the COVID-19 quarantine? I hope so. I feel like I dug deep enough back into that trauma when I read Amanda Gorman
54. "Crush" Billianne - feels true. That IS what it feels like to have a crush
53. "No Ordinary Love" Deftones - Destiel playlist
51. "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" - Shaboozey - interpolates "Tipsy" by J-Kwon, which reminds me of the years I worked at a child & adolescent mental health facility and alternative school. It came out in January 2004
70. "Simply the Best (from Schitt's Creek)" Noah Reid - Reid's newer album is great, but this super-romantic Patrick x David track from the tv show is irresistible. I like to imagine that by this point in their marriage, David has totally given in to Patrick's wish to have children and they currently have 3 or 4.
68. "Why Can't I?" Liz Phair - I may have been inspired to listen to Liz Phair after hearing this back episode of Chelsea Devantez's books podcast
67. "The Diva Dance - Remix by SWO" - Eric Serra, Inva Mula, SWO - on the Reading playlist
66. "SMOKE HOUR" Beyoncé, Willie Nelson - another short, spoken word track that frequently made its way into the rotation while I was enjoying Cowboy Carter
65. "Hard To Be the Bard" Christian Borle
64. "Starman" David Bowie - I made a meme.
63. "Radioactive - GROUPLOVE & Captain Cuts Remix" Imagine Dragons. Ages ago, this song was used in the advertising for the film based on Stephenie Meyer's The Host. I like this remix because it sounds like it's playing while I'm riding the merry-go-round.
78. "Typing" Nico Muhly - Instrumental track that emulates the sound of a typewriter, from the Kill Your Darlings soundtrack, on the Reading playlist. [And I still haven't seen Tulip Fever.]
77. "Falling In Love Again" Friedrich Hollaender, Marianne Faithfull - cover of the song made famous by Marlene Dietrich in her film The Blue Angel. One day last July I happened to hear the Diahann Carroll version of this song. Terrible. It sent me scrambling for Faithfull's very good cover.
76. "You Ruined Nirvana" McKenna Grace - Grace plays the granddaughter of a Ghostbuster in the last two movies in the franchise. Which is funny because the next song is...
75. "Good Girls (from the Ghostbusters Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [2016])" Elle King - that's the all-woman Ghostbusters reboot with the Chris Hemsworth scene that cracks me so consistently up. I laughed my ass off at that movie.
The lyrics are written from the POV of a naughty woman who may be some kind of minor demon or evil spirit. I had it on my Halloween soundtrack.
74. "I Like It Rough" Lady Gaga
73. "Algorhythm" Childish Gambino - samples "Hey Mr. DJ" by Zhane (1993)
Dave: Ondaatje started a food fight, salmon mousse all over the scene
All: Spilled some dressing on Doris Lessing, these writer types are a scream!
I like to go out dancing
My baby loves a bunch of authors
We'll be together for ages
Dave: Eatin' and Sleepin' and
Jean (in bus driver voice): Eatin' and Sleepin' and
Mike (as Dr. Ruth): Eating und Sleeping und
Murray: Turnin' pages
All: Yeah!
From the Liner: Mike-vocals; Murray-vocals, bass, spring muffler; Jean-vocals, sheet metal, snare; Dave-lead vocal, guitar
You can tell this is a song from the ‘90s because it contains the words “new cd player.”
*You can still go to the Sidewalk Cafe in Venice Beach, California, but they don't have this awesome literary menu with a sandwich called the Mario Puzo anymore.
90. "It's Oh So Quiet" Betty Hutton - I learned the Björk version first and so was surprised and delighted by this original. Except that Björk correctly noticed that the word "gorge" is meant to be short for "gorgeous," whereas Hutton mispronounces it as "George."
89. "Sugar In My Bowl" Camille O'Sullivan - on my March playlist of Irish music. She doesn't get all the words quite right, which I sometimes feel forgiving of and at other times get annoyed by. I like how she belts, though.
O'Sullivan is the life partner of actor Aidan Gillen, who can be found reciting poetry in English and Irish on Spotify. I most recently saw him as the big bad in Mayor of Kingstown, but remember him best as the heroic Aberama Gold in Peaky Blinders, late-life love of Aunt Polly (Helen McCrory).
88. "Dead End Road" Jelly Roll - the song from the Twisters soundtrack is simply a bangin' country-rocker
87. "David Duchovny, Why Won't You Love Me? (The Reboot)" Bree Sharp
86. "Me and Mr. Jones" Amy Winehouse
85. "S.O.S. (Sawed Off Shotgun)" The Glorious Sons - I don't love the band name; it sounds like something Confederate sympathizers would name themselves. And it might not be great for one's mental health, as it implies suicidal ideation. But it's a very catchy song.
84. "You & I" Lady Gaga - I listened to Lady Gaga in anticipation of the release of Joker: Folie à Deux. (I still haven't seen it.)
83. "Sacrilege" Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Fallen for a guy/ [who] Fell down from the sky." On my Destiel playlist
82. "It's the End of the World As We Know It" R.E.M.
81. "Drunk (And I Don't Wanna Go Home) (GOLDHOUSE Remix)" Elle King, Miranda Lambert, GOLDHOUSE
Happy Spotify Wrapped release day 2024! What was your top song of the year? Mine was "Joyride" by Kesha, surprising no one, since I already wrote a blog post about my obsession with this fun pop song.
Is 128 times a lot of times to stream one song? My top song last year was one that I listened to 49 times.
Rounding out my other top songs are tracks from ZZ Ward, New Found Glory, and Taylor Swift. But I'm not just a music girlie: I'm also a podcast girlie. These were my Top 5, including of course Disaster Area.
Now let's dive into my Top 100, which I'll divide into several posts over the next few days for easier readability.
100. "Headless Horseman" Kid Kasino, Shea - an electroswing version of the Bing Crosby-Disney tune with a female vocalist; Halloween playlist
Of course, I was in Sleepy Hollow, New York in October. Here's my photo of the Headless Horseman Bridge.
Does the mention of oysters make you think of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, specifically "The Walrus and the Carpenter?" Coincidentally, the next-most listened song is...
Lupe Vélez appeared in Photoplay magazine in 1928.
December 5, 2016: A 28-year-old man from North Carolina arrives at Washington, D.C.’s Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant armed with a rifle and two additional firearms. The man, who had been reading completely falsified conspiracy theories that the restaurant served as a front for child abuse by D.C. elites, threatened staff with the weapons and fired the rifle in the restaurant’s kitchen, apparently a “warning shot” not directed at anyone. He is arrested before anyone inside the pizza place is hurt. In March 2017, the man pleads guilty to federal weapons charges and judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (not yet an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) sentences him to four years in prison. He is released from prison in 2020.
December 14, 1944: Golden Age of Hollywood actress Lupe Vélez dies by suicide, taking 75 barbiturate pills with a glass of brandy. Her secretary found her body lying in Vélez’s bed and not, as urban legend has it, drowned in her toilet.
December 16, 1988: Disco singer Sylvester James dies at his home in San Francisco from AIDS-related illness. He’s 41 years old.
December 17, 2021: Visual artist, classic album cover designer, and novelist Eve Babitz dies at age 78 from Huntington’s disease, the same hereditary neurodegenerative disease that killed Woody Guthrie.
December 20, 1882: Swiss Romantic poet Alice de Chambrier dies at age 21 from complications of diabetes.
December 22, 1995: Retired actor and dancer Butterfly McQueen, then 84 years old, dies at the hospital from burn wounds she suffers when she attempts to heat her home using a kerosene heater that malfunctions.
December 24, 1936: Stage and early silent film actress Irene Fenwick dies at age 49 due to complications of an eating disorder. Her husband Lionel Barrymore (great-uncle of Drew Barrymore), who famously plays Ebenezer Scrooge on the radio every Christmas, is forced to turn the role over his brother John (great-grandfather of Drew Barrymore).
December 26, 2002: Photographer Herb Ritts dies of AIDS-related pneumonia at the age of 50.
December 29, 1170: Knights loyal to King Henry II assassinate Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, inside Becket’s cathedral.
December 30, 1999: Former Beatle George Harrison, his wife Olivia, and their son Dhani are asleep in their home, Friar Park, outside London at around 3 a.m. local time. George and Olivia hear glass breaking. George goes downstairs to investigate, only to find a 33-year-old man screaming. The stranger had broken into the home by breaking a window with a bit of lawn statuary. The man has a knife and stabs George repeatedly in the chest until Olivia comes down and hits the man with a fireplace poker. The intruder then tries to strangle Olivia with the cord of a lamp. Olivia manages to fight off the attacker.
George survives but has to have part of a lung removed. The attacker, who is experiencing serious mental illness, is found to be not criminally liable for his actions because of his mental state and is admitted to a secured mental health hospital, where he stays until after George’s death in 2001 from cancer.
An Elegy for Old Terrors by Zoë Orfanos was recommended to me by the poet's parents, who live here in Indianapolis.
Most of these were library books I borrowed using the Libby app. I own An Elegy for Old Terrors, Bury Your Gays, Happiness Becomes You, Heathcliff Redux, How To Be Invisible, and Life's Too Short. Nightbooks is my brother's.
November 11, 1994, South Bend: In Brit Lit, we read excerpts from Paradise Lost.
“The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free: th’Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell;
Better to reign in hell than serve in heav’n.”
- Paradise Lost, Book One, lines 254-263
This is, of course, a paraphrase of something Bender says on Futurama, not a John Milton quote.
But that only reminds me that I edited the above poetry over an image of Mark Pellegrino, Lucifer on the CW television series Supernatural.
Ah, but that is just making me horny for Lucifer (fictional character). (Why does his hair look like he just got out of bed after having a very, very good time in bed? I don't know but I do care to speculate.) As I said in this post about Truman Capote's "nonfiction novel" In Cold Blood:
"Mark Pellegrino is pretty, too. Blond and blue-eyed like Dick Hickok but, one presumes, without the homicidal tendencies, he's part Italian and part Russian and various kinds of Northern European. I don't quite understand his fascination with Ayn Rand, but still, he's a pretty one."
If you'll excuse my Tumblr.com lingo for a moment: I'm sexualizing that old man. (He's 12 years older than me.)
2014 me didn't even know Mark Pellegrino's name. I said in this post about an unhinged SamStiel dream that his character was Satan. He's not Satan, he's the archangel Lucifer. (To understand that distinction without a difference, consult a Christian theologian.) She was so young and naive.
2016 me saw the Philip Seymour Hoffman film Capote. Playing Richard "Dick" Hickok, the real-life convicted murderer, pedophile, and all-around lowlife slimeball, Pellegrino brought some of his Luciferian energy to that relatively small role. And good hair. And vintage tattoos that suited him as a villain (whose pedophilic tendencies were somewhat downplayed for the film adaptation. The movie doesn't want you to root for the murderers, exactly, but you as an audience member must at least accept their common humanity with Truman Capote and Harper Lee).
So please, try not to judge me too harshly if you catch me in the Lucifer (Supernatural)/reader tag on ao3. It's all John Milton's fault, really. If he hadn't written bad boy Lucifer as what the Romantic poets would later describe as a Byronic hero, we might not be in this mess.
But here we are, just like Lord Byron before us, reading Milton and getting horny for fictional!Lucifer. Am I going to hell? Maybe. Given the current political situation in the United States of America, I have to admit, I'm in much more of a rebelling mood than I am an obeying authority mood. I might be ok with that.
This blog will be using the blogger's First Amendment right to free speech to object to the fascist administration of Donald J. Trump.
If you need an explanation from the son of two Holocaust survivors on how Trump fits the exact dictionary definition of a fascist, listen here.
Feel free to comment, but pro-fascist comments will be deleted and the users blocked. The rest of you, the non-fascist-apologists, please write to me when I get put in liberal re-education camp. I'm only a little bit joking.
In the meantime:
I stand with women.
I stand with cis women and trans women.
I stand with women who need abortions.
I stand with women who need abortions for any reason, at any time during their pregnancies.
I stand with nonbinary people and trans men.
I stand with nonbinary people and trans men who need abortions, for any reason, at any time during their pregnancies.
I stand with unmarried people. I stand with childless people, whether childless by choice or by circumstance.
I stand with children and their inherent right to a real education that includes real, non-propagandistic history.
I stand with children and their right to health care.
I stand with children and their inherent human right to education, even when (especially when) that makes them smarter than their parents.
I stand with children and their inherent human right to grow into the religion they choose, if any. I do not believe any parent has the right to force an abusive or exploitative religion on their children and demand that the child practice that cult-like behavior into adulthood.
I stand with Muslims, my fellow Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, indigenous people who practice their ancestral religion, Wiccans, witches, Satanists (yes, even the Satanists - the free practice of religion necessarily excludes no one), people of other faiths, agnostics, and atheists. I stand with all non-Christian Americans in defending our right not to be forced to practice any aspect of Evangelical Christianity against our will. This is our First Amendment right.
In the religion of Judaism, it is morally wrong to force a woman to die because her pregnancy can't continue. Refusing an abortion for a Jewish woman who needs one is a violation of her right to practice Judaism freely. Refusing a Jewish doctor their right to practice abortions is a violation of the free practice of that person's religion.
I stand with immigrants. All immigrants, documented or undocumented. I don't work for the government and another person's papers are none of my damn business. I also know that this country won't function without its immigrant population. Immigrants are my fellow Americans.
I stand with Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is part of the United States. Puerto Ricans are our fellow Americans.
I stand with indigenous Americans. Federal laws that violate the sovereignty of the indigenous nations have to be fought using lawyers and peaceful protest. Indigenous people have rights that I respect.
I stand with LGBTQ+ people. I'm openly bi and I will always be a safe person to come out to. I will also be a safe person for any trans, nonbinary, agender, or other-gendered person to come out to. I will never demand that the human race segregate itself into two narrowly-defined genders.
I stand with people with blue hair and pronouns. The proper amount of liberty is always to err on the side of too much, never to err on the side of not enough liberty.
I do not forgive the criminals who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, even after they get presidential pardons. They attacked the United States and are traitors. I will neither forget nor forgive.
Cults of personality are bullshit. One man can't solve all of your problems, no matter what he promises.
It's also nakedly obviously that Trump is suffering from some form of mental decline, probably the same Alzheimer's disease that killed his father Fred. As you know, the disease is hereditary. Anyone who is preventing him from being treated for dementia is medically abusing him. If he's being medically abused for political reasons, that is a crime being committed against Donald J. Trump, and a prosecutor should be looking into that.
The fucking emperor has no clothes. I won't be gaslit, bullied, or intimidated into saying otherwise. The worst they can do is kill me, but they can't kill ideas.
I approve of Guy Fawkes's king-exploding policy (historically speaking), but not that he would have blown up Westminster Abbey. Let the poets rest in peace. Not an endorsement of violence more recent than 400 years ago. I endorse non-violent protest and the prosecution of domestic terrorists.
I refuse to live in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and I hope you do too. Malala Yousafzai resisted; may we all have her courage.
November 5, 1605: Guy Fawkes attempts to blow up the English Parliament, an act known as the Gunpowder Plot. The plot is foiled, Guy Fawkes is convicted and hanged, and burning an effigy of Fawkes becomes an English tradition.
In V for Vendetta, the character V wears a mask representing Guy Fawkes.
November 7, 1908: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are killed in a shootout with police in Bolivia.
November 7, 1980: Actor Steve McQueen dies in his sleep following surgery in Juárez, Mexico. He’d been diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, which metastasized and caused large tumors in his neck, chest, and abdomen.
Between February and October 1980, McQueen had attempted to treat his disease with alternative therapy directed by William Donald Kelley, who called his quack treatment regimen “non-specific metabolic therapy.” In McQueen’s case, the treatments didn’t distract him from seeking conventional medicine; his doctors had already told him his cancer was inoperable and terminal. The quack “alternative medicine” did, however, cost him thousands of dollars while having no effect whatsoever on his disease. Kelley also falsely claimed in the media that his treatment of McQueen was successful, and this false claim may have cost other cancer patients their lives if they chose not to seek conventional treatment. Kelley, who died in 2005, did not have a license to practice medicine.
November 8, 2020: Beloved Canadian-American game show host Alex Trebek dies of pancreatic cancer.
Me and Alex Trebek in 2012
November 11, 1995: Kenule (Ken) Beeson Saro-Wiwa, who belonged to the Ogoni people of Nigeria, became a well-known playwright and environmental activist in response to the degraded environment of his native Ogoniland region caused by irresponsible petroleum waste disposal. He is assassinated by hanging under the false charge that he’d been involved in the murder of four Ogoni chiefs. Eight other activists are similarly falsely accused and executed by Nigeria’s military dictatorship.
November 14, 1928: Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sochocky, the inventor of radium dial paint used to make wristwatches that glow in the dark, dies of aplastic anemia caused by his exposure to radium. His death helps make the legal case for the so-called “radium girls,” workers in the watch factories who became sick and often died from the same exposure to radioactivity, who sued their employer for the unsafe conditions in the factories.
November 16, 1960: 59-year-old actor Clark Gable, who has had a heart attack on November 6th, seems to be recovering when he suffers a second, fatal heart attack.
November 23, 1958: Despite valiant efforts to revive him, comedian Harry Einstein dies of a heart attack he has suffered during a Friars Club roast of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Einstein collapses onto fellow comedian Milton Berle. Berle asks the audience, “Is there a doctor in the house?” This is initially taken by the audience to be a joke. When it became clear that Einstein needs medical attention, two physicians in the audience try to treat him. He is pronounced dead in the early hours of the 23rd.
Comedian Bob Einstein is 16 years old when his father dies; his brother, who performs under the stage name Albert Brooks, is 11.
November 24, 1991: Freddie Mercury dies of complications of AIDS in London.
November 25, 1990: Race car driver William (Billy) John Vukovich III is killed during racing practice in Bakersfield, California when the throttle on his car got stuck and the vehicle crashed into a wall. Vukovich’s grandfather had been killed during the 1955 Indianapolis 500.
November 27, 2019: Taiwanese-Canadian actor and model Godfrey Gao (born Tsao Chih-hsiang), age 35, collapses while filming the reality show Chase Me. Gao is taken to a nearby hospital, where medical personnel attempted to resuscitate him, but is pronounced dead due to cardiac arrest a few hours after collapsing.
American audiences may remember Gao best from the movie adaptation of Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.
November 29, 2001: Musician George Harrison dies at age 58 of lung cancer that has spread to his brain in a Los Angeles home belonging to his friend and former bandmate Paul McCartney.
November 30, 1882: Actress Annie Von Behren is accidentally shot and killed during a performance of Clifton W. Tayleure's play Si Slocum in Cincinnati, Ohio. Von Behren’s co-star Frank Frayne is supposed to shoot an apple off Von Behren’s head. The gun misfires and the bullet strikes Von Behren just above the eye; she dies less than 15 minutes later.
November 30, 1923: Vaudeville and early film actress Martha Mansfield dies of severe burns in the hospital. The previous day she had been dressed in a Civil War-era costume on the set of the film The Warrens of Virginia when a crew member lit a cigarette, then carelessly tossed the match. The match ignited Mansfield’s costume, which was difficult to remove due to its hoop skirt and many layers. The film was finished and released after Mansfield’s death, but is now considered lost.
November 30, 1958: Welsh actor Gareth Jones, performing in a television play broadcast live, dies of a massive heart attack during a break in between two scenes in which his character was to appear. Jones’ character was scripted to die from a heart attack during the teleplay.
November 30, 2013: Beloved Fast and Furious actor Paul William Walker IV leaves a Santa Clarita, California charity event as the passenger in his Porsche Carrera GT. The driver, Roger Rodas, reaches speeds of up to 93 mph in a 45 mph zone. He apparently loses control of the vehicle. It crashes into a lamp post and two trees, catching fire and killing them both. Rodas was 38; Walker was 40.
Happy 1st of November, the Feast of All Saints in Roman Catholicism. Please enjoy this reimagined version of "Never Ever," the biggest U.S. hit for 1990s U.K. pop group All Saints. This is from All Saints member Shaznay Lewis's May 2024 album Pages.
May the patron saints of Britpop bless and keep us all.
What is writing but the preservation of ghosts? - Cameron Awkward-Rich, "Essay on the Appearance of Ghosts"
We rouse ghosts, Primarily, for answers. Meaning we seek Ghosts for their memory & fear them for it just the same. Our country, a land of shades. Yet there are no wraiths but us. If we are to summon Anyone or anything, Let it be our tender selves.
***
Like ghosts, we have too much To say. We will make do. Even if in a graveyard. We, like this place, Are haunted & hungry. The past is where we pull home. Our forms once again fluent In all things bright.
Poet's note: The title "Who We Gonna Call" is a reference to the original "Ghostbusters" theme song to the film of the same name by Ray Parker Jr.
If you're looking for something seasonal to listen to this Halloween, I have suggestions! I've curated them into this Spotify playlist.
If you listen to all 24 episodes, you'll treat yourself to 16 1/2 hours of spooky podcast listening!
The "Buried Alive" episode of American Hysteria discusses historical cases of people afraid they were going to be buried alive, but also accounts of so-called burial artists who buried themselves alive on purpose, usually as a publicity stunt. All of the accounts in this episode end relatively well for the burial artist. If you want to read a brief, macabre account of a burial artist whose stunt did not go well, see Bummer Halloween.
October 2, 2019: Guitarist Kim Shattuck, who played for groups including Pixies, the Muffs, and the Pandoras, dies of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at the age of 56.
October 4, 1970: Her road manager finds 27-year-old singer Janis Joplin dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. She has apparently died of a heroin overdose.
October 5, 2001: Robert Stevens, a photographer for the tabloid newspaper Sun in Boca Raton, Florida, dies of pulmonary anthrax. His death is the first in a series of anthrax terror attacks that killed Stevens and four other people and sickened 17 others.
Microbiologist Bruce Ivins is the lead suspect in the FBI investigation into the anthrax attacks. He dies by suicide before he can be arrested and charged.
October 10, 1963: 47-year-old French cabaret singer Édith Piaf dies of liver failure from liver cancer and cirrhosis after years of alcohol and drug addiction.
October 10, 1984: One employee and three customers are killed when a fire breaks out at Ole's Home Center in South Pasadena, California. The youngest victim is two years old. The fire is determined to be arson by investigators who include John Leonard Orr. In 1992, Orr will be convicted of this and several other arson fires in the Los Angeles area.
October 19, 1977: A small fire breaks out aboard the charter plane used by members of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd. No one is hurt, but the fire makes Cassie Gaines hesitant to board the plane the next day.
October 20, 1977: Cassie Gaines, her brother Steve Gaines, Ronnie Van Zant, road manager Dean Kilpatrick, and pilots William Gray and Walter McCreary die when Lynyrd Skynyrd’s chartered plane runs out of fuel and crashes in the woods outside Gillsburg, Mississippi. Drummer Artimus Pyle, guitarist Gary Rossington, and keyboardist Billy Powell all survive with serious injuries.
October 20, 1990: Stunt performer Brian Jewell, portraying a hanged man at a New Jersey “haunted hayride” attraction, accidentally hangs himself in earnest.
October 21, 1966: “[On this date] a massive coal-tip slid down a mountainside and engulfed the Welsh mining village of Aberfan, killing 144 persons, mostly school children. In response to an appeal the following week in a national newspaper, an English psychiatrist, J. Barker, obtained a large number of reports from respondents who felt they may have received paranormal information concerning this tragedy. After all claims were carefully checked out, thirty-five cases remained which Dr. Barker considered worthy of confidence. In twenty-four cases, the respondents had related the information to someone else before the landslide occurred. Dreams figures in twenty-five of these accounts. In one, the dreamer saw, spelled out in large, brilliant letters, the word ABERFAN, In another, a telephone operator from Brighton talked helplessly to a child, who walked toward her, followed by a billowing cloud of black dust or smoke.” - Our Dreaming Mind by Robert L. Van de Castle
October 26, 1952: Hattie McDaniel, the first African-American to sing on the radio in the U.S. and the first African-American to win an Academy Award for acting, dies of breast cancer in Los Angeles. She’s 59 years old.
October 26, 1990: 15-year-old William Anthony Odom, setting up a gallows scene for a Halloween tableau in North Carolina, accidentally hangs himself when the rope he’s using tightens on him.
October 26, 2018: A bomb addressed to then-Senator Kamala Harris is intercepted by authorities in Sacramento, California. Cesar Altieri Sayoc, Jr. is later convicted of the terroristic threat.
October 26, 2022: Food writer Julie Powell dies of cardiac arrest at age 49 after battling a COVID-19 infection.
