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.
Excited about Halloween this year (and a habitual autumn-lover), I've been making a few YouTube shorts while out shopping.
I also read a "spooky" (cute) board book with monsters.
And here's what I did last Saturday. Note the local authors and dancing witches.
This is a good podcast episode for Halloween: Author Colin Dickey goes to Nevada's legal brothel, Mustang Ranch, to interview some of the sex workers there, learns the ghost lore of the Ranch, and possibly has a ghost encounter of his own.
If you're an enjoyer of vintage Halloween, and in particular the Halloween of 100 years ago, here are some additional videos you might enjoy. This one recounts a 1925 journalist's understanding of the history of Halloween.
These are some Halloween newspaper clippings from October 11th through October 23rd, 1925.
Here's an interesting artifact of early 20th century culture: The Yama Yama Man.
I mentioned Heidi in this video because this lost movie, Dangerous Innocence, also has Jean Hersholt. Watch through to find out how to get a free audiobook.
And, of course, I can't wait for Halloween. I can never get enough Halloween. I don't want any Christmas this year; I only want to celebrate Halloween from now until New Year's Eve.
Check out these and hundreds of other deals for October Prime Day. It's also Banned Books Week, so support your local authors and protect your freedom to read!
October 1, 1941: 52-year-old Aline Murray Kilmer, herself a poet and also the widow of Joyce Kilmer, a poet killed in World War One, dies following three years of an unknown, but excruciatingly painful, illness.
October 1, 1951: Journalist Pauline Pfeiffer dies at age 56 of acute shock. She had a rare pheochromocytoma tumor on one of her adrenal glands. It appears that when Pauline’s transgender daughter Gloria was arrested for using a women’s bathroom and Gloria’s father Ernest Hemingway called his ex-wife Pauline to tell her, the news of Gloria’s arrest caused Pauline’s adrenal tumor to produce the hormones that caused the fatal state of physical shock.
October 2, 2018: Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, who resides in the U.S., is murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Khashoggi’s writings were critical of the Saudi government, and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is suspected of being involved in the assassination.
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 3, 1849: On this election day, Edgar Allan Poe is given alcohol and marched from polling place to polling place in an illegal voting scam that was popular at the time. It may have contributed to his death four days later.
October 4, 1951: Henrietta Lacks passes away from complications of cervical cancer. She had been treated with radiation therapy at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. As a result of her cancer and/or the radiation, her organs failed. After her death and without her knowledge or consent, Lacks’ cancerous cells will be collected and used to start an “immortal” cell line that will be used in most of the major medical research of the 20th century.
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 4, 1974: Poet Anne Sexton dies by suicide in her car, locked inside her garage, by carbon monoxide poisoning. She is 45 years old.
October 5, 1995: 50-year-old voice actor Linda Gary, who provided an impressive number of cartoon characters with their voices in American animation of the ‘70s and ‘80s, dies of brain cancer.
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 7, 1849: In Baltimore, Edgar Allan Poe dies.
October 7, 1992: The last fluent speaker of the Ubykh language, Tevfik Esenç, dies at the age of 88. The Ubykh people are a subset of the Circassian people, who were the victims of ethnic cleansing by the Russians in the 18th and 19th centuries.
October 10, 1901: 23-year-old David Park Barnit, a poet of the Decadent school of poetry, dies suddenly of what newspapers describe as “an enlarged heart.” Some suspect this may be a cover story and that the young poet may have taken his own life.
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 12, 1943: Poet Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV, best known as Robert Lowell or Robert Lowell, Jr., is sentenced to a year in prison for draft evasion for being a conscientious objector to service in World War II.
October 19, 1950: Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, age 58, dies after apparently suffering a heart attack and falling down the stairs of her home.
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, 1728: The Copenhagen Fire of 1728 begins and burns through October 23rd. It destroys nearly a third of the city’s buildings, leaving approximately 20% of Copenhagen’s population homeless. The University of Copenhagen library loses approximately 35,000 texts.
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 22, 2009: The county government of Zhenyuan, Gansu province, China, announces on social media that it has burned 65 “illegal publications” outside of a local library. It describes the books as either “religious” or displaying “leanings,” presumably leanings that tend to disagree with the Chinese government.
On the same day, in the United States, novelist/blogger Mac Tonnies dies at age 34 of a cardiac arrhythmia.
October 23, 1731: Fire breaks out at Ashburnham House in Westminster, England. The house holds the Cotton Library, a collection of books and historical documents gifted to the British Crown by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, a Member of Parliament who died in 1631. The fire destroys 13 manuscripts and damages 200 others. The Nowell Codex, the single manuscript on which the Epic of Beowulfis recorded, is among those damaged.
October 24, 2010: Pan Jin-yu dies at the age of 96 in Taiwan. She was the last fluent native speaker of the Pazeh language.
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.
October 28, 1991: The commercial fishing boat Andrea Gail is lost amid the so-called Perfect Storm weather event that began with Hurricane Grace, formed on October 26th. The boat sinks with six crew members aboard near Sable Island, Canada. Their bodies are never recovered. In all, the Perfect Storm claims 13 lives.
October 31, 1871: Emily and Mary Wilde, the older half-sisters of Oscar Wilde, attend a Halloween party at Drumacon House near Ulster, Ireland. During the last dance of the evening, Mary gets too close to a candlestick and catches her dress on fire. Emily, too, catches her dress on fire as she rushes to help her sister. Party host Andrew Reid leads the women outside in the hope that the snow would help them extinguish the flames, but both sisters die of their injuries, Mary (age 22) on November 9th and Emily (age 24) on November 21st.
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.
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Now, let's get ready for the unofficial end of summer and the beginning of autumn with some fresh deals from Amazon. There's even a little sneak peak of Halloween 2024.
Do you like bad things? Want to bum yourself out? You can now read the complete set of unfortunate, mostly literary happenings that happened in past months:
I hope your winter holiday season, or summer if you live in the Southern Hemisphere, is going better than the days any of these people had. One day I'll put these, and many, many other weird and unfortunate events, out in ebook and printed almanac form. I'll shoot for 2024 as a goal.
Of course the Wallflowers were one of my top artists this year; we finally got to see them live. I listened to plenty of both Jacob Dylan and his dad Bob.
My favorite podcasts have hardly changed at all since last year.
Of course my top artist is Lady Gaga again this year. It's always Lady Gaga. I just like so many of her songs.
I think this is the first time one of the songs from my Halloween playlist, the charmingly innocent 1950s bop "Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein or Dracula" by the Diamonds, made my top 5. I guess I hit the Halloween playlist hard this spooky season. I indulged my urge to listen to songs that made me feel nostalgic.
Tell me some fun facts about YOUR Spotify Wrapped in the comments. Were you surprised by anything?
Episode 7 opens with an intimate encounter between Fred and Brigid. Darius prepares to work security at the Halloween bonfire, and Barbara Jean reconsiders her future with Edward.
Once upon a time, many years ago (Halloween 2011, to be exact), I took part in a Halloween blog hop. I won a prize from author J.Q. Rose, and that prize was an e-book copy of the horror novella Sunshine Boulevard, set in a gated retirement community in St. Augustine, Florida. It took me a shamefully long time to do so, but I finally got around to reading it on my Nook.
I'm so glad I did.
The book starts out with a mystery - what's killing the seniors in a most unusual fashion? Some form of spontaneous human combustion? Aliens? Or some kind of deadly new critter?
The novella contains a good amount of snarky but good-natured humor in addition to the mystery and body horror. It was a fast, fun, easy read. It reminded me of one other book I read before in the same horror subgenre, but alas, to name what that subgenre is would spoil the mystery. Best to just read it for yourself, if you're any kind of a comedy/mystery/horror fan.
Ghosts in Houses & Other Spooky Places by Daniel Hardie. $2.99 from Smashwords.com
Enter a world of the unknown and the paranormal, where strange ghostly and haunting happenings take place all over the world. Ghosts in Houses & Other Spooky places is a book that explores ghostly realms in haunted houses, haunted hotels, historic castles and cursed graveyards. Read this book... if you dare.
Happy Halloween Eve! Please enjoy some vintage Halloween pins.
"A full moon on Halloween night ensures that the powers of all forms of magick and divination practiced on this night will be at their greatest. A secret wish made at midnight will be realized within the coming year, and do not be surprised in an experience of a psychic nature awaits you in the very near future."
"In ancient Egypt, the goddess Bastet (also known as Bast or Pasht) was worshiped in the form of a lean, short-haired black cat, and sometimes as a female human having the head of a cat...She was a benevolent goddess, and the domestic cat was the animal most sacred to her. So sacred, in fact, that at one time, the very harming of a cat in Egypt carried the price of execution."
"The black cat is also associated with the Greek goddess Hecate (a deity with a strong connection to the practice of Witchcraft) and the Norse goddess Freya (who rode on a chariot drawn by cats...)."
"The ancient Greeks considered the owl to be a sacred bird, for it was the constant companion of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and the patron deity of the city of Athens. It was through this association that the owl came to be known as a 'wise old bird.'"
"Many Native American medicine men still consider the owl to be a messenger from the dead, while practitioners of Peruvian folk magick continue to utilize this bird in spells and rituals to combat black magick and to cure various ailments."
"The besom, another name for the broomstick, has long been associated with Witches--not so much because Witches were, at one time, believed to fly on enchanted broomsticks to from their Sabbats, but rather because the broomstick has played an important role in the handfasting and birth ceremonies of Witches and other Pagan folk since ancient times.
"In Greek mythology, Hecate, the goddess of the moon, queen of the underworld, and protectress of all Witches, possessed a broomstick that signified sexual union. If a woman desiring children jumped over three times, she would instantly become impregnated. It is believed that from this myth the Pagan custom of the bride and groom jumping over a broomstick evolved."
Many of these pins are from MyVintageVogue.Tumblr.com, from Halloween 2012. The text is quotes from The Pagan Book of Halloween by Gerina Dunwich.
This is an affiliate link:
Witchcraft Second Degree. Wiccan Themed. by Black Witch S. $29.97 from Smashwords.com
Witchcraft - A 2nd Year in the Craft. This course will introduce you to the basics of Witchcraft with a Wiccan fusion. Step-by-step beginner exercises are included to help you start your journey safely and to show you exactly what to do in order to achieve your full magical potential. Plus, you can apply for a Certification of Completion for 2nd Degree Witchcraft.
Next Wednesday, much closer to the actual date of All Hallow's Eve, I have a post of vintage Halloween pins scheduled. This OHP! Wednesday, just for fun, let's have an all-Simpsons, version!
Marge: Hello, everyone. You know, Halloween is a very strange holiday. Personally, I don't understand it. Kids worshipping ghosts, pretending to be devils. Things on TV that are completely inappropriate for young viewers. Things like the following half-hour! Nothing seems to bother my kids, but tonight's show—which I totally wash my hands of—is really scary. So if you have sensitive children, maybe you should tuck them in early tonight instead of writing us angry letters tomorrow. Thanks for your attention.
Lisa: If they're really witches why don't they use their witch power to escape?
Homer: That sounds like witch-talk to me, Lisa.
Lisa: Never mind.
Bart: Dad! You killed the zombie Flanders.
Homer: He was a zombie?
Groundskeeper Willie: Care for a pumpkin seed?
Grand Pumpkin: You roast the unborn?!
Blessed be! The Wheel of the Year turns to Mabon, the autumnal equinox, also known as harvest tide or the “witches' Thanksgiving.” Its ancient antecedent was the second of the three Celtic harvest festivals, in between Lughnasa (August 1st, also known by the Christianized name Lammas) and Samhain (the harvest of winter meat, when the grazing animals were brought down from the hills for the winter, October 31).
Mabon is a period of equal day and night, exactly in between Midsummer Night and the Winter Solstice. What exactly is Mabon as a Neopagan/Wiccan celebration? In modern practice, it's largely a harvest festival for enjoying autumn-gathered foods. It's also a solemn time for reflection on mortality; the goddess in her dark/death-bringer aspect may be recalled at this time.
In agricultural symbolism, Mabon represents the death of the Green Man* – the crops now die so that human beings can store up food for winter. This is sometimes symbolized by the “sacrifice” or burning of a straw man, the Harvest Lord. The last sheaf of grain to be harvested is sometimes dressed up to become the Harvest Queen. The Harvest Queen is not burned, because she represents fertility and the hope for a good harvest again the following year.
I haven't read this one - the Henry Treece that I've read was 'Red Queen.'
Because the power of the sun appears to be declining as we now head toward the Winter Solstice, Mabon can be a time to mark the passage of loved ones (as well as a time of mourning for the Green Man and/or the sun god). If you happen to pass a grave during Mabon, you're supposed to acknowledge the person who died and make your respects.
Various ancient Celtic legends have to do with Mabon. One has to do with a Welsh god named Mabon who is born from the womb of Mother Earth – the Earth is quite literally his mother, Modron – springing forth full of knowledge and strength he gained from his mother. (The goddess Modron comes down to us in Arthurian legend as Morgan.)
Another legend has to do with the Irish gods Lugh and Tanist. The twin brothers have opposite functions – Lugh is the god of light, and Tanist is the god of darkness. At Mabon, Tanist defeats Lugh, sits on his throne and steals Lugh's lover, the goddess Tailltiu. Nine months later – at the Summer Solstice – Tailltu gives birth to...well, Tanist. He dies and is reborn every year, and the legend of the dueling brothers relates to the legend of the holly and oak kings.
However, it's a bit difficult to get really good sources for either of these legends, so take them each with a grain of salt. For example, if we turn to Encyclopedia Mythica:
- An article on Mabon is included, mentioning that Mabon is the son of "mother goddess" and lived in Annwn, which the encyclopedia names as the Welsh underworld but does not link with the mother-goddess's womb
- An article on Modron, without reference to her as Mother Earth, calling her only "a Welsh goddess" and a prototype of the Arthurian Morgan.
- An article on Lugh, which doesn't mention him being a god of the sun or of light (although his fertility magic is related to the ripening of the crops, which was celebrated with a 30-day summer festival which was the antecedent of modern Lughnasa) and names his consort as Rosmerta (the Gaulish goddess of "fire, warmth, and abundance;" J.K. Rowling named the Three Broomsticks barmaid after her, perhaps for Madam Rosmerta's ability to dispense an abundance of butterbeers).
- No article on Tanist. Wikipedia says that "tanaiste" (with an accent on the first a) is an Irish Gaelic word meaning second-in-command, heir, or first deputy of the clan chief or king. Ireland still uses the word to indicate the deputy prime minister. The Wikipedia entry also says that James Frazer, in The Golden Bough, used the word to designate a "substitute for the sacred king." To say that the god Lugh has a tanaiste or tanist may simply be a way of saying that he had a highly-honored "deputy" who was sacrificed in his place.
However, in the holly king-oak king tradition, when Lugh's reign was over, Lugh would be sacrificed to make room for Tanist. Then Tanist's reign would end, and Tanist would be sacrificed to make room for Lugh in a never-ending cycle.
- An article on Tailltu (spelled there with only one L) that names her not as Lugh's consort, but as his nurse.
However, it's certainly possible that Tailltu and Rosmerta are different aspects of the same goddess, and it's certainly not unknown for a fertility/agricultural god to have a mother who, in another aspect or phase, is also his lover - it's an agricultural metaphor for the relationship between the earth (mother) and seed-bearing crop (son).
Another myth that accounts for the declining daylight at this time of year is the myth of Persephone's descent into the Underworld, which is sometimes observed at Mabon. The grain-goddess Demeter is in mourning when her daughter Persephone goes into the Underworld, and her mourning is another aspect that gives Mabon a somewhat sad, solemn character in contrast to the joy we usually associated with harvest/thanksgiving celebrations.
Read more at The White Goddess, Earth Witchery, Love of the Goddess, and Mystickal Realms. *In other versions of the legend, the death of Green Man, or the Holly King/Holly Knight (Sir Gawain's Green Knight) is associated with the Winter Solstice and the Lord of Misrule or Fool who was sacrificed after his moment of glory at the solstice festival. In his place, the Oak King would rule until he was deposed by the Holly King at Midsummer, i.e. the summer solstice. In this case, it would be easy to associate dark Tanist with the Holly King and bright Lugh with the Oak King, but then Mabon would only be the halfway point in Tanist's rule. Perhaps rather than his death, Mabon commemorates the Holly King's/Green Man's/Tanist's waning power.
This is an affiliate link:
Witchcraft Second Degree. Wiccan Themed. by Black Witch S. $29.97 from Smashwords.com
Witchcraft - A 2nd Year in the Craft. This course will introduce you to the basics of Witchcraft with a Wiccan fusion. Step-by-step beginner exercises are included to help you start your journey safely and to show you exactly what to do in order to achieve your full magical potential. Plus, you can apply for a Certification of Completion for 2nd Degree Witchcraft.
Ghosts in Houses & Other Spooky Places
Witchcraft Second Degree. Wiccan Themed.
