Midnight Pumpkins

Better Halloweening Through Science!

Has anyone else seen these? I received this well-targeted Facebook ad and immediately had to check it out. Salinas Nursery Garden Plants offers a variety (a cornucopia, if you will?) of colored and textured pumpkins, but none as cool as this Midnight Pumpkin. No paint, just a jet black pumpkin grown straight from the vine!

A little small for use as a jack-o-lantern, but would still make an incredible accent in any Halloween display. Get one now, because they ship as seedlings and will need 70 days to grow!

  

100 Days...

100 days until Halloween...

 

Things Begin To Stir At Highbury Cemetery...

An eternity of cold, lifeless slumber is abruptly shattered. Movement stirs within the undead crypt as frantic reanimation courses through once stagnant flesh. A distant bell beckons from the darkness, tolling the seasons’ metamorphosis. The tomb’s stone slab lid slides ever so slightly releasing a fiery amber glow. This awakening cannot be stopped, will not be stopped! A withered hand jolts skyward, breaking the silence of eternal rest. Blood red eyes cast a manic gaze into the blackened depths of a cold autumn night. And locked in the incessant grip of insatiable voracity… I rise from my grave.

I took another extended break from all things Halloween (just for the sake of my sanity) and had planned on making my triumphant return just in time for TransWorld. And Half Way To Halloween. And again for the Midwest Haunters Convention. And then again for the 4th of July...

But it kept getting pushed back because I just didn't feel "ready." The full commitment wasn't there, so I just kept kicking the can down the road. And now the "100 Days 'Til Halloween" posts are coming. Damn. The alarm bells began ringing and the decrepit old voice buried deep in the back of my rotting brain whispered, "It's time..."

A small but fiery glow from a single candle cracked the darkness of the Cemetery and reanimation began the yearning toward those chilled nights of Autumn.

The planning begins again as I revisit the long list of new ideas and old repairs. The full transition will continue over the next few weeks as the stream of all things Halloween begins to flow again, but for now the seal of the grave has been broken and things are once again stirring at Highbury Cemetery...

102 days until Halloween. Are you ready?

  

Fröhliche Krampusnacht!

Photo courtesy of Unknown/Pinterest.

It's Krampusnacht, and that means that all of the bad children will be visited by Krampus tonight! Krampus, the Christmas Devil and evil counterpart of St. Nicholas, is a cloven-hooved, goat-demon that punishes bad children with a lash of his birch branched switch, then transports them to Hell inside the wicker basket upon his back.

Have you been good this year?

Enjoy these images of Krampus from various European Krampuslauf parades. I'll be writing more about these parades in an upcoming post!

Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Magazine/Dominic Ebenbichler-Reuters/Corbis.

Photo courtesy of goout.net.

Photo courtesy of Spajzgirl.

Photo courtesy of Sean Gallup/Getty Images.

  

Photo courtesy of Bernhard Knaus/MeinBezirk.

Photo courtesy of Fest300/Krampusnacht 2013.

Photo courtesy of National Geographic/Sean Gallup-Getty Images.

  

Mike Egan - Tiny Death 9

I am now the proud owner of an Ohio artist Mike Egan original painting! I pulled the trigger on this beautiful painting from his Tiny Deaths series, a collection of 100 small paintings offered up in early November.

I had perused what pieces I could see in the teaser photos, making a mental note of the pieces that stood out and caught my eye. And as the paintings sold off quickly as the online sales started, I selected Tiny Death 9. A bold, solid piece featuring a skeleton in a maroon hooded cloak and scythe on a flat, light green field, painted in Egan's signature bold and colorful folk art style.

I really liked the starkness of this particular piece with its block shapes and flat colors. It stood out from the rest of the more colorful and busy pieces, and is going to look absolutely great on my home office wall, where hopefully future pieces will also reside.

Support independent artists and visit Egan's website to pick up original paintings, prints, toys, books and merch (unfortunately the entirety of the Tiny Deaths series has sold out). Just in time for the holidays!

Magick Knives - "Flesh and Blood"

A great new gothic post-punk track from Magick Knives that really encapsulates the dark, post-Halloween melancholy lingering around the Cemetery. Flesh and Blood is the second single from their forthcoming debut lp due out on Library Of The Occult Records. This one is already on my must-own list. Enjoy!