I have been waiting all year for this month! I have an entire month of Halloween fun for you! I have been taking pictures, writing entries and scouring the web for fun Halloween things for you…

Okay, that’s a lie, they’re really for me!

This picture is the “theme” for my Halloween party this year. The invitations, party favors and prizes will all have this image on them. Every year I choose a theme from various collections of old pictures from greeting cards. This one is a little on the cute side for me, but I like it.

Welcome to October!

Check out this awesome AT-AT costume.

• gfixler’s AT-AT Costume Halloween 2005 slideshow on Flickr

This is better than anything I’ve ever done on my own!

Waiting 2005
Originally uploaded by laurasmoncur.

Every year, I take pictures at my Halloween parties and I’ve been saving those pictures for years now. I show them all on a slideshow on my computer during the Halloween party. For the first time, you can see what the people at my party see every year.

• Laura Moncur’s Halloween slideshow on Flickr

My favorite Halloween picture so far is this photo that Mike took last year. It feels exactly like what I feel like right before my party. A little shaky and really orange…

Perfect timing for me, they are making a movie out of the video game, American McGee’s Alice, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Alice his the only survivor of an attack on her family. Her mum and dad are dead…

“What’s wrong, Alice?”

“My parents are… gone.”

“What else is wrong, Alice?”

“Something’s broken…”

“What’s broken, Alice?”

“I am…”

She has grown up and has once again entered Wonderland. The only problem is that Wonderland has also changed…

“But I don’t want to go among mad people.”

“Ah, you can’t help that… we’re all mad here.”

Mike, Stacey, Dan and I are going as the cast of Alice in Wonderland. A very merry Un-Halloween to you!

By the way, if you go to the website listed on the video, alice.ea.com, it just takes you to the main EA Sports page. EA was the company that distributed the original game. When I use the game finder to search for alice, it says there are no games with that title. I wonder what EA is thinking. Nothing like following a URL for a creepy movie (or is this the original trailer for the game?) and being assaulted with stupid sports. Somebody dropped the ball on this one…

The easiest Halloween costume is something thrown together from the thrift store. If that is your plan for your costume this year, you need to get to the thrift store NOW! If you wait until two days before Halloween, you will be sorely disappointed because the thrift store will be a picked over shell of what it was earlier in the month.

Even the easiest thing in the world to find (like a suit coat that you don’t mind ripping, tearing and destroying) might be difficult to find in your size because the thrift stores sell a lot of their inventory in the month of October. Your plaid coat for your Used Car Salesman costume went out the door in the early days of October underneath the arm of someone who planned a little more than you did.

So, if you want an easy costume this year, you can do it. You just need to do it NOW instead of a couple days before Halloween. If you need some ideas for easy costumes ideas, here are some links:

• About.com – Make Your Own Halloween Costume – Free Creative Halloween Costume Ideas: Lots of good ideas here.

• Homemade Halloween Costumes – easy and cheap!: Lots of great ideas for costumes made out of thrift store clothing. Mute your computer before you click on the link unless you want to hear Grim Grinning Ghosts on a harpsichord.

• Costume Idea Zone: A very professional site with costume ideas. There are commercials for BuyCostumes.com, but there are also some good ideas here.

All of these sites are desperately in need of pictures to augment their descriptions. It’s a lot easier to see the costume with a picture. Here is a group of pictures of costumes, but they’re not all homemade. It’s great for some ideas, though.

• Flickr: The Halloween Costumes Pool

The funnest part of Halloween is that for one day, you can be whatever you ever wanted to be. If you want to be scary, powerful, sexy or funny, you get to choose. That’s the truth every day of the year, but we tend to forget that. With Halloween, we get to remember what it is we want to be.

I picked up Ghost Hunting by Loyd Auerbach at the library the last time I was there. It looked like a fun book to read for the Halloween season. It is a non-fiction book giving advice to potential ghost hunters out there.

I learned one thing about this book: ghosts don’t exist.

Loyd Auerbach believes ghosts exist, but his admonitions throughout the book tell a different story. Almost every chapter has a sentence or two about fraud. The ghost hunting business is fraught with fraud. Restaurants and hotels desperately want to prove that they have ghosts to increase business. People play pranks on one another. People even subconsciously cause some events because they want a ghost to be in their home so badly. Psychics even give false readings at times and can’t be trusted. With that much fraud going on, the logical conclusion is that there are no ghosts.

Sorry, Loyd, the ghosts that you feel you HAVE found are just frauds that haven’t been uncovered yet.

I was kind of hoping for a bunch of scary stories in this book and would have even been alright with them being fictional, but unfortunately, the more Mr. Auerbach tried to convince me that paranormal activity could be measured, the more he warned me about family dynamics and interpersonal relationships that can cause unstable activity in homes. It’s not about the ghosts. It’s about the living people.

The skeletons that we have in our closets are far more interesting than any ghosts that could be lurking in the woodwork.

With such an eclectic mix of photographs, I could call it nothing short of disturbing. Some photos look obviously staged, but others appear to be a random mix of the ordinary and creepy. See the entire collection here:

• Horror pool slideshow on Flickr

This photo is called bronzed by daphid vandersanden. It’s beautiful and disturbing all at once.

The Halloween Handbook by Bridie Clark and Ashley Dodd is EXACTLY what you need if you are trying to think of a good costume idea. The most important thing you need when you’re trying to think of costume is a list of famous people, historical characters and interesting ideas. The most important thing you need when you’re trying to make your costume are pictures. This book has both. The pictures include famous photographs of celebrities AND costumes made to look like them. It’s a perfect mix of icons and good ideas.

They also advocate the “cheap, do-it-yourself” approach and only recommend typical costume purchases for versatile items such as wings, crowns, animal ears and squirt guns. I’m the kind of girl who usually makes her costume from scratch or hits the thrift store for ideas, so I like the way these people think.

They even have a whole chapter for groups with ideas like a box of crayons, a swarm of bees and a deck of cards. They didn’t mention that a group of girls could all come as Madonna in her variety of incarnations or even Barbie (Malibu Barbie, Roller Derby Barbie, etc.), but they DID mention that a group of guys could come as all the different James Bond characters.

All in all, I LOVE just flipping through this book trying to get ideas. If you are having trouble picking out your costume, get this book from the library and you’ll have MORE than enough ideas to find something that will work for you.

Witches, bats, full moons and an incomprehensible duck. Donald Duck gives Huey, Louie and Dewey a trick instead of a treat and a kind-hearted witch takes it on herself to avenge them. Try to ignore the German Danish subtitles and just enjoy the cartoon. I love how the witch quotes Shakespeare’s witches words and then gives him credit! My favorite is the witch’s broom that makes horses noises and faithfully bonks Donald on the head at the end.

This is the sort of thing I wasn’t allowed to watch as a child. That makes it doubly enjoyable for me to watch as an adult.

I love vintage Halloween items. My Halloween invitations and all the party favors use Halloween images from The Woodriver Gallery. They are the best for me to enjoy. Imagine my surprise when I found this group of photos from people who have uploaded very similar images from other sources.

• Vintage Halloween pool slideshow on Flickr

If you are throwing a Halloween party this year, try using one vintage image as your Halloween theme for the year. Put that image on your invitation, the party favors and the signs directing people to the party. It will add a classic feel to the party and the recurring image will tell people that they’ve come to the right place.

I was interviewed by a reporter from The Salt Lake Tribune about the oil refineries near Salt Lake City. The quote from me is here:

• Salt Lake Tribune – Refineries run near capacity north of SLC – by Steven Oberbeck

Steven found me because of my entries on Pick Me! about the refineries:

• Pick Me! » The Oil Refineries

• Pick Me! » Fire In The Mountain

• Pick Me! » Sense of Wonder

In my interview with him, I specifically said that he had permission to quote me, but he needed to give my website credit by citing the link. He didn’t need to make sure that the Tribune actually linked to me, but he had to state my website. He, however, did not. If it hadn’t been for my entry about Oil Refineries on Pick Me! he would have never found me, but he refused to state his sources. If he had read that quote in a book, he would have cited the title of the book, but because it’s a website, he feels like he doesn’t need to give that citation. I mentioned it to him and he responded:

“Well, I’m also talking to you on the phone.”

Bad form, Salt Lake Tribune. Bad form…

Depending on your knitting speed, you can knit yourself this brightly colored wig for a costume this year.

• knitty.com – Hallowig

I like homemade costumes much more than store-bought ones. There is something completely unique about a homemade costume that you won’t find at a costume shop.

Via: Rocketboom

In honor of Halloween, I present you with Ezzy, the demon cat. Ezzy lived with us for a few years. I snapped this picture back in 2002. I thought I had lost it by accidentally saving over it, but I found it today.

I have talked about Ezzy before:

• Pick Me! » Goodbye, Pedro… and Ezzy…

As an update, Pedro was hit by a car on 2100 South a while ago, so now, we have no black cats in our lives. Ezzy was never a loving cat and this picture summed up her personality perfectly. We fed her and tried to take care of her and this picture and some scars from bites and scratches are all we got for the effort.

They call them “Devilishly Delightful”, but I’m not convinced.

• DisneyShopping.com: Devilishly Delightful Décor

Something feels wrong with these decorations. They look like the Haunted Mansion characters and the tombstone even sounds like the tombstones in the graveyard. I just can’t put my finger on it. Is it because they light up? Is it because they are photographed in bright light? I don’t know.

Maybe it’s because I want the Haunted Mansion characters to stay in the Haunted Mansion. If they are in everyone’s front yard, they’re just rogue ghosts instead of the 999 happy haunts.

Via: Boing Boing: Haunted Mansion-themed Hallowe’en merch

This method uses face paint and latex to make a disgusting and realistic wound.

• Theater Effects: Lacerations

Back in 2003, I was “The Homecoming Queen’s Got A Gun” for Halloween. I have looked at the picture of my “wound” so many times that I can’t believe I didn’t post it here. Back then I didn’t work with photos and video much, so I guess that’s why. The wound was pretty realistic and I didn’t use any latex or face paints.

When I did this, I used the directions for the Super Scabs from this website:

• Make Your Own Halloween Make-up

I did a test run a couple of days before the Halloween party. It worked so well that doing it the day of the party was a piece of cake. Using a little corn meal and Jello, you can create a scarier wound and everything came off with a shower.

When you’re planning your Halloween costume this year, don’t stress out about the makeup. Do a test run and enjoy playing with the blood and gore. I sure did!

Via: Boing Boing: HOWTO: Make a realistic, grody wound

The description of this Flickr photo pool is as follows:

“memento mori: a Latin phrase meaning —-> Remember, you must die Please post what reminds you of your mortality!”

There are so many great photos here that I am just linking to the entire slideshow:

• memento mori. pool slideshow on Flickr

I am so happy with all the groups that people have created on Flickr. There is so much interesting stuff out there that I would have never thought of doing on my own. Take this picture from Avant Gardenias, he has gone to so much trouble to create the perfect grave photo. My favorite so far!

As a child, KTVX Channel 4 had a television show on every Friday night at 11:20 pm. It was called Nightmare Theatre. I stayed up late to watch it every weekend. My dad had been a scary movie fan, so I was allowed to stay up as late as I could.

I usually fell asleep fifteen minutes into the program.

We had a host, but I remember NOTHING about him or her. I literally can’t remember if the host was male or female. All I remember is the scary movies. It seems that I was missing out.

The other channels had hosts with charisma who loved the movies or hated the movies. They dressed up in costume. Their exploits are going to be the focus of this new documentary called American Scary.

• American Scary

After watching the footage from their trailers, I said to myself, “Man, I was missing out!”

If you ever watched a television show like Nightmare Theatre as a child, then you probably had a horror host that you loved. Me? I was just trying to stay awake past the first commercial break.

Via: Old Haunts: TV Horror Host documentary

The old style of these photographs made me think of photographers from the turn of the last century trying to capture ghosts on film. He photographs “exhibitions” and Cro-Magnons.

• Stephen Berkman

When I realized that this photographer is alive today and selling his services, I was surprised. Somehow, I had been transported to the past by these photographs. When I saw the phone number on the home page, I was shocked back into the present.

The mark of an excellent artist is the ability to transport the subject to another place, time or emotion. Stephen Berkman does an excellent job of this. Enjoy his post-Victorian side-show.

Via: Boing Boing: Stephen Berkman’s photography

If I thought it was bad not getting the proper credit, just think how Heather Armstrong feels. The Salt Lake Tribune put her on their front page and didn’t even bother giving her a link:

• Salt Lake Tribune – Utah blogger makes her life public fodder – By Matt Canham

They were also a little lazy in their fact checking. Heather wasn’t the first person to get fired because of her weblog. She was just the first person the media noticed. There were a few before her, and I’m sure Heather would have told them that, but the Tribune didn’t bother to research it.

I’m glad she is finally beyond this lawsuit that has been weighing so heavily on her in silence. I wish her the best. If you are interested in her weblog you can find her here:

• dooce – By Heather Armstrong

• Blurbomat – By Jon Armstrong

• Heather Armstrong Quotes – The Quotations Page

Suddenly, not getting a link from the local paper seems inconsequential. They did a story about her weblog on the FRONT PAGE and didn’t even mention the URL for the weblog they were talking about.

Once again, Bad Form, Salt Lake Tribune. Bad Form…

CodeAway
Saturday, October 21st 1pm – 5pm
Whitmore Library: 2197 East Fort Union Blvd. Google Map

In order to get online, you will need to have a valid Salt Lake County Library Card, so get yours now if you don’t have one!

If you want to learn more about CodeAway, you can here:

• codeaway.org

I LOVE it! So come on over to the library!

This website shows several Transformer Halloween Costumes that actually transform into cars or airplanes!

• Welcome to MARKSPROJECTS

Everytime I think I’m going overboard on my costume, I only need to look on the Internet and I’ll find someone who is even more dedicated than me.

Via: Neatorama » De Repentigny’s Transformers Suits

Gene rescues film that has been abandoned in cameras. He found this picture in a German Franka Werk Folder camera last February. The full sized version and the others in the set are here:

• Found Film – From a Franka Werk Folder

Film that has stayed in a camera for so long can get damaged, so Gene’s job is a tricky one. The damage on this photo seems to frame Death nicely. I wonder if he got a lot of candy that year or just a bunch of apples. I kinda wish I could go back in time and see what trick-or-treating was like back then. I’m sure the candy is better now, but I wonder about the homemade things.

This postcard is sad to me because I used to pretend to be happy. The truth of the matter is, if you pretend to be happy long enough, you really become happy in the end.

I posted this because it’s a Halloween picture, even though it’s kind of a bummer. Hang on there, anonymous person. Halloween is just around the corner. That’s something fun to look forward to!

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

Here is a link to a scary story reported about a woman in Italy who was buried alive and the psychic that told the police authorities about her.

• Leicestershire Mercury – The Woman Who Woke Up To Her Own Funeral

The Museum of Hoaxes believes this story to be a hoax, although they can’t prove it yet. Just enjoy it today in the “spirit” of Halloween.

Via: Museum of Hoaxes – Clairvoyant Gets Message From Woman Buried Alive

I kept clicking pictures until he noticed me.

Then I got back into my car and drove away.

Little Leota calls to you at the end of the Haunted Mansion ride,

“Hurry baack… Hurry baaack… Be sure to bring your death certificate…”

Doombuggies.com is happy to accommodate you. Warning: PDF link

• Your Death Certificate from DOOMBUGGIES.COM

You can print up your death certificate, or order one from them signed in BLOOD red ink…

Your choice…

This toy looks so cool. It’s just the kind of “creative” toy that my mom would have gotten for me as a kid. I wonder how I missed out on it.

• X-Entertainment – Silly Vintage Monster Toys – Vincent Price’s Shrunken Head

If you’re feeling left out, this website gives you an idea of how to get started:

• How to make an Apple Doll head

Of course, you will want your shrunken head to be gory and ugly. The Vincent Price set used a series of vinegar dips to give the shrunken head a more leathery and preserved feel, so you might want to substitute vinegar during step six. Don’t forget to sew the lips shut!

Good Luck and Happy Shrinking!

Via: Old Haunts – One of the all-time coolest Christmas gifts I ever got as a kid

If you are wondering where the “real” haunted houses are, you have found the right place. This map provides you with all the information you need to find the closest ghostly experience.

• Haunted Map

This map links to Old Deseret Village in Utah. The locals call this area the “This Is The Place State Park.” It’s a great, touristy place where the employees are dressed like pioneers and give you tours through Brigham Young’s Home and the other historical homes that have been moved to the site.

Have I seen any ghostly activity there? Nope. I’ve gone to that park on school trips as a child and every time a family member from Wisconsin comes and visit, but I have never seen or felt a presence there that wasn’t attached to a corporeal body.

Of course, maybe I’m not attuned to the vibrations of the Mormon pioneers.

“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.”
– Billy Joel, Only The Good Die Young

I have found a Halloween Blog. Can you imagine anything more fun for me? I have been reading this thing ever since last Halloween, enjoying its best and keeping the holiday “Spirit” alive all year long.

• Old Haunts

Hosted by Keith Milford, this weblog specializes in Halloweens from the sixties and seventies.

“Halloween holds a very special place in my heart. It’s right up there with Christmas as my favorite time of year. I love the whole vibe and feeling that’s in the air when Fall arrives, the weather turns cooler, and the leaves fall under the Harvest Moon as All Hallows Eve approaches! I’m a huge horror movie fan, too, so I’m sure that has something to do with it as well. But above all, Halloween, like Christmas, simply represents some really great childhood memories. As it happened, a few years ago I was going through some old family pictures and came across some Halloween snapshots of my brothers and sister and I, and the memories just came flooding back in a warm nostalgic wave! I stared at those old photos for days, it seemed.” – Keith Milford

I love his old pictures and wish I was one of those children. Ahh… To celebrate Halloween before razor blades in apples and cyanide in Tylenol!

Moby, International Recording Artist Extraordinaire, talked about Halloween last year after the holiday. I found it so enjoyable, that I decided to post it here this year.

• happy halloween | moby.com

He talks about the costumes and what he enjoys when he’s people-watching:

“on one hand i really do love it when someone makes a huge effort and gets really dressed up, but i think i’m most amused by the 1/2 assed, no effort costumes, i.e-street clothes with a blue wig.”

He’s right. Sometimes the best costumes are the ones that make people crinkle their foreheads and say, “What ARE you?”

This is a picture of my mom and dad before I existed in 1967. My mom was invited to a “beatnik” party, where everyone was supposed to dress up as beatniks. I asked my mom what a beatnik was when I was a little. She said that beatniks were hippies before hippies were hippies. That made sense to me except I really didn’t know what hippies were. She said beatniks were like The Monkeys. I used to watch The Monkeys on television, so I imagined this party to be filled with fun-loving funny guys. Some of them even might have had English accents like Davy Jones. I used to look at this picture and wish I could have been there.

My dad had told my mom that he wasn’t going to go to the party. Instead, he showed up in full wolfman regalia. She looks so angry here because she didn’t realize it was him. This crazy wolfman showed up at the party and was groping her while people were taking pictures. Who could blame her for looking so bugged? No one recognized him at the party.

This picture is from Halloween 1970. My parents were married and I was already born by then. The dress that my mom is wearing ended up being a “dress up” dress that she would let me try on. Stacey and I played with that dress until it was nothing more than rags, we loved it so much. Here again, my dad is the wolfman.

As a child, I used to look at these pictures. These were pictures of the days before they became Jehovah Witnesses and Halloween was off limits. They had dressed up and gone to parties. How I wished I could be a normal kid who could dress up and go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. If I wasn’t Jehovah Witness, I could participate in the Halloween Parade at school. I could barely understand why my parents could dress up back then, but I wasn’t allowed to dress up. I couldn’t grasp the concept that these photos were from a time when they weren’t Jehovah Witness.

Later, there was a divorce and the divorce decree stated that at age twelve, Stacey and I could decide which religion we wanted to follow. On my twelfth birthday, I chose “The World” and never set foot into a JW Kingdom Hall again. Of all the holidays that had been denied me, Halloween was the one that I wanted the most. Now, I celebrate the holiday enough to make up for those lost years. It’s my favorite of them all.

One of the more interesting scary effects that was in the Haunted Mansion was the changing portraits. One second they would show beautiful scenes and with a flash of lightning, they would show their gruesome selves.

This company creates ghoulish portraits that you can purchase.

• The Ghoulish Gallery

The photo to the right is my favorite. Her name is Belladonna and she wants to grow up to be an herbalist. See her full story here:

• Belladonna

This video starts out with a simple shot of the house decorated for Halloween and shows the costumes that the kids are wearing, but it ends pretty scary. The film follows the children while they trick-or-treat. At one house, they actually go in. Something that is unheard of now.

At the end, the children take the candy from the corpse in the coffin. Really scary!

This photograph is from Grey Water Photography:

You can see the full size image here:

• The Ghost in White Shoes

There is another picture here:

• Entrances to Hell

I wrote to Gene, asking him about this eerie photograph.

Holy Cow, Gene!

Was that a double exposure or just a trick of the light?

Hi Sis

It’s a very long exposure (about 20 seconds) using a lensless camera (pinhole.) I stood in one place for about 10 seconds and then moved out of the frame for the remaining ten seconds.

Pinhole cameras are easy to make out of materials you have lying around the house. Check the internet for details or ask me for help if you’re interested.

Gene

For more information about pinhole photography:

• Oatmeal Box Pinhole Photography by Stew Woodruff – How to Make and Take Pictures With Pinhole Cameras Made from Oatmeal Boxes

The concert was amazing! They let us keep our cell phones on (vibrate) and sent us text messages throughout the entire concert! It was like having a know-it-all friend whispering things in my ear the whole time. It was AWESOME!

I left my REAL camera at home, so I took this picture with my Treo. It turned out really well considering that the lens is smaller than a dime!

Ironically, I didn’t really dress up today, but my Animal Crossing girl did. I think the Halloween Party wore me out this year. I’m still recovering.

After a month of this, I’m pretty much sick of Halloween. Let’s talk about something completely different.