Halloween Countdown, Day 24

[eldritchhobbit]

Happy birthday to bookwoman2009, and best wishes for many happy returns of the day!

* Thanks to everyone who took part in my poll about the greatest stars of contemporary horror cinema. At the time of this posting, the results are as follows:
First Place: Christopher Walken
Second Place: a tie between Bruce Campbell and Brad Dourif
Third Place: Johnny Depp
Fourth Place: a tie between Clancy Brown, Jeffrey Combs, and Lance Henriksen

* From The Guardian, a perfect quiz for Halloween: "How Well Do You Know Gothic Fiction?" (Thanks to gbsteve.)

* SmartPop Books has a new website, and for a limited time you can read free chapters from several of SmartPop's recent books. I particularly recommend the chapter "The Burden of Being Sammy" by the fabulous dodger_winslow from The Hunt: Unauthorized Essays on Supernatural (a Halloween-friendly series, to be sure!), which will be available online through next Thursday.

* For cartoon strip fun in the spirit of Halloween, I recommend visiting Rebecca's Realm.




Spooky Texts of the Day: These are three favorites I revisit every year. October wouldn't be the same without them.

"The Grey Thing"
by Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

There is a grey thing that lives in the tree-tops
None knows the horror of its sight
Save those who meet death in the wilderness
But one is enabled to see
To see branches move at its passing
To hear at times the wail of black laughter
And to come often upon mystic places
Places where the thing has just been.


"The Warning"
by Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914)

Just now,
Out of the strange
Still dusk... as strange, as still...
A white moth flew... Why am I grown
So cold?


"Oil and Blood"
by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

In tombs of gold and lapis lazuli
Bodies of holy men and women exude
Miraculous oil, odour of violet.

But under heavy loads of trampled clay
Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood;
Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

"Oil and Blood" is spooky!

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Yeats' vampires are my kind of vampires! None of this sparkling, just lying there swollen and overripe with blood. :D

[euclase.livejournal.com]

Oooh, The Grey Thing. Awesome. *shivers*

[ankh-hpl.livejournal.com]

7 out to 10 on the Gothic lit quiz -- I don't feel too bad about that, since I took that course in the Gothic Novel back in 198mumblemumble.

Thanks for including Adelaide's great creepy cinquain! (Though I did love Yeats' vampires.)

[dodger-winslow.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the pimp, my friend. You are the best.

[peadarog.livejournal.com]

Funny how we never read that Yeats poem at school...

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

I agree!

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

ROFLOL! My sentiments exactly. :)

Your icon is brilliant.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

That creeps me out every time I read it!

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Great job! And you're most welcome - it is, indeed, most creepy. And the Yeats gives me shivers every time. ;)

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

My pleasure! I'm so psyched - but not at all surprised - that they chose to highlight your chapter. *high fives*

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

LOL! Surely it wasn't an intentional oversight... ;)

[peadarog.livejournal.com]

Dunno, but it's pretty cool, I have to say :-) Real Clarke Ashton Smith...

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

*g* Thank you! I wish I knew who to credit for it, but unfortunately I don't.

A Recommendation

[vyrdolak.livejournal.com]

If you ever come across the collection "Hollow Faces, Merciless Moons" by William Scott Home, or the DAW paperback "Years' Best Horror Stories: Series VI" (the one with the skeletal hobo on the cover), the story "A Cobweb of Pulsing Veins" has to be one of the best Poe-Lovecraft homages ever, about a graverobber who digs up more than he is prepared for.

I have the entire DAW collection, they were very affordable except for the last one, I guess because it was Karl Edward Wagner's last publication. Some of them I had had for almost 30 years at this point, including vol 6. They are generally excellent stories, although I prefer Victorian to Edwardian British fiction.

Here is a great artist's impression of the late Dr. Wagner: