The Haunted Library of DavidX: A Virtual All Hallows Eve Masquerade

This is an illustration of the Willard Library in Evansville, Indiana. This lovely victorian gothic building is haunted by the "grey lady ghost" who is frequently sighted around the library, most often in the children's reading room. The library maintains a website which features live webcams posted around the library so visitors to the website can actually watch for an appearance of the grey lady ghost.

http://www.libraryghost.com/

My own library is haunted by the spirit of Emmanuel Swedenborg. He made his first appearance while I was reading Honore de Balzac's Seraphita and has been haunting me ever since, appearing in works by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, such as his story Green Tea and his novel Uncle Silas.

All Hallows Eve approacheth and as we prepare for the upcoming invasion of spirits from the other side, both good and evil, our thoughts naturally turn to supernatural matters.

This thread is a virtual Halloween Masquerade Party. Everyone is invited to post a pic of their virtual costume and share their favorite ghost stories, supernatural fiction, gothic novels, and other halloween related things that go bump in the night.

Trick or treat and Happy Halloween!

I am excited. Picture to be posted soon.

Love the picture and the idea for the thread!

Here is my costume. I'm coming as Mephistopheles from Goethe's Faust.

One of my favorite ghost stories is The Haunted and the Haunters by Baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

Here is a link to the text on Project Gutenberg.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14195

Spookyville! Who to be, who to be? Hmmm....

A little music to get the party started. Enrico Pace playing Liszt's Totentanz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqCEhmqsSnY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bqmWU7SSJM

I have become much enamoured with the moonlight landscapes of John Wright of Derby ever since being introduced to them by Tomcat Murr about a year ago. This one is currently my desktop background.

Here's something fun on video for Halloween. It's an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery adapted from a Clarke Ashton Smith story entitled The Return of the Sorcerer. It stars Vincent Price, Bill Bixby, Patricia Sterling, and a black goat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bY2-_v0RUk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNP6pw5ZAlw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbBjuTK6Ns0

I'd like to be Merricat Blackwood for one day, but that is not a very visually-striking costume. I found this image online, which is pretty cool looking, but I still don't think she makes for a good costume:

Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?

Oh no, said Merricat, you'll poison me.

Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?

Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!

From We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Great costume IMO Fanny!

Totentanz(Dance of Death)

The warder looks down at the mid hour of night,

On the tombs that lie scatter'd below:

The moon fills the place with her silvery light,

And the churchyard like day seems to glow.

When see! first one grave, then another opes wide,

And women and men stepping forth are descried,

In cerements snow-white and trailing.


In haste for the sport soon their ankles they twitch,

And whirl round in dances so gay;

The young and the old, and the poor, and the rich,

But the cerements stand in their way;

And as modesty cannot avail them aught here,

They shake themselves all, and the shrouds soon appear

Scatter'd over the tombs in confusion.


Now waggles the leg, and now wriggles the thigh,

As the troop with strange gestures advance,

And a rattle and clatter anon rises high,

As of one beating time to the dance.

The sight to the warder seems wondrously queer,

When the villainous Tempter speaks thus in his ear:

"Seize one of the shrouds that lie yonder!"


Quick as thought it was done! and for safety he fled

Behind the church-door with all speed;

The moon still continues her clear light to shed

On the dance that they fearfully lead.

But the dancers at length disappear one by one,

And their shrouds, ere they vanish, they carefully don,

And under the turf all is quiet.


But one of them stumbles and shuffles there still,

And gropes at the graves in despair;

Yet 'tis by no comrade he's treated so ill

The shroud he soon scents in the air.

So he rattles the door—for the warder 'tis well

That 'tis bless'd, and so able the foe to repel,

All cover'd with crosses in metal.


The shroud he must have, and no rest will allow,

There remains for reflection no time;

On the ornaments Gothic the wight seizes now,

And from point on to point hastes to climb.

Alas for the warder! his doom is decreed!

Like a long-legged spider, with ne'er-changing speed,

Advances the dreaded pursuer.


The warder he quakes, and the warder turns pale,

The shroud to restore fain had sought;

When the end,—now can nothing to save him avail—

In a tooth formed of iron is caught.

With vanishing lustre the moon's race is run,

When the bell thunders loudly a powerful One,

And the skeleton fails, crush'd to atoms.

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring

Who shall go as Joe Buck and who shall go as Ratzo Rizzo?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fwY3jGNsog&feature=related

I'm coming as a beat skeleton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq7GMJH9qFc

Blow Nancy Blow!

HAHa! Good ol' Ginsberg.

#7 you want to watch out for old paintings like that: M.R. James wrote about a few, and if you can't find his writings, surprisingly similar, a few stories can be found looking for Jake

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Image:Wendigo.gif


"The Wendigo" by Algernon Blackwood; One of the first horror stories I read. A great camp fire horror story. ;-)
In my nightmares I hear "My burning feet of fire".

Great illustration tros. I see "The Wendigo" is in my copy of Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories. I'm going to read it tonight before I go to bed. I'm scared.

M.R. James' story Casting the Runes was the basis for one of my favorite films since childhood, Curse of the Demon(d. Jacques Tourneur 1957).

Trailer here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCp-c_buFlw

Check out this Victorian Hallowe'en card. What the H E double toothpicks is that lady dragging behind her that Jack O' Lantern wants so badly. A waffle?



13. Great song/video and costume! Thanks Maki.

Happy Hallowe'en everyone!

"The Wendigo" is available on project gutenberg.
"Curse of the Demon" is one of my favorites also.
Evidently the studio stuck the sequence of the monster
at the end into the film. Not subtle enough for Tourneur.
It would have been disappointing without the monster. ;-)
A window grate for the dungeon?

At the moment I'd like to attend the party as Munch's "Scream" (I don't care which version) only that would be entirely too trite. Maybe Hieronymus Bosch has a costume for me.

18. Indeed, it wouldn't be the same without the monster. I just love the sound it makes. Niall MacGinnis is great as Karswell. I love Jacques Tourneur and Val Lewton.



19. When my partner and I visited the Museo del Prado in Madrid a few years ago we were deeply disturbed by the room full of Heironymous Bosch paintings, including The Garden of Earthly Delights. Bosch was a very sick man. I've never been so overwhelmed with horror as I was in that room surrounded by his nightmarish grotesque paintings.

I loved the Bosch and Breugel paintings in the Prado (not to mention Goya, etc,). Vienna and Berlin had a few as well.

#17: Isn't that what the field crew uses to smooth the infield dirt between innings at a baseball game?

more specifically, the 'grounds crew'

I think we're getting warmer. It appears to be some kind of rake on a chain. But why is Jack O' Lantern so interested in it?

This Bruegel painting from the Prado scarred my psyche forever. The Bruegel room adjoins the Bosch room if I remember correctly. I wouldn't want to spend the night in either.



The Triumph of Death 1562 Pieter Bruegel

Oh, the horror!

If this is too lowbrow, David, I'll certainly delete it, and I'll think of somebody highbrower to come as, but I've always really really wanted to be Elvira since I was a little boy, and ate up all those B horror movies she hosted.

I'll go as Saturn devouring his son.

25. I love Elvira too. I grew up sleep deprived from watching old horror flicks on the late, late show.

26. Very scary costume solla! With all the malevolent spirits that inhabit the paintings of Bosch, Bruegel, and Goya the Prado doesn't need any ghosts.

I promised that I was going to post one of my favorite vampire story written by the Modernista Ruben Dario, "Thanatopia"; however, I could not find a downloadable version in English.

I changed my mind and decided to post another of my favorite vampire stories, "The feather pillow", a real classic short story in the Latin American Literature. The Uruguayan, Horacio Quiroga's, is the author of a unusual blood sucker creature.

You can read the story online and download an English PDF version available in this link: http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0568.pdf

There is a YouTube version of this short story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7p3HzrS_Yw

Here is an illustration:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3341/3304480669_e18604a1c6.jpg

I'll send that to my friends with insomnia. It's polyster pillows for me from now on!

Thank you so much Luis! I've taken the next two days off to celebrate halloween. I'm going to read this before I go to bed(I have polyester pillows by the way).

I ordered the Selected Writings: Ruben Dario. It includes the story "Thanatopia". I'm looking forward to it very much.

I also ordered the Broadview edition of Hauntings and other Fantastic Tales by Vernon Lee(Violet Paget). I can't wait for this one. I'm very intrigued by this author.

Currently I'm reading The House by the Churchyard by Le Fanu. I love Le Fanu.

I'm having so much fun I've decided to extend Halloween indefinitely. Who needs Thanksgiving anyway.

I will make a grand entrance on the stroke of midnight as the Queen of the Night from The Magic Flute, accompanied by the truly nightmarish singing of the incomparable Florence Foster Jenkins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM6qntPpyZ0



Happy Halloween!

Things that go bump in the night:

http://www.livevideo.com/video/5E8EB3AB594B49CEA4C68C2A359CF58E/rabbit-s-moon.as...

#9 fannyprice and #10 DavidX, Your posts finally inspired me to read We Have Always Lived in the Castle -- compellingly creepy, and I can't imagine why I never read it before!

From his classic album, "Satan Takes a Holiday":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DizSNXX07AA

31. Yuor costume is really stunning. Dedalus used that painting for the cover of their edition of Lytton's Zanoni.

33. Shirley Jackson is such a wonderful author. Thanks to Fanny for reminding me.

32. & 34. I've been a fan of Anton LaVey and Kenneth Anger for a long time. It's great that high quality videos of the Anger films are available these days after so many years of grainy bootlegs.

The Invocation of My Demon Brother.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfJ4JnK0lTc

Hail Satan!

Black Mass tonight at midnight.

The Litany of Satan by Charles Baudelaire

O you, the wisest and fairest of the Angels,
God betrayed by destiny and deprived of praise,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

O Prince of Exile, you who have been wronged
And who vanquished always rise up again more strong,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who know all, great king of hidden things,
The familiar healer of human sufferings,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who teach through love the taste for Heaven
To the cursed pariah, even to the leper,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who of Death, your mistress old and strong,
Have begotten Hope, — a charming madcap!

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who give the outlaw that calm and haughty look
That damns the whole multitude around his scaffold.

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who know in what nooks of the miserly earth
A jealous God has hidden precious stones,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You whose clear eye sees the deep arsenals
Where the tribe of metals sleeps in its tomb,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You whose broad hand conceals the precipice
From the sleep-walker wandering on the building's ledge,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who soften magically the old bones
Of belated drunkards trampled by the horses,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who to console frail mankind in its sufferings
Taught us to mix sulphur and saltpeter,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who put your mark, O subtle accomplice,
Upon the brow of Croesus, base and pitiless,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

You who put in the eyes and hearts of prostitutes
The cult of sores and the love of rags and tatters,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

Staff of those in exile, lamp of the inventor,
Confessor of the hanged and of conspirators,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

Adopted father of those whom in black rage
— God the Father drove from the earthly paradise,

O Satan, take pity on my long misery!

Prayer

Glory and praise to you, O Satan, in the heights
Of Heaven where you reigned and in the depths
Of Hell where vanquished you dream in silence!
Grant that my soul may someday repose near to you
Under the Tree of Knowledge, when, over your brow,
Its branches will spread like a new Temple!

translation by William Aggeler, 1954.

Will tonight's black mass be a silent black mass?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq2_jVmJ6wA

Great film. I really like the version of Haxan with the audio narrative by Aleister Crowley.

The bats have left the bell tower. The victims have been bled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=244qvxxy0N0

That Baudelaire poem is FANTASTIC!!!!!! It's a liturgy, a catechism!

38

I don't know about Crowley, but the version with the William S. Burroughs narration is available through Netflix.

40
I agree, the Baudelaire is perfect for a Black Mass....brings back memories of a wild and misspent youth! *sigh*

Happy Hallowe'en, all!

Oops, I meant the one with the W.S. Burroughs narration.

Gotta go. I'm watching Dracula. The one with Bela Legosi.

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a nice Halloween. This thread is now dead.