#HALLOWEEN: MOUNDSHROUD

“Miraculously, smoke curled out of his own mouth, his nose, his ears, his eyes, as if his soul had been extinguished within his lungs at the very moment the sweet pumpkin gave up its incensed ghost.”

#HALLOWEEN: RECOMMENDED READING: HALLOWEEN – MAGIC, MYSTERY, & THE MACABRE

The Halloween anthology has become a large part of my yearly October traditions – whether decades old or hot off the press, I’m always eager to snap up a “new” one and give it a read. These days it’s easier than ever to slap together an anthology, upload it to CreateSpace or whatever self-publishing medium, and unleash it onto the world. Amazon is dripping with e-books available for free download offered by hopeful authors, and like anything else that becomes saturated to that extent, it becomes difficult to find the truly special collections.

And here we have Halloween: Magic, Mystery and the Macabre, edited by Paula Guran, barely a month old as I write this. The cover sports names that I certainly recognize, but most of them do not ring a bell. I did enjoy Guran’s previous collection, simply titled Halloween, for the most part, and she was kind enough to lend me a copy of her second anthology to read and present as part of my October celebration.

Eighteen stories make-up this collection, and let me just spare both you and myself the following: This time out I’ll avoid doing my usual breaking down of each story, as we’ll be here all day and no doubt there are pumpkins out there to be carved and witchy ceremonies to perfect. As I’ve mentioned before, anthologies by nature are a Rorschach test. For those of a less critical mind, I suppose it’s easier to find an anthology in which every story enthralls and entertains, but frankly, it’s tough to put out such a collection with different authors taking different directions that still manages to please everyone. That’s the beauty of the individual.

Halloween: Magic, Mystery and the Macabre is no different.

So, the standouts:

Norman Partridge is an author with whom I am well familiar, as his novel, Dark Harvest, is frankly one of my favorites. (Read all about that one here.) His contribution here, “The Mummy’s Heart,” is hands-down one of – if not the – best in the collection. A story that begins with two brothers setting out for an innocent night of trick-or-treating and encountering a local kid named Charlie Steiner, who may very well have lost a little bit of his mind and perfected his mummy costume to the extent that he ordered water scum from the River Nile and cut off his own tongue. When the boys cross paths with this mummy, the story is legitimately eerie and upsetting—and it packs a rather hurtful revelation. Partridge is great with details, insofar as making each minor thing such as the moon or darkness seem alive and contain motive. He writes his story with such a realistic approach that it honest-to-gosh feels like it happened to him. At one point he even says something to the effect of, “Google it and see for yourself,” which I fully admit to doing.

The first part of “The Mummy’s Heart” seems like nothing more than haunted childhood recollection. You nearly expect it to end once the faux ending occurs, but there’s much more to this story – so much that it goes from a pulpy monster story to something much more haunting and heartbreaking. “The Mummy’s Heart” plays around with this idea of becoming someone else on Halloween night with the aid of a mask and costume, but what it really seems to be about is being driven to insanity by the idea that one is not happy with the person they are and wishes to become someone/thing else – and will do nearly anything to make that transition happen. And that’s just for the “villain.” It also plays around with refusal to recognize reality for what it is – to be haunted by dreams much more than nightmares. It’s the reason I continue to celebrate Partridge the author as years go by. He so easily writes about human emotion and longing that frankly it doesn’t matter what kind of ghastly device he’s using to frame his story – it’s always about much more.

Laird Barron continues this theme of love lost and found with “The Black Dog,” a tale in which a young (?) couple meet on a blind date in a restaurant. They embark on witty banter and attempt fact-finding missions about each other – the usual first-date kind of stuff. But here’s the thing: Is she, in actuality, dead? Is he? Both, or neither? Under the All Hallow’s sky, these two lost souls meet and remember what it is to yearn again. Though it’s told primarily from the man’s point of view, the woman provides us enough insight that it’s clear she’s just as troubled and lonely as he is.

There’s a beautiful ambiguity draped over every inch of “The Black Dog.” As the story progresses, you nearly want to race through every sentence to unearth the revelation that will hopefully explain the very odd circumstances in which these two people have found each other. A meal at a restaurant to a night walk across a bridge to sitting together in the woods – it’s a first date many would be consider to be ideal…except for that ominous idling van, of course.  By my nature I’m attracted to things with a certain kind of sad beauty. It’s a reason why I love the works of Norman Partridge, and it’s also why I’ll certainly be checking out more work by Laird Barron, as well.

Source.

Switching things up is “For the Removal of Unwanted Guests” by A.C. Wise. A story about a man named Michael moving into his new house who must contend with the random witch who shows up on his doorstep telling him she’ll be moving in. Just like that. The witch brings with her a black cat, as well as every manner of magical skill – she knows that one of the steps in the house is made of wood taken from a shipwrecked vessel, or the answer to one of the riddles in the old crossword puzzle Michael is holding. (She’s a witch, after all.) At first Michael wants nothing more than for her to leave – he even finds a spell in the witch’s book of magic strictly dedicated to (insert the story’s title here) – but after a while, what should be an easy decision to make becomes one with which he wrestles, to the point he might even MISS her once she’s gone…

“For the Removal of Unwanted Guests” is wonderfully and addictively absurd, yet charming. It’s a quirky story that seems to become more so as the pages turn. It’s nice counter-reading to the other darker and more haunting stories. There’s nothing especially horrific about the tale, except of course for something Michael’s unwanted guest states:

“Life isn’t fair. Nobody gets to choose whether they have a normal happy one or not. If they did, do you think anyone would get sick, or have their hearts broken? Would anyone die? It doesn’t work that way.”

Still, it might just be the most horrific statement in the entire book…because it’s absolutely true.

“We, the Fortunate Bereaved” by Brian Hodge breathes life into the scarecrow legend of Halloween, which may or may not be rooted in historical lore. The scarecrow has been associated with Halloween for a long time, and Hodge’s story concocts a perfectly appropriate scenario as to why. Every year on Halloween night, in the town of Dunhaven, townspeople gather objects that symbolize the dearly departed in hopes that, if left as an offering, the spirit of their deceased loved one will fill the scarecrow and share a message with the bereaved. Many townspeople vie yearly for this chance, and among them for the first time are Bailey and her young son, Cody, who wishes to see the resurrected spirit of his father, Drew. Also hoping to see the return of a loved one is a young woman named Melanie, whose sister, Angela, went missing several years before and was never found, so was presumed dead.

I rather liked this story, as it reinforces the idea of “maybe it’s better not to know.” Cody is eager to ask his father about the afterlife and what the “rules” are, while Melanie wants to ask Angela who was responsible for her disappearance and death. The story’s themes are open to multiple interpretations, but I prefer to think that existence, as we know it, is so terrible – lacking actual humanity amongst its humans – that the dead don’t so much as choose to come back as they’re forced to.

As you can imagine, I’m really fun at parties.

These aren’t the only stories in the collection worth a read, but they were my personal favorites. Halloween: Magic, Mystery and the Macabre, as they say, has something for everyone. I’m personally drawn toward the dark and bleak, and so stories of that nature were my own highlights. But the book celebrates every kind of genre and approach – real history is intertwined with lycanthropy; real international conflicts are explored through themes of cults, insanity, and vampirism; some stories are quirky, some are anything but. My one real complaint about the anthology (and it’s one I often have with Halloween anthologies) is that while many of the stories contain Halloween elements, they’re not actually about Halloween in any way. Werewolves and vampires are fun and all, but their only ties to Halloween are that they’re spooky and monstrous, and so is Halloween, and so therefore, a connection. However, I can’t in good conscience say any of these stories are poorly written because they’re not; they’re just not entirely what the title promises.

Still, I heartily recommend Halloween: Magic, Mystery and the Macabre. The book itself is nice and weighty; its girth confirms you'll be getting a lot of bang for your buck. It's not quite as large as, say, October Dreams, but it's certainly one of the larger anthologies out there that (mostly) celebrates this time of year. Pretty jacket art, too.

Paula Guran has released a second collection of strong stories, and though not all of them will scratch that Halloween itch, most of them will, and that’s worth the price of admission alone.

Contents:

Introduction: New Boo – Paula Guran
Thirteen – Stephen Graham Jones
The Mummy's Heart – Norman Partridge
Unternehmen Werwolf – Carrie Vaughn
Lesser Fires – Steve Rasnic Tem & Melanie Tem
Long Way Home: A Pine Deep Story – Jonathan Maberry –
Black Dog – Laird Barron
The Halloween Men – Maria V. Snyder
Pumpkin Head Escapes – Lawrence C. Connolly
Whilst the Night Rejoices Profound and Still – Caitlín R. Kiernan
For the Removal of Unwanted Guests – A. C. Wise
Angelic – Jay Caselberg
Quadruple Whammy – Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
We, The Fortunate Bereaved – Brian Hodge
All Hallows in the High Hills – Brenda Cooper
Trick or Treat – Nancy Kilpatrick
From Dust – Laura Bickle
All Souls Day – Barbara Roden
And When You Called Us We Came To You – John Shirley

Buy.

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Contest!

If you've read this far, then you're in luck. I'll be giving away one copy of Dark Harvest, a novel by Norman Partridge, one of the authors featured in the above collection. 

You only have to do two things:

1. "Like" The End of Summer on Facebook.

2. E-mail endofsummerblog@gmail.com (subject line DARK HARVEST CONTEST), verify your Facebook name, and share with me one of your favorite Halloween books. It doesn't necessarily have to be about Halloween – just something you may read every year to celebrate. Most importantly: Tell me why you read it! 

That's it!

(Contest closes at 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, October 19. Winners will be contacted via e-mail.)

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#HALLOWEEN: CRAPPYPASTA: THE ACCIDENT

The one was a bunch of kids that always dressed up like it was Halloween and there parents didn’t like them so they told the bud driver to chain them up and take them to a quarry and run the bus of the cliff so the bus driver turnened into the quarry and the little vampire kid got out of his chains and killed the buss driver and drove the buss right off the cliff the all died and 8 years later on Halloween 4 kids investigated the place and the kids came out of the quarry and ate all the kids butt one

Um...[sic].

God love you, Crappypasta.

#HALLOWEEN: THE OCTOBER GAME: EC STYLE

#HALLOWEEN: PUMPKINFACE RUM #CONTEST

Just look at that bottle, filled with smooth aged rum, and tell me you don't want it.

Of course you do. It's booze in a glass jack-o'-lantern, people. Who doesn't want that? Or ten of them?

Well, here's your chance to win one for yourself. The End of Summer and PumpkinFace Rum are partnering for this very fun and sinfully easy contest. But first, appreciate the distillery who has bestowed upon us all our new yearly tradition.

The Story

The pumpkin is a symbol of celebration to people around the world. The origin of the pumpkin can be traced to North American seeds dating back to 7000 BC. The word pumpkin comes from the word "pepon", which is Greek for "large melon" and later changed by American colonists to "pumpkin". Colonists would often slice off the pumpkin top, remove the seeds, and fill it with cream, honey, eggs and spices. They cooked the pumpkin in hot ashes until blackened then enjoyed its contents. Pumpkin Face Rum honors the spirit of this tradition by filling the bottle with the finest ultra premium rum in the world. 

Continue the tradition and celebrate the pumpkin!

The Rum

Pumpkin Face White - Beautiful, delicious, and naturally smooth. 

Pumpkin Face Reserve - A blend of decades old hand selected aged Dominican rums.  

Pumpkin Face 23 - Made in 1980, aged 23 years in Oak barrels, and rested for over another decade in Dominican Republic, this rum shows extraordinary elegance with complexity.

So how do you win one?

There are several ways, and they're all easy. Pick one and you're entered. Pick them all and increase your chances.

1. Facebook users: "Like" the official PumpkinFace Rum page and share this contest page on your own wall.  
2. Twitter users: Follow the official PumpkinFace Rum twitter feed and tweet the following message to @PumpkinFaceRum: "I want #PumpkinFaceRum!"  
3. Instagram users: Upload a picture of a pumpkin or jack-o'-lantern and tag your photo with #PumpkinFaceRum.

Contest is open to folks within the continental United States only; those who enter must be 21 or older. Those under 21 will be immediately disqualified (and believe me, we will be checking). 

Contest ends 11:59 p.m. on October 16. Winners will be contacted directly via their Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram accounts. 

#HALLOWEEN: LEVITY

The greatest headline...ever.

THE BOY WITH NO SHADOW: AN INTERVIEW WITH LONESOME WYATT

Lonesome Wyatt and The Holy Spooks are no stranger to The End of Summer. Having featured this delightfully dark musical act three times before, finding a new way to describe it/him/them is a fool’s errand. Fact is, I could very well use the whole “so and so meets the guy from this thing” and dozens of other lazy comparisons ad nauseum, but all I really need to say is this: Listen for yourself, because if you're not, I feel sorry for you. Though he made a name for himself with Those Poor Bastards, an act that infuses country and Americana with goth and darkness, it is as Lonesome Wyatt and The Holy Spooks where something clicked with me in a way that it feels legitimately special. Add a scratchy layer of vinyl grain and Wyatt’s music could easily sound as if it were plucked right out of the 1970s, where society seemed suddenly enamored with death, evil, and the very real possibility of the devil walking amongst us.

While on a break from touring, Wyatt was kind enough to answer a few questions about his newest release – “Halloween is Here” – his history with/as The Spooks, and his life as a seeker/celebrator of the morbid.

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TEOS: I’ve listened to enough of your music (and read your first Edgar Switchblade misadventure) to recognize a fellow dark-side dwelling miscreant when I see one. What draws you to this odder road less traveled?

I suppose it all goes back to having a very secluded childhood with all those spooky cornfields rustling all the time. Too much solitude can make a fella a little strange.

TEOS: Much of your music is really story-driven – something Johnny Cash was always known for – so I hear a lot of his approach, including the dark humor, in your work. I also hear occasional glimpses of Timber Timbre and Tom Waits. 

Who else would you cite as an inspiration in your musical life? Was there a particular singer or songwriter, author, or perhaps filmmaker you may have discovered at a young age that made you realize this was what you wanted to do?

Growing up, I would say Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark and Gremlins were mostly to blame. I also remember getting a record called "Trick or Treat" by Oscar Brand from the library and that made a big impression on me. The songs were pretty goofy, but for some reason they really sent my tiny brain spinning.

Later on, Johnny Cash's "American Recordings," and Nick Cave's "Murder Ballads" showed me the mighty power of music.

TEOS: I can certainly appreciate your appreciation for the dark side and the supernatural. I've always been very intrigued by the paranormal. Tell me: how much of it do you believe? Do you believe in the existence of ghosts – in things beyond our understanding?

Well, there are sounds beyond our range of hearing and sights beyond our range of seeing, so who knows what we're missing? Maybe we're surrounded by horrible monsters and dead people. I sure hope so. I believe anything is possible and impossible.

TEOS: You are constantly trying new things, yet wanting to remain in this dark playground where your imagination is at its most potent. At this point in your career, are you consistently trying to reach new fans, or satisfying the ones you’ve already earned?

I try not to think too much about reaching new fans or how the project will be received or any of that kind of stuff. Of course I hope some people will enjoy it, but it's beyond my control. It just cripples you and fills you with anxiety if you worry about that. I try to keep things pure and create whatever idea I become excited about at the time. Hopefully it connects with someone.

TEOS: Moving onto "Halloween is Here"... I admit, and I say this more as a fan and less as a critic, I was a little disappointed the first time I listened to the new album.  I was anticipating something beautiful, dark, and more musically driven like “Ghost Ballads” – one of the new tracks, “Such a Fright,” for instance, is along the lines of what I was expecting – but it was probably halfway through my second listen that I “got” it – and loved it – and I realized you had a different goal: Instead of just doing a flat-out musical record, create this kind of old-school Halloween party ambience with flamboyant lyrics and quirky descriptions. And you really do nail that idea, right down to the perfectly vintage-looking album artwork. What other templates were you following when you were putting together this album? Who were you honoring, if anyone in particular?

That's always the problem when listening to a new album by someone whose last album you enjoyed. Your brain gets thrown in a loop when it's different than you expected. I just didn't think having this album really serious and quiet would make any sense. I see Halloween as more of a party for horrible things than a somber or sad experience. The whole thing is a tribute to all those obscure Halloween albums from the 50's-80's. No one makes this kind of stuff anymore, so I thought it was important to try to carry on the tradition. Hopefully it's not too insulting to those mysterious gods of the past.


TEOS: Your previous album as Lonesome Wyatt and The Holy Spooks, “Ghost Ballads,” is likely your most story-driven yet. The first track, “The Golden Rule,” doesn’t really get lost in poetic hyperbole – it’s a rather straightforward ghost story set to some pretty beautifully dark music. Listening to "Halloween is Here," however, it's evident you really didn't take this same approach.

Not really. This album is very different from Ghost Ballads. I think the only similar song would be "Such a Fright." Otherwise, it's not really as soft or pretty sounding. I was inspired by old Halloween records and wanted to try to capture that strange energy a lot of them have. There's quite a bit of group singing on this one. It sounds like a gang of deformed monsters. The rest of the album has stories, which were inspired by great albums like "Scary Spooky Stories."  It's really for all ages of creeps.

It was also important to me to make it sound and look handcrafted and not mass-produced. We printed all of the record and CD jackets on vintage style chipboard paper and I hand numbered them. The illustration by Strange Fortune Design Co. is just perfect and creepily vintage. I really hate slick, glossy things.

TEOS: Compared to previous Lonesome Wyatt releases, like “Heartsick,” for example, “Halloween is Here” has a sillier tone – not just in the content, but in the several songs where your vocals are accompanied by that sea of monstrous sounding voices you mentioned earlier. And on top of that, you add stories about werewolves suffering from depression, or kleptomaniac ghosts (from... Indiana). While the new album still has that patented Lonesome Wyatt darkness, it feels like you said, “Let’s just have some fun.” Was this a conscious choice? And if so, how early on in the realization did you know you just wanted to have a blast?

I just don't like doing the same album over and over. Ghost Ballads pretty much covered the gloomy horror, so I thought this one should me more rowdy and unhinged. It was my goal to create something that sounded like a bunch of crazy creatures having a celebration. I like to think of it as mentally ill rather than fun. Fun has some bad connotations.

TEOS: Probably my favorite aspect to the album is this kind of purposely implied feel that it’s something children would listen to at a party, but then at the same time some of the stories are pretty gruesome – especially “The Giant Fist.” So in a sense it sort of captures our fond recollections of Halloween (which more often than not stem back to our youth) and marries it to this kind of disturbing but quirky storyscape. It’s tough to explain but I think it makes the album that much more special – sort of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

I'm glad you noticed that, pal. This is just the way I see Halloween. I think it should be both exciting and ridiculous, but also surreal and frightening. When you look at old Halloween decorations many of them were unnerving and disturbing, but now everything is smiling and cute. I don't like that at all. We need to return this holiday back to its peculiar roots. It should be full of creepy terror and graveyard thrills.

TEOS: What is it about October 31st that compelled you to construct an entire concept album around it?

I have always loved that odd Autumn feeling that blows through the air around Halloween. Everything is filled with death and wonder.

TEOS: When can we expect to see the first music video based on one of your Halloween songs? And if so, do you know which song you’ll be using?

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll have time for a music video with this one. There are just too many projects going on. It's a real shame. I think I have to slow down on all this stuff at some point.

TEOS: What does a typical Halloween night look for Lonesome Wyatt?

It's not a very pretty sight. I usually just stay at home and watch some horror movies on VHS and listen to Halloween records. As with most things, the idea of Halloween is much better than the stinking reality.

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I thank Lonesome Wyatt for taking the time to discuss his new descent into madness, and I’m especially thankful for him having used Halloween as its backdrop. It’s always been my favorite night of the year for a multitude of reasons, but it seems that Halloween seems to be less celebrated and feel less important year after year. It’s starting to feel like those people who care about it belong to this very unpopular club that doesn’t have all that many members. So, my genuine thanks to LW for trying to contribute to it in some way in an effort to keep it going and keep people enthusiastic.

“Halloween is Here” can be purchased on vinyl (no it can't - sold out!), CD, and digital download directly at the official Lonesome Wyatt site, as well as your usual online retailers.