Family issues and all that

so after a long hiatus I'm back. some big stuff went down mid October and is finally getting cleared enough so I can blog again.

By the way has anyone heard the band Powerglove and it's version of This is Halloween? it's pretty cool.

Creepy folklore: faery week

fearys and halloween have been part of one another for quiet a while. back before Halloween was Halloween, the people of England, Ireland, and Scotland held october 31st a night for wonder and fear because all sorts of things where out, least of which where The Fae. they where accused of stealing and hurting children (a bit like blades in apples huh?) nasty pranks that you could bribe them not to do with treats. and just all sorts of chaos.

this week I will look some species of fae.

Show Time!

all rights to it's artist. found on Deviant art

the huanting season

It's October!
and so, my fellow Pumpkin fire soul's, begins the time we all live for. just wishing you all a good start to it all.

Digory

friday the 13th and the chill of autumn

so about sundown on the 13th I caught the first chill of autumn. the wind has begone to hint at smells of fall and Autumn is just around the corner here. I bet later this month the leafs start to change color.

so happy Friday the 13th/first autumn chill day to all!

interwebs working again

my internet has been spazy for almost 3 months now but looks like its working again.

canceled Halloweens and sundays

I have been so excited for Halloween to get here I missed what day it landed on.
Sunday
this is a awful, cruel, wickedly bad and all around sad thing to happen!

some of you are thinking "slow down their, Halloween Knight. surly it can't be that bad." But it is. in the place I live most people belong to one major religious group (which will remain unnamed for I'm not a hateful jerk, just a bit upset). this group holds Sunday as only for religious acts and will ether have a non religious holidays moved or canceled. the forth of july was moved to the 3ed this year. last time Halloween landed on Sunday they tried their hardest to have not happen.

this included boycotting stores that had Halloween events or even Halloween things for sell, forbidding it's members to celebrate it, and even having its members warn non members against the sin. we had one teacher at my high school explaing "that as you are all good members of the church you should not try and celebrate this sinful holiday becuse it lands on sunday"

Halloween would not be stopped. it almost ended in public protests and lots more problems. but a concerned clergyman put an end to all the foolishness and asked the members to just move it to Saturday. it ended relatively nicely and with minor conflict. but it has left a stain on Halloween that was just starting to wain. I have high hopes that they might just move it to Saturday, but some never learn from mistakes.

something wicked...

all rights to its artist
found in Deviant art

The comment issue has been solved!

Sorry about taking this long to fix it. the comment thing was not on purpose, it was just me being new to blogging. that and I should check my email more often.

Thanks to all those souls who tried and tell me about the issue and once again sorry about not getting back to it all sooner

hope to hear some awesome stuff now that everyone can post comments.

Fashion victim

victim

Sam!

some art of everyone favorite trick or treating demon. rights to the pictures go to the respective artists. all pictures where found on DeviantArt

some of my halloween pictures

Just some pictures of Halloween stuff from around the den. I'm experimenting with for to take a decent Halloween picture.

Pumpkin Fire Soul

Have you ever wondered what your soul looks like? I have. I think if you riped mine from my mortal bits. you would find it a small candle flicker lighting up a jack o' lantern's smile. the smell of autumn and burning pumpkin flesh rising from it.

I think most of our souls would reflect of love of the darkest night of the year. with a unique version in each.

so what does your Pumpkin Fire soul look like?

picture trouble

I'm sorry I haven't updated lately. its been mad crazy hear at the den.

I have some pictures I'm trying to post but blogger seems to not want me to. I'm not sure if its bloger or the pictures but its becoming a bit frustrating.

Halloween Art 1

this is some of the great Halloween art I have found throughout the net. mostly on a site called Deviant art. the rights to them belong to their respective artists.

spooky review: Top 5 halloween movies for kids

because I didn't get a chance to grab the book I wanted to review I decided to make a top five list. this is my favorite Halloween kid movies

1. the Halloween tree
this is THE Halloween movie. I hold this to be Halloween incarnate and I'm sure I'm not alone.

2. The Nightmare Before Christmas
this gave us one of the most basic Halloween songs known to man. and for being a Christmas movie it's full of hallowinne goodness

3.spirited away
one of Miyazaki's best works and stuffed full of ghosts and goblins this is one of the best non Halloween films for October.

4.Halloween town
Disney last decent attempt at Halloween lead to this uber cheesy and supremely corny movie. it lacks the dazzle and haunting feel of tim's halloweentown non the less one gets lost in the story and can just let loose and be a kid again

5. scary godmother
this is cartoon networks attempt at halloween. it hits closer to Tim's halloweentown feel and the pun humor is surprisingly witty at times. I think this one got largely ignored because it was a bit cheesy. but how many of us Halloween nuts could deny wishing for a scary godmother?

feel free to tell me what you guys think of the movies I chose or what ones you would like to see on the list. (remember KIDS movies leave the horror shows for the next top 5 list)

shellhawk's nest giveaway

In light of her 100th follower, the wonderful shellhawk has decided to give away one of her adorable little jack o lanterns. luckily for me it seems no one has tried to win. so If you all want keep being lazy, that's good with me! I could always use another pumpkin for the house.

creepy myths: jiang shi

Jiang Shi　are reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb life essence from their victims. Jiāngshī is pronounced gœngsi in Cantonese, or kyonshi in Japanese. They are said to be created when a person's soul fails to leave the deceased's body, due to improper death, suicide, or just wanting to cause trouble.

Generally their appearance can range from plain ordinary (as in the case of a recently deceased person) to downright horrifying (i.e. rotting flesh, stiffness, rigor mortis, the like commonly associated with corpses that have been in a state of decay over a period of time). A peculiar feature is their greenish-white furry skin; one theory is this is derived from fungus or mold growing on corpses. They are said to have long white hair all over their heads. The influence of Western vampire stories brought the blood-sucking aspect to the Chinese myth in modern times.

A supposed source of the jiang shi stories came from the folk practice of "Traveling a Corpse over a Thousand Li", where traveling companions or family members who could not afford wagons or had very little money would hire Taoist priests to transport corpses of their friends/family members who died far away from home over long distances by teaching them to hop on their own feet back to their hometown for proper burial. Taoist priests would transport the corpses only at night and would ring bells to notify other pedestrians of their presence because it was considered bad luck for a living person to set eyes upon a jiang shi. This practice was popular in Xiangxi where many people left their hometown to work elsewhere. After they died, their corpses were transported back to their rural hometown using long bamboo rods, believing they would be homesick if buried somewhere unfamiliar. When the bamboo flexed up and down, the corpses appeared to be hopping in unison from a distance. Once it was a myth. Some people speculate that the stories about jiang shi was originally made up by smugglers who disguised their illegal activities as corpse transportation and wanted to scare off law enforcement officers.

They are sometimes called Chinese vampires by Westerners, despite the fact that unlike vampires, most jiang shi usually have no self-awareness, consciousness or independent thought.

jiang shi can be put to sleep by putting a piece of yellow paper with a spell written on it on their foreheads. Generally the jiang shi are dressed in imperial Qing Dynasty clothes, their arms permanently outstretched due to rigor mortis. Like those depicted in Western movies, they tend to appear with outrageously long tongues and long razor sharp black fingernails. They can be evaded by holding one's breath, as they track living creatures by detecting their breathing. They are blind, and lack knowledge.

Because it usually takes decades for a unattended resentful corpse to become a Jiang Shi, they are usually depicted wearing attire identified with the previous dynasty. Their modern visual depiction as horrific Qing Dynasty imperial officials may have been derived by the anti-Manchu sentiment of the Han majority during the Qing Dynasty period, who were viewed as bloodthirsty creatures with little regard for humanity.

It is also the conventional wisdom of feng shui in Chinese architecture that at a threshold , a piece of wood approximately 15 cm (6 in) high, be installed along the width of the door at the bottom to prevent a jiang shi from entering the household. When grains or rice, seeds, anything small thrown in the path of a jiang shi, the jiang shi will stop and count the grains of rice. Sticky rice is believed to draw the evil spirit of the jiang shi out. only sticky rice works, and mixing it with regular rice diminishes its effectiveness. Furthermore, the glutinous rice must be in its uncooked form for it to be effective. Other items used to repel jiang shi in films include chicken's eggs (whereas duck's eggs are ineffective), and the blood of a black dog.

Jack o' lantern rescue

my girlfriend (from now on will be nicknamed fox) often jokes how I run a "Home for abandoned books and Halloween things" because I am always searching the thrift stores and garage sales for both. needles to say I have good amount of Halloween things of all shapes and sizes. as of today its not so much a joke as I pulled this little pumpkin to safety out of the gutter.




as you can see it's a cute little jack o' lantern pal someone had left sitting in the gutter. I couldn't help but stop and pick it up. I got it home and snapped some pictures of it. then got it all cleaned up. he looks so nice and clean now.





he looks so happy in the last one. he's practically glowing.

creepy myths: Red cap

Redcaps are fey(faries) that are famous for their bloodlust.
A Red Cap or Redcap, also known as a powrie or dunter, is a type of malevolent murderous dwarf, goblin, elf or fairy found in Border Folklore. They are said to inhabit ruined castles found along the border between England and Scotland. Redcaps are said to murder travelers who stray into their homes and dye their hats with their victims' blood (from which they get their name). Redcaps must kill regularly, for if the blood staining their hats dries out, they die. Redcaps are very fast in spite of the heavy iron pikes they wield and the iron-shod boots they wear. Outrunning a redcap is supposedly impossible.

They are depicted as sturdy old men with red eyes, taloned hands and large teeth, wearing a red cap and bearing a pikestaff in the left hand

Spooky review: Trick r treat screenplay

as I thought the screenplay and movie where two completely different beastys. the screenplay offered a scene at Pandoras the local occult store that gave a lot more info on "the traditions" and what exactly Sam is. we meet a set of different trick or treaters then the one's in the school bus massacre and what sounded like a hella cool graveyard instead of the rock quay. its a bit lighter of the language and mindless murder. it had more to it then the movie but then again it would have been a lot longer and more expensive and Hollywood hates that. I would love to see the extra story in the graveyard one day but I think the schoolbus was a bit better.

creepy myths: Revenants

when someone says undead two things come to most people's minds. beautiful immortal vampires or hungry rotting zombies. but the walking dead come in tons of other shapes and sizes.

Revenants are solid ghosts of western European myth. often they look like they did in life, a little paler and a bit on the thin side. sometimes they sport the wound that killed them, sometimes they take a bit more devilish form. they are always cold to the touch and the air around them seems to chill. they do not breath nor do they eat or sleep.

Revenants are usually someone who was wronged in life and has come back for revenge. sometimes they did not finish a task and cannot rest yet. ether way most revenants have one task they have returned to do and once finished they while return to the grave from which they came. they can only come out in the dead of night to do whatever task they must. using all sorts of tricks from poison breath to nightmares to extract their revenge.

they show the normal weakness of most English undead such as a fear of church bells and running water. a rather unique weakness is the paralyzing fear of a rosters call.

spooky reviews: Trick R treat

every halloween nut and horror movie nut had been waiting since 300 to see this. two long years. and I'm sure most thought it well worth the wait.

I had gotten a copy on my birthday from my girlfriend and had to wait until I was alone watch it. she's a bit squeamish when it comes to blood and gore. I was a bit disappointed in it.

flash two months forward I deiced to re-watch it again to review it for Monday (yes its 5 days late. sorry!). and found my first opinion on it a bit tough. It is one of the best movies in a while, great story, great humor, and amazing ambient setting all making it stand out. which got me thinking "why was I so harsh on it before?" the answer was simple. like a whole lot of other October people after two years of waiting we where all hoping for the holly grail of Halloween movies. and it is not.

while being awesome the film did have its problems. by the end of it, it seemed that people where getting killed for the sake of dying. the language might have been better toned down a bit. the movie tries for to much shock value and not enough creepy. I downloaded the script to read it and see if this was the writer or Hollywood's fault.

Sam is the critter I have the most mixed feelings about. his little burlap sack mask and over sized bag is uber creepy and he is a well built monster. however his "Demon form" is kinda too corny looking and I would have liked him to keep his mask on. also he has some really awesome moments, then others he feels like a bad slasher who failed victims 101.

all in all it is a great movie that I'm going to watch again but its not Halloween incarnate as some of us had hoped

Creepy myths: Baron samdi

The master of the graveyard, keeper of the secret to making zombies, and voodoo grim reaper. this loa (voodoo god) he dresses in a top hat, sunglasses with one lense missing,and a fancy tux coat. one half of him is ether painted up like a skeleton or is half skeleton.
as far as gods of death go the baron is unique in his sociability and charisma. often going to partys and balls. he is rude and rambunctious but in pleasant way. ironically as a god of death he is the life of the party. he has always been a favorite of mine because he adds a bit of spice to your normal reaper.
even though he was a party animal. he took his job very seriously and is one of the most called upon loas because of this. you would ask for his aid with helping a dying person. they could not die if he would not take them.

Spooky reviews: A night in lonesome october

most books involving Halloween are a disappointment and whenever I start one I don't expect much. I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It was not only an okay book but it went above and beyond what I was hoping for. witty, exciting, and full of halloweeny goodness.
the story starts in Victorian London on the first of October. our main character the, knife cursed Jack, and our narrator and jacks pet the watchdog scruff. they are players in game that determines the fate of the world. mixing in a little cuthul myth this game is a occult contest between "openers" who wish to let the elder gods into the world and "closers" who want to stop them from coming. it only takes place on a Halloween with a full moon. other players include werewolves, Dracula, Frankenstein and his monster, mad clergymen and a witch.
this is all and all a fun and refreshing book worthy of a read and a great way to get into the spirt of Halloween.

Velcome

Welcome to The land of always October.This is a blog that is dedicated to darkest holiday of the year, Halloween. I'm going to try and post at least three times a week, but life is busy and unpredictable so no promises. Monday is spooky review day, where I show you some cool books, movies,music, and games. Wednesday is creepy mythology day, where we see some of the scariest gods, monsters and tales throughout history and folklore. the rest of the week is free to whatever I decide.