During October, cities around the country, big and small, put up Halloween-themed attractions like haunted hayrides and paranormal escape rooms. 

But if that isn’t enough for you, you might need to travel for the real thing. Not every city in the country has as haunted of a history as Salem, Massachusetts. 

From the famous witch trials of the 17th century to the trial of Dorothy Talbye and the large population of Wiccan practitioners who live in Salem today, explore what made this colonial hamlet the most haunted city in the world. 

The Salem Witch Trials

The infamous witch trials began in 1692 in the township of Salem, one of the biggest colonies in the new European settlement in North America. 

It all started when two local girls, Abigail Williams and Betty Parris, accused their enslaved nurse, Tituba, of witchcraft. Over the next year, accusations piled up as the town descended into madness, executing a total of 19 men and women for connections to the Devil.

During the Salem witch trials, the murder of innocent civilians left a dark stain on the town that can still be felt (and seen) today. Take a tour with US Ghost Adventures and see for yourself.

House of the Seven Gables (1915)

The House of the Seven Gables

The famous American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a book about the House of the Seven Gables, a foreboding-looking, black colonial home in the center of Salem. 

Also called the Turner-Ingersoll House, this bewitching building was once home to John Hathorne, a distant relative of Nathaniel’s, who served as a judge during the witch trials. The Hathornes were one of the wealthiest families in all New England before the trials, and over the generations after, members died mysteriously, grew ill, and lost their wealth in bad deals.

The “Hathorne curse” still hangs over the brooding House of the Seven Gables, threatening anyone with death, disease, and doom if they dare enter.

The Dorothy Talbye Trial

Long before the witch trials ever scattered vengeful blood across the soil of Salem, there was another grievous crime committed against an innocent. 

In 1639, a severely mentally ill woman named Dorothy Talbye killed her 3-year-old daughter “because God told her to.” The government hung her, but many legal experts at the time and nearly a consensus now believe that there must be distinctions in sentencing sane vs. insane convicts. 

Now the lost, bereaved soul of Dorothy Talbye creeps around the Salem graveyard, looking for her daughter.

October Samhain Celebrations

Practitioners of Wicca and other earth-based magic religions have re-embraced Salem as a magical, mystical town. Many modern-day witches live in and around Salem and, each October, congregate in town, lighting up wicker men and singing ancient chants to welcome the fall harvest.

Don’t Be Scared

Whether you believe in magic or not, you deserve a spooktacular Halloween. There’s no better place for that than in Salem.

Photo Credit

Cemetery from piqsels
The House of the Seven Gables is from Wikipedia Creative Commons

Guest Author Bio
Russell E.

Russell is an ex-Marketing Journalist. He lives in Utah with his family and is a keen aviation enthusiast in his spare time.

Halloween is predominantly a residential occasion and we wanted to change that. This year, Archer Dental Toronto dentists made lifelike ghosts in the waiting rooms at two separate downtown dental clinic locations.

Ghostly specters haunt Archer Dental Baby Point on Halloween

In sub divisions across Canada, the Oct 31st event is important because it allows neighbours to go forth and meet each other, often for the first time. Whole families go door to door and trick-or-treat face to face in the flickering porch light of friendly Jack – o – lanterns. Houses are decorated and people parade about in costume. But downtown, by contrast, the festival goes ignored. Certain community-minded shopping malls shamelessly promote their property as a safe alternative to dark streets, but by and large commercial businesses do not get the Halloween spirit, and if they do it’s only for marketing purposes.

The dentists reasoned they could do something exceptional as they have a good reputation for doing innovative things including painting huge wall murals, and making emergency dental courier videos, not to mention all the press they garner every day for doing world class dentistry. Back in September, the office managers for all three locations decided they weren’t going to simply trot-out the same orange and black streamers and not-so-spooky posters salvaged from some primary education school supply store. This year we vowed to do something better.  We decided to make a proper ghost projection attraction that could haunt two of our offices (with street-level walk-in waiting rooms) at night, and make an impression on pedestrians who pass their front windows.

Making an impression on pedestrians who pass by!

So just what is a ghost exactly?

To make a proper supernatural presentation, it might be helpful to know just what exactly comprises an authentic ghost. Oh sure, it’s the spirit of a deceased person, as everyone says, but what is the actual substance we behold? The idea of ghosts has been around forever. They were in fact mentioned in The Epic of Gilgamesh, mankind’s oldest known written work. Ghost stories are part of most cultures’ folklore, although the essential definition of what comprises a ghost varies from country to country. Catholics for example have a Holy Ghost as one of three core components in their belief system. Shakespeare invoked ghosts in several plays and he advanced the idea that spirits were made of ‘airs from heaven’. Ghostbusters, a 1984 American fantasy comedy film debuted the idea of spirits being ectoplasmic. Today YouTube is filled with filmmakers who attempt to capture spirits on video. Have you ever watched those videos? They’re not very impressive. Real ghosts are often just unexplained bright spots or strange mists on camera. Fortunately our clinics have no real ghosts, and so we happily set about making some on this special occasion.

The realities of projecting ghosts

After some research we concluded that to make ghosts appear and disappear in a dimly lit dental office waiting room would require three basic components:

1. Projector – the source of the effect.
2. Ghost media – the video image that will be projected to make the effect.
3. The screen – the cast needs substance to illuminate, otherwise invisible, that is illuminated by the effect.

The media is loaded into a computer or placed directly into the projector. This device is then aimed at the sheer fabric screen that is otherwise invisible in the dimly lit room.

The exact positioning of the projector and screen are rather critical to making the ghost projection appear real and lifelike.  Like any good cake recipe, the devil is in the details.  Each time we set this up, we tried several different layouts with various different parts and pieces until we evolved just the right effect.

We got started the week before Halloween. The installation on the first night was a disaster. I’d gone out and bought exactly the wrong screen material from William F Whites, a film rental house in Toronto and that material was much too thick and too heavy. Two people labored to hang it in from the ceiling of Archer Dental Little Italy waiting room and it bent three ceiling tile flanges.

And it didn’t work. The black scrim diffused the light miserably and actually lit up the room; it simply made a fuzzy ball upon which it was near impossible to focus the beam. So we scraped it entirely and kissed $225 dollars goodbye. Someone ran to Walmart the next day and bought fabric sheers for $12 and binder clips and we tried again the following evening in the same location.

Archer Little Italy

Night Two is when we realized our FX projector wasn’t really designed for bright city streets. One of the downfalls of doing this in the city is how bright the streets are at night. You’d never realize it unless you did something like this and you need darkness for it to work.  We could turn off all the lights inside our office of course, but we couldn’t control the light levels outside. And the Walmart fabric sheers had quilt-pattern folds which caught the light. And the video clip was too short and the amount of time the ghost was off-screen was too short. She didn’t disappear for any length of time at all. That meant the apparition could not then suddenly reappear and scare spectators. So that component also needed an overhaul. 

The sheer fabric seen here is mounted too close to the window.

Night Three saw us try again with better screen material, a longer video, and a much better projector.  We reconvened at Archer Dental Baby Point, 387 Jane St just south of Annette. The traffic cues up there at the stop light and so the ghost would be visible to passing motorists stuck at the light all night long. It would be especially visible to the passengers in those cars waiting at the light.

On that night we debuted the Epson VS250, a 3LCD projector with ‘3-chip technology’ which I think actually helped us get a better focus on the sheer fabric. The projector has an 800 x 600 SVGA resolution and a more finely calibrated focus ring on its front lens. The extra brightness meant we could get some distance back and still have enough intensity to mesmerize pedestrians.

Epson VS250

We also upgraded the screen again and this third iteration was the final evolution. We nailed it. That morning I’d visited Fabricland and had purchased a wide sheet of sheer material for twenty bucks, a fraction of the cost of the material we’d initially sourced.  And being so lightweight it was infinitely easier to hang.  The fabric was also quite stretchy and when pulled taut it almost disappeared into a misty ambiance.  When viewed from outside with no ghostly lights the fabric simply melted into the air and made the interior of the dental office waiting room appear slightly misty.

So the stage was set for our ghostly lady to reappear, and that component was also improved in the interim.  Our projectionist had gone online and downloaded Shotcut and thereafter she bought and then stitched together a sequence of short videos of one particular ghostly lady (sold online by AtmosFX com). She assembled a story that featured the ghost moving left and then right and then, most importantly, fading away for five seconds and then suddenly, shockingly reappearing. The specter explodes in anger which you can probably see in some of these pictures.  There was audio too and next year we’ll hook that up to exterior speakers which don’t exist at these two locations at this time. The audio cues would be very helpful in getting pedestrians to notice the effect playing in the window.

The ghost dances left and right, courtesy of AtmosFX

Photo Credits

Photos by Rob Campbell – All Rights Reserved

Guest Author Bio
Rob Campbell

Rob Campbell is a freelance nature writer and author living in Toronto, Canada. Son of a beekeeper, Rob is keenly interested in using technology to improve conservation and the preservation of our natural world; he funds projects that use gadgets to study and improve the lives of insects (honeybees) and animals around us, especially those unfortunate creatures that are, like so many of us humans, stuck living in the city.

Rob is actively involved in Toronto’s business world and the city’s cultural art scenes.

Website: Dumpdiggers Blog

Follow Rob on: Twitter

Ultimate Halloween Hairstyles Created By: Ogle School

If you’ve just binge-watched Game of Thrones, try recreating the beautiful and medieval braids that Daenerys Targaryen wore. It’s four small braids gathered together in the back of your head, with lots of loose curls. The braids are done in a Dutch braid style (the opposite of a French braid) that crosses the hair under instead of over.

To bring some digital culture into real life, recreate your favorite snapchat filter. This deer fawn hair style has super-cute pigtail space buns that can work for either long or short hair. It’s an easy style to do, and when paired with this deer fawn makeup tutorial, you’ll be living your app IRL.

For a different take on the classic witch costume, opt for the look of Elvira, Mistress of The Dark. Her epic beehive is sure to make a statement. The hairstyle for this costume is so tall that it even uses a prop like a loofa that you wrap your hair over to add extra height and drama. To complete the look, try one of these 89 spooky nail art designs.

If you’d rather throw it back to a different decade, try doing what Tina Turner did and wear a big wig with edgy, textured cuts. This sassy style is such an easy costume, requiring very little planning or effort. Just pair the wig with a sparkly dress and heels, and you’re ready to rock & roll.

But maybe your Halloween style this year is throwing it way back– back to 1776 for a style inspired by the hit musical, Hamilton. This old-fashioned up-do is a perfect match for a corseted gown and powdered makeup. Styled after Kirsten Dunst’s look in the movie Marie Antoinette, it has layers of pinned curls. This style calls for silver hair, but it would work fine with any color, and just about any length hair. Don’t forget to accessorize by adding flowers to your hair.

More detailed instructions on these hairstyles are available at Ogle School’s post on the Ultimate Halloween Hairstyles: From Braids to Beehives. We will certainly be strutting our hairstyling skills this Halloween thanks to the step-by-step instructions.

Guest Author Bio
Jeff Chiarelli

Jeff Chiarelli is the Director of Marketing at Ogle School, a Texas-based beauty and cosmetology school. Their 8 locations offer both part-time and full-time schedules to ensure success.

Hal-Con is definitely a unique way for me to spend a weekend in Halifax. It was my trusty office nurse, Susan, who talked me into attending this event. I didn’t need much encouragement, because I have always been a fan of all things geekish and nerdish, though I had never attended a convention. While the words “geek” and “nerd” were rather generic pejoratives in my day, they are now differentiated, and many are proud of the designation. When you think nerd, you might think of Sheldon and his crew in “The Big Bang Theory”. Mind you, Sheldon is a bit extreme, even for a nerd, and I am certain he would be diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome if he were to be formally assessed. Nerds like ideas and are socially awkward, except when discussing some esoteric topic with a fellow nerd…but for most of the rest of the world, they may as well be speaking a foreign language (eg. “string theory” has nothing to do with tying knots or that gooey stuff you shoot from cans), and you’d better know a tachyon from a barion if you want to be taken seriously by a nerd.

A “geek” is more social and may superficially appear more normal. He or she may be more concerned about being accepted socially. Geeks also tend to concern themselves more with things more than ideas. The semblance of normality ends, however, when you realize how incredibly focused the geek is on some television show, movie series, Japanese cartoon or comic book. In general, the geeks come across as somewhat cuter than nerds and often dress as their favorite characters.

In preparation for my venture into Hal-Con, I taught myself about the world of “Steam Punk”. Imagine a futuristic Victorian society as Jules Vernes would envisage it. An idea of good costume ideas would come from a review of the Will Smith movie “The Wild Wild West”. Having a top hat and tails as a nucleus, I visited the local army surplus store and bought a pair of black army combat boots, old electronic parts and white utility gloves. The local Hallowe’en shop provided a monacle, the electronics were attached to a white gauntlet worn on my let wrist (my “temporal distorter”)…et voila! I was set.

That Hallowe’en, the halls of the Halifax Metro Centre and World Trade and Convention Centre resounded with the voices of elves, My Little Ponies, those dressed as characters from Mario Brothers video games, a multitude of Dr. Who doppelgängers and a plethora of those punked steamwise (myself included in that number). The Jules Verne Society had a booth with representatives who looked steam-punk ready-made for a Hollywood movie. I purchased two tickets to their 2015 Time Travellers’ New Years Ball. The vendor assured me that it had been wonderful, almost as good as the 2018 event…

The Society for Creative Anachronism is an international venue that promotes re-enactment of the Middle Ages, or at least its better moments. Some choose to battle with armour and swords, others to learn medieval music, dancing, needlepoint and textiles, and many other aspects of that time period.

I even found a vendor selling Harry Potter-themed memorabilia, including scarves embroidered with insignia of the four Houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She [the vendor] also sported a fine assortment of magic wands. Some great Christmas gift ideas for my 14 year old daughter.

Hal-Con boasts an assortment of celebrities and authors in-house whom you could line up to meet, get autographs from, photos with, and maybe even chitchat a bit. I didn’t do this until after Symphony Nova Scotia’s special sci-fi concert that Hallowe’en evening, complete with a costume contest and hosted by John Rhys-Davies, the Welsh actor who played Gimli the Dwarf in the film trilogy “The Lord of the Rings”. He has also acted in James Bond movies, Star Trek episodes and his career has encompassed many other roles including Macro in the BBC “I, Claudius” series. I lined up to meet Rhys-Davies after the symphony. A few moments of chat with a photo op revealed him to be an utterly delightful, charming and intelligent man, and as you can see from the photo, he is a good six feet tall, not dwarfish in stature at all!

Photo Credits

All photos from George Burden – All Rights Reserved

Astonishingly, Vlad Tepes—the inspiration for Stoker’s iconic vampyre—might have only spent a handful of days at Bran Castle.

Regions of Castles

Leaving Romania’s capital city—Bucharest—en route to Transylvania, visitors pass through the Prahova Valley and the breaktaking Carpathian Mountains. A good first stop is Peles Castle. It is not medieval, but rather, was an opulent residence constructed in the 19th century for Carol I—the first of the four kings who ruled Romania. Built in the German Renaissanace style, Peles has masses of tooled wooden panelling; it bears paintings by masters such as Gustav Klimt, and even sports a secret door leading to the library, reported to have been used by the king when he wanted to sneak away for a tryst with his wife. Queen Marie, the wife of the subsequent monarch, Ferdinand I, disliked the pretentious style of Peles, however, and preferred to indulge her time at the ancient Bran Castle, which dates back to the 15th century. This medieval fortress is what comes to mind for most peole when they think of Dracula; though, astonishingly, Vlad Tepes—the inspiration for Stoker’s iconic vampyre—might have only spent a handful of days at Bran Castle. Nowadays, it is extremely cosy, with the interior more resembling an English country cottage (perhaps owing to the fact that Queen Marie was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria), than a spooky, vampyric lair. Both Peles and Bran Castle are approximately two hours away from Bucharest, and are near the city of Brasov.  

The Saxon Cities

The prettiest towns to visit in Transylvania are those that were built by the Saxons—a mix of Germans and Walloons, who settled in the region during the 12th and 13th centuries following an urgent invitation from the Hungarians to act as a buffer against the Ottoman Turks.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Sighisoara is a great introduction to the Siebenburgen, or Seven Saxon Cities; Sighisoara is such a paragon of medieval Europe that you might expect Hansel and Gretel to emerge from one of the cobbled alleys. The Clock Tower was built in 1280 and boasts a timepiece from 1648 that features two-feet-tall wooden Greco-Roman gods and goddesses who march around on the hour. Visitors can climb the tower to see the ingenious clock mechanism themselves, as well as getting a close-up look at the carved deities.

Overshadowed by the tower is the residence where Vlad Tepes is reputed to have been born. The house is now a restaurant, with ancient murals depicting Dracula’s father, Vlad II Dracul. It also features a somewhat campy-but-fun Dracula-themed room, replete with coffin and vampyric count as castellan. Don’t forget to climb the nearby hill via the covered staircase, and visit the spooky graveyard with its vine-covered monuments.

The town of Sibiu, 80 kilometres from Sighisoara and another of the Siebenburgen, is picture-postcard perfect, with its huge town square and the unique presence of Liars’ Bridge—reputed to groan if a fib is told while standing on it.

Vlad the Impaler had a few of the Saxon burghers of the town impaled from the side of this very hill, to encourage them to treat his Romanian subjects in a more kindly manner!

The nearby city—Brasov—is shadowed by Mount Timpa, on whose slopes, Vlad Tepes impaled large numbers of the city’s more prominent inhabitants. Be sure to take the cable-car up the mountain for a panoramic overview of the city. Mount Timpa boasts a Hollywood-style sign in giant white letters, which spells the city’s name.

Visitors to Transylvania should also try to find the time to visit—reverently—Fagaras Fortress, which lies in wait approximately an hour’s journey outside of Brasov city. Fagaras is particularly encouraged on a sunny day. The museum has some interesting exhibits, including a stove-tile that shows a huntsman killing a werewolf; yet, the real treasure is the view of the castle ramparts, reflected in a willow-lined moat, graced by flocks of swans.

When in Transylvania

During recent renovation, the skull of a woman was found in the eves–a spike driven through the cranium the cause of her demise.

Hunyadi Castle, in Eastern Transylvania, is the major sight in the town of Hunedoara, which is studded with abandoned factories that date back to the Ceausescu era of the 1970s and 80s. Hunyadi’s origins echo 15th century masonry, and Vlad Tepes, it is suspected, might have been imprisoned within its walls at one time. The castle belonged to Hungarian rulers John Hunyadi and his son, Matthias Corvinus. Its elegant halls and ramparts make a fabulous venue for the torchlit Hallowe’en costume ball, held annually.

Partying at Hunyadi Castle on Hallowe’en evening.

Starting at sundown, the castle festivities begin with drums, bagpipe music and warm glasses of potent Romanian tuica—a plum brandy. Count Dracula (or a reasonable facsimile) greets over one hundred revellers from his lofty position atop the ramparts. Inside the enormous Dieta Hall, guests keep merry with the help of an ample buffet, live entertainment and fountains running with blood red and angellic white wines.

I attended the party in 2014, sporting a pretty natty vampyre costume. I was both surprised and delighted when I won first prize for my outfit.

Let’s just say that, though dressed as Dracula, I was the one bitten…by the Transylvania bug.

Photo Credits

George Burden – All rights reserved

*This article appeared in its original format at The Medical Post

The Astronaut (rear view)

Mrs. Norris was old. KC said she was like sixty or something. Mom said not to be silly cuz she couldn’t be a day older’n 35. Dad said she was too hot to be that old. Well 35 sounds old to me, and she never looked too hot neither. Sometimes she even wore a sweater when I was just in a T-shirt.

The day the movers started hauling stuff into the Anderson twinses old house all of us kids was pretty excited. We kept riding our bikes past the house to see what kinda new kids there was gonna be. But when Mrs. Norris showed up all by herself we knowed that she didn’t have none.

KC’s dad said that Mrs. Norris was a monomally cause she didn’t have kids. He said that her heramones should be squirting all over making her wantta have one. But we didn’t see nothin squirting outta her, and he must be right cuz she just kept not having any kids. Dad said she was a curiosity in the neighbourhood, even for the grown-ups.

And anyone who knows anything knows that old ladies with no kids are mean. So Bobby Maki, the biggest kid on our block, called a meeting at the fort. There us kids decided that we was gonna get back at her on accountta her being mean, and I said on accountta that she wasn’t squirting heramones too. We come up with a really good plan. I don’t bemember what it was no more, but I bemember it being a good un.

Bobby was meant to start it, but when we rode our bikes up to her house she was outside wearing her blue coveralls and working in the yard. “Hi there cutie pie,” she said to Bobby. “What can I do for you?”

Bobby got all red and started to act funny. Usually he’s tough and don’t put up with nothin from no one. I figured he would bop her one on accountta her calling him a cutie pie, but he looked down at his feet and hitched his thumbs into his pants and pulled them up higher. I could see that he was standing on his toes. Afterward he told us little uns that if he heard anyone getting back at Mrs. Norris he’d bust us in the chops. Bobby was the boss of us kids when we were outside, and no one wanted to get smacked, so from then on out we left Mrs. Norris alone.

KC called her a Poopie-head once but that was alright cuz he calls everyone that. So even though Bobby heared it, he didn’t bust KC for it.

I figured that she was a car fixer because of her blue coveralls, but Mom said prolly not cuz she took a suitcase to work and was usually gone for a few days. Dad thought she was a airplane worker called a stewardest. He said that a stewardest was like a waiter on a plane. I said that it didn’t sound like a fun job. Mom said that it didn’t look like a fun job neither.

One day when we was coming home from the bus stop after school we was all talkin about what we were going as for Halloween when KC stopped and pointed at Mrs. Norris’s house. There were three witches sitting on her roof. THREE!

And there was ghosts hanging from the trees, and I counted 27 punkins lining her walkway. They was all carved into different faces. One even looked like Elsa from Frozen. That one was my favouritest. My mouth was open so wide that a fly flew right into it. I was coughing hard so KC smacked me on the back and I swallowed it. Gross.

Halloween was only three days away and now all of a sudden Mrs. Norris had the best decorations in the neighbourhood. It was SO cool. I really wanted to see inside her house to see if it was as spooky as her yard.

Mom had made me a helmet out of paper-mashy and found a shiny, silver jacket and I was going as a astronaut. The rule by the grown-ups here was that we had to make our costumes and store bought ones was no good. But sometimes I looked at the ones in the Walmart and they looked pretty to me.

When we trick and treated at Mrs. Norris’s house she guessed right away that I was a astronaut. And she said not to call her Mrs. Norris too on accountta that she was never married. She said she was a Ms but when she said it, it sounded like Mzzzzz, but she said that it was spelled Ms. And guess what? It turns out that she isn’t a stewardest. She is a for-real astronaut and if I wanted to, she could take me, and my Mom and Dad, and even KC on a tour of a for-real rocket ship!

Mrs. Norris is the nicest neighbour EVER. Even though she ain’t got any kids. And even though she’s old and hot. And I’m not telling about the inside of her house cuz that’s something you gots to see for yerself.

Image Credit

“rear view,” by Kirsten Jennings. www.flickr.co. Some rights reserved.

Ironically, my costume, which depicted the more modern incarnation of Dracula as per Stoker and later Bela Lugosi, won first prize out of over 100 revelers. My prize was a somewhat campy Dracula clock, depicting the more modern Dracula familiar to the casual vampire fan.

The “real” Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, was the son of Vlad Dracul, a voivode or prince of Wallachia. Adding an “a” in Romanian gives us “Dracula” which translates literally as “Son of the Dragon”. He lived at a time when the Ottoman Empire constantly threatened Eastern Europe and he was in fact held hostage in the Turkish court during his youth. Contemporary texts suggest that such hostages were often subjected to abusive practices which may have led to Vlad’s later penchant for impaling Turks, something he did to people by the thousands, though generally not to Romanians. In fact Vlad is something of a hero to the present day Romanians, having used his “stick handling” skills to punish wealthy Saxons and Wallachian noblemen (boyars) who oppressed his countrymen or on invading Turks who wished to conquer them.

Vlad once surprised a large group of boyars exiting from their Easter services, having them “staked” or rounded up for slave labor to build his castle at Poenari, still clad in their Easter finery.

Medieval torture device as may have been used to loosen prisoners tongues before impalement

When the forces of the Mehmed II, the Turkish sultan, advanced on Targoviste in 1462, Vlad had several thousand Turkish prisoners impaled along the road side. The Ottoman ruler seeing this gruesome sight, got the “point” and turned back!

A copy of the only known painting of Vlad

Vlad received a lot of negative press from the Saxons and they used their access to the recently invented printing press to depict him as a monster. Perhaps he was, but according to intelligence reports conveyed to the Russian court (still in their archives!) he was no worse than many of his contemporaries. The only story of him consuming blood was on an occasion when he was reported to have dined among a forest of impaled victims, sopping up blood with his bread and consuming it.

Vlad dining among a forest of impaled victims

Not so for our contemporary Dracula who dined regularly on blood and eschewed wine according Irish novelist Bram Stoker. Bela Lugosi’s Dracula repeats this sentiment in the 1931 film version.

This schizophrenic dichotomy between Dracula, the vampire and the historical Dracula is dealt with by Russian novelists Fotina Moro and Ecaterina Buley in their book, The Mist and the Dragon. In this work a dialogue ensues between the two conflicted characters.

The reputed grave of Vlad III, Dracula, though only animal bones were apparently found here.

For more personal insight into Dracula fact and fiction, plus about the hippest and coolest way to spend Halloween there is, I’d recommend the reader to take a tour of Transylvania themselves. Modern meets Medieval here and visitors can sample the Middle Ages in its most authentic modern incarnation in its myriad towns, including Vlad’s UNESCO World Heritage Site birthplace, Sighisoara.

You’ll have a great time. You can “count” on it!

Hunyadi Castle October 31, 2013

A few more images from our trip.

For more information:

You can also “count” on the poetically named Romanian travel agency, The Company of Mysterious Journeys to get you to all the Dracula hot spots efficiently and with a top notch English speaking guide.

Dracula on Wikipedia

To contact Fotina Moro and Ecaterina Buley about their book The Mist and the Dragon, click here.

Photo Credits

All photos by George Burden – All Rights Reserved

Humor has been and always will be a staple in my life. A good sense of humor is key, in my opinion, to any kind of successful and happy life. If you can find the humor in even the darkest days, well then I believe you have found the key to a long and happy life.

My first glimpse of humor came one Halloween night long after the little ones such as myself had been tucked away in bed. Long after we had eaten the last of our favorite candy bars and dreamed of lollipops and licorice in our sleep, anxious for the morning to come so we could sneak one last treat in before school. On this particular Halloween night a light in our upstairs hallway awakened me. Standing in the hallway was my mother looking in our linen closet. Groggy and half asleep, I wandered out of my room and asked my mother what she was doing.

“I’m going trick or treating,” she said to me. I looked at her as only a loving child would look at a mother who must know that you couldn’t go out after dark on Halloween night. It wasn’t safe. “I need a costume!” she said as I stood there in a daze wondering if perhaps I was dreaming. “What are you dressing up as Mom?” I asked in my sleepy voice.  “A mummy,” she said, and I may have heard a bit of a snicker with that answer but I can’t say for sure . “You are a mommy,” I said to her and she laughed out loud, then told me to get back to bed. I pretended to slip into bed but stood a smidgen away from my door looking out in the hallway as my Mommy proceeded to mummify herself with several of our sheets from the linen closet.

It became a tradition of course for my Mom to dress up on Halloween in our neighborhood and visit friends. But that night I saw her in the hallway was when I realized my Mom was not just my Mom who always seemed to be so serious she also had a playful side, one that I had never seen before that night.

Mom’s love of Halloween and all the fun involved in being goofy lives on in me. Like my mother before me, I love a good costume! You can just let it all hang out when it comes to Halloween.

When my children were little Halloween was almost as special as Christmas. One year at my son’s school several of us moms dressed up to deliver candy to the classrooms. My friends came as the Spice Girls or as witches, and I showed up that Halloween as the Easter Bunny. My friend Angie still howls about the first time she met me dressed in a blue bunny costume.

Since then I have dressed up as the Headless Horseman, a witch, a crazy doctor, Big Daddy the Mob boss, Disco Fever Man and a pirate, to name just a few.

Halloween gives us all a chance to be someone or something we are not. It also lets us cut loose and be a bit crazy. Or as Gil would say, a bit goofy! Sometimes we have to remember that little kid inside all of us who is just itching to break out in song in the middle of a meeting, or who wants to hug everyone, or who would like to stick her tongue out at people. Yes, that little kid lives just below the surface of grown-up life. And that kid waits and waits patiently so that every now and then he or she can be released into the world one more time just to wreak a little havoc, to laugh till your belly hurts and to just be. To enjoy that ethereal feeling of just being in the moment. The pure goofy joy of it all!

Image Credits

All photos by Martha Farley. All rights reserved.

After hatching, spiderlings climb as high as they can then stand on raised legs, abdomens pointing upwards. They then start to release silk threads from their abdomens into the air, forming a triangular shaped parachute. This allows them to be carried away by even the most gentle of breezes.

While most only fly a short distance, others are taken up into the jet stream, some ascending into the upper atmosphere. Sailors have reported spiders being caught in their ship’s sails, over 1600 km from land. They have even been detected in atmospheric data balloons collecting air samples at slightly less than 5 km (16,000 ft) above sea level.

This is how spiders invade isolated islands and mountaintops. Apparently, they can survive flights up to 25 days or longer without food!

So, next time you see a spider, ask it … where did YOU come from?

Photo Credits

Woman – Photo From Microsoft Office Collection

Spider – Wikimedia Creative Commons

Information From Ballooning (spider) entry at Wikipedia

I decided to do it to our kids.  The curiosity was killing me.  I needed to see how they would react.  They were sitting at the kitchen table when I told them.  Corbin immediately crossed his arms over his chest, gave me the evil eye, got off his chair and said. “Come on Hamish, we’re leaving.”  Hamish, of course, followed him down the hallway with his own arms crossed over his chest and eyebrows furrowed in a mock-cross expression.  Then, he turned and cheerfully said, “good bye, Mama, good bye Dad.”  And off they went.  It was pretty funny.  Then, I called them back, told them I was kidding and showed them the video.  Corbin asked me to turn it off because crying irritates his sensitive ears. I don’t blame him.  I was pretty horrified myself and seriously considered removing sugar from my kids’ diets permanently.  The video is worth enduring for the last two kids, however.  

Now, how can I earn the title “sneaky mom?”

Thumbnail Credit

Screen Cap From Video