Gravediggers's party disturbs some

From Reuters:

The mourning parents of a traffic accident victim who visited their son’s grave near Antwerp were shocked to find the local gravediggers enjoying their annual barbecue at the graveyard. Workers at the cemetery in Merksem had music playing and their children were running around near the graves, De Morgen newspaper said Wednesday.

Several things struck me about this story. In the Victorian era, people frequently picnicked at cemeteries and took walks through them as though it was a park. A story about Highgate Cemetery goes that one family would picnic inside the family's crypt by candlelight and in formal dining dress. The people could be seen inside through a skylight in the roof of the crypt built into the slope of the hillside. My family and I often take walks in the very old cemetery behind the Presbyterian church in our village. Many generations of my wife's family is buried there, including her younger brother. It is true we do not play music or grill food. But we have been known to play hide and seek among the tombstones and I've been known to stretch out on the soft carpet of grass with my head propped up on a footstone to read a book. The world does not revolve around the dead. Graveyards are for the living, not the dead. Excessive association of death and grieving with cemeteries is, well, morbid in my opinion. Hat tip to protected static for emailing me the link to the Reuters story.

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Bram Stoker Awards

Can't believe I missed this. I know it sounds fanboyish, but this is an award ceremony that I've always looked forward to the way others look at the Oscars. Here's the list of this year's Stokers: Novel: In the Night Room by Peter Straub First Novel (tie): Covenant by John Everson Stained by Lee Thomas Long Fiction: "The Turtle Boy" by Kealan-Patrick Burke Short Fiction: "Nimitseahpah" by Nancy Etchemendy Fiction Collection: Fearful Symmetries by Thomas F. Monteleone Anthology: The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, 17th Annual edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link and Gavin Grant Nonfiction: Hellnotes edited by Judi Rohrig Illustrated Narrative: Heaven's Devils by Jai Nitz Screenplay (tie): Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondrey and Pierre Bismuth Shaun of the Dead by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright Studio Work for Young Readers (tie): Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War by Clive Barker Oddest Yet by Steve Burt Poetry Collection: The Women at the Funeral by Corrine De Winter Alternative Forms: The Devil's Wine edited by Tom Piccirilli Lifetime Achievement Award: Michael Moorcock Straub's work is always awesome. And last year I sent Piccirilli a congratulatory email for his win and received a very nice and warm reply. Belated congratulations to all the winners this year.

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Nitpicker

Please welcome Nitpicker to the sidebar under reality investigators. He's back from a far away exotic land.

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Bloggers of the night! What sweet posts they make...VI

Mondo Schlocko casts light on Weird Vampire Tales. Bubblegumfink serves up Vampire Beach Babes. FinalGirl howls at Werewolf By Night. Warrenzone is out for revenge. MValdemar breaks into song and posts some truly frightening photos. Old Haunts is the ring master for two scary characters. Fantastic Planet plays games with human heads. Dark, But Shining has a version of F. Paul Wilson's The Keep that sounds, well, worth keeping. And Corpse Eaters marks a special event...ignore the blood stains.

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Lestat cast for Broadway musical

Start spreading the news, Jim Stanek was picked to play Lestat in the upcoming musical version of Interview with a Vampire. From Broadway.com:

Broadway.com has learned that Jim Stanek will play reluctant bloodsucker Louis de Pointe du Lac, a role made famous by Brad Pitt in the film Interview with the Vampire, in the Broadway-bound musical Lestat. As we previously reported, The Phantom of the Opera's Hugh Panaro is in talks to play the title character. "It feels even silly to be talking about the fact that I am going to be a humongous Elton John musical," Stanek told Broadway.com. "He is a legend. To be doing new music of his is pretty cool. I don't know of any other way to say it. This is an amazing opportunity."

I'm a song writer too. "Fame! Vampires are undead for ever..."

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Women dig ghosts

From Wakefield (U.K.) Today:

Living TV’s Most Haunted Live beamed three spectre-packed nights from Wakefield and became the highest-rated channel for adults on cable and satellite television. The latest viewing figures for the shows at Wakefield Theatre Royal, Caphouse Colliery in Overton and two city mills reveal that spirits are a big magnet to women viewers. A spokesman for Living TV said: “The latest Most Haunted Live event for the summer solstice reached more than 2.2 million viewers. Over the three nights the main show averaged an amazing 5.2 per cent share among women aged 16 to 44 in pay TV homes, up 81 per cent on the slot average for the previous quarter, making it the top cable/satellite channel among all adults.

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Jack the Ripper theories

A new book covers some old theories on Jack the Ripper. Per usual, I deny any involvement although I don't have an alibi for the Ripper killings. If you still suspect me, my motive for the killings is different than you probably think.

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National Talk Like a Pirate Day

Arrr, ye scurvy dogs. National Talk Like a Pirate Day is Sep'embarrr 19th. Ye've been warned.

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Haunted Louisville

From the Louisville (Ky.) Courler-Journal:

Even before he moved into his 1895 chateau-like mansion, Domine learned he might not be the only person residing there. Despite some frightening encounters with unusual phenomena, Domine, a university professor, remains a skeptic, but that's an asset. He doesn't just relate stories told him by others; he's done hundreds of hours of research in local archives to determine if there's any corroborative evidence to support their stories. His conclusion? There usually is. Perhaps the most "haunting" tale, if you will, is the well-documented story of a young woman hoping to elope with her military sweetheart as World War I raged. Their likely rendezvous: the steps of a Christian Scientist church. Unfortunately, the Spanish flu epidemic hit and took her lover shortly before they were due to skip town, but she didn't get the news. Three days later, she also succumbed. Now, "The Lady on the Steps" sadly paces on the portico, forever searching for a boyfriend who never shows up. Then there are the ghosts at the J.B. Speed Art Museum. Several employees and visitors have seen a woman in white wandering the lower level, and in a main-level gallery the faint smell of rose perfume can often be detected. The ghost -- commonly thought to be "Miss Hattie" Bishop Speed, the museum's founder -- is generally benign but has shown a jealous streak: Odd things have occurred around a portrait of another woman, the first Mrs. Speed, who died several years before Hattie came along. In an area devoted to Native American culture, there may also be the ghost of an angry warrior. Did he once wear one of the beautiful articles of clothing displayed there? No one knows. The most startling story involves the "Phantom of Brook Street," probably a Victorian maid named Jennie Bowman. One day in April 1887, Bowman surprised two burglars while everyone was out of the house. Her bloody murder was a local sensation. Fortunately, the perpetrators were soon caught and later executed. End of story? Hardly. Many area residents say she still roams the street, and one resident of a house where the murder may have taken place gave Domine a meticulously detailed story of the strange goings on in her kitchen and a creepy servant's stairway in the back.

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Dracula's 'Historian'

More rave reviews for Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian." From The Baltimore Sun:

One of the most anticipated books this summer is by a woman writer who labored in obscurity for many years, holding a variety of jobs while she created a fanciful world with inquisitive heroes and ghoulish creatures. Yes, that describes J.K. Rowling, whose sixth Harry Potter is almost certain to be the summer's biggest hit. But it applies just as well to Elizabeth Kostova, first-time author and recent writing program grad, whose suspenseful saga The Historian should become a familiar sight at beaches and pools. The Historian provides another twist on the Dracula myth, this one steeped in scholarly sleuthing. While researching his dissertation on 17th-century Dutch trade, a young American historian comes upon a mysterious book that initiates another quest: A search to find the grave of Vlad the Impaler, the historical inspiration of the legendary vampire. Over the course of this hunt - inherited from his mentor and continued by his daughter - the historian encounters mysterious deaths, disappearances and other ominous signs suggesting that the 15th-century Vlad, who was widely feared for his cruel tortures, is still alive and indulging his regrettable tastes.

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A good first step

In a slightly better plane of existence.

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Haunted cemetery

Man, did I miss out on an exciting ghost hunt. From an email:

I suspect that people living a half mile away from the cemetery could hear the screams from three frightened Ghost Hunters when they watched a tombstone rock back and forth under its own power. The first incident of rocking startled them. The second incident, a minute or two later, scared the yell out of them! There were plenty of witnesses. It happened! It was only one of many strange and eerie events that took place in the graveyard during the Ghost Hunt on Saturday, June 25, 2005. Our time there was all about heart-pounding, unpredictable, and fear-provoking “contact” with the supernatural! The atmosphere was stifling when we arrived; hot, muggy and soupy. Despite a near full moon, it was so dark, one couldn’t see the ground beneath one’s feet. And, almost from the first moment, we knew something was there, watching and waiting. This enormous cemetery is said to date back to the French & Indian War. Somewhere on the site, the famous Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson stood as he spurred his troops on during his January 1861 invasion and capture of Berkeley Springs. The deadly violence of that time has left a legacy of restless ghosts. As teams spread out over the graveyard, Ghost Hunters quicly began to make “Contact!” First, they photographed orbs with clear faces in them, then shimmering blue miasma. Later, they began to report seeing something dark running across the landscape. It was short and dark or tall and dark or bright and thin. More than one entity was darting, dodging and tantalizing the Ghost Hunters. Icy winds blew for a moment or two then stopped. Ghostly activity was everywhere! Then, the ghostly gunfire began; pop, pop, pop from the left then, pop, pop, pop from the right. It was an exchange of ghostly gunfire. Altogether, we heard the echo of 15 shots! It was a record-breaking supernatural event! It was incredible! Sounds could be heard erupting in the trees, like very large birds moving rapidly among the leaves as if they were startled. But, there were no birds. Not one! There are oral histories of the graveyard that tell of flesh-eating birds feeding on the corpses of the dead after the fighting during the Civil War. The sounds we heard were those of heavy, ghostly, flying “somethings.” With the old stories in mind, we moved away very, very quickly. Later in the evening, someone took a photo of the tree. It was filled with orbs…sitting on the branches of the tree! Three Senior Paranormal Investigators were involved in a weird but familiar form of “Contact.” It concerned tobacco, a favorite commodity among Civil War soldiers. One Investigator sat smoking a cigarette while the rest of her team was sitting about 20 yards away. A few minutes later, the smoker’s team called on the Walkie to report they had found her cigarettes sitting beside them on a tombstone. Somehow, a package of cigarettes had moved from one place to another. First, they were seen in the smoker’s hand in one place then, minutes later, they were resting on the base of tombstone in another! The smoker hadn’t moved an inch! Over the years, we have had many tobacco products and candy inexplicably disappear from a Ghost Hunter’s pocket only to be found yards away, carefully posed on a rock, log or tombstone. The placement of the items is always such that it could not have happened accidentally; fourteen lemon drops arranged in a perfect row, three licorice sticks formed into a triangle and cigarettes arranged in a perfect line, like pickets in a fence. It always seems mischievous, perhaps the work of a ghostly child. The “Moving Marlboros” incident in this cemetery was unnerving for the smoker and mesmerizing to those of us who have seen it before. This is a haunted site that never ceases to amaze and startle Ghost Hunters. From the weird, boiling miasma to the prolonged, heavy, rhythmic breathing received over the Walkies, “Contact” there is utterly unpredictable, chillingly powerful, and unmistakably supernatural in origin. Ghost Hunters will be posting their photos and EVP on the Yahoo Group over the next few days. Be sure to check them out. Among them are some very outstanding, very eerie photographs of the supernatural in this graveyard.

To join the yahoo group, click here.

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Silver bullets

A warning to werewolves. Exclamation Mark posted a link on how to make silver bullets.

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Masques of Death

Billmon points out that Edgar Allen Poe's descriptions of horror are timeless.

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Untold tale of King Tut's tomb

Al-Ahram carries details of the boy king and the discovery of his tomb.

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Cave of early Chinese

From China View:

BEIJING, June 24 -- Traces of ancient men were found recently in the suburbs of Beijing, indicating other possible sites of ancient men in the city. A large number of fossils of ancient animals including bull, sheep and rabbit were recently found in a cave behind Xitaiping Village in Shidu, a scenic spot in Fangshan District in the southwestern suburbs of Beijing, 70 kilometers from downtown. Preliminary examination by experts showed that these ancient creatures lived 100,000 years ago, earlier than the Upper Cave Man and later than the Peking Man. A two-meter-long ash belt and tooth fossils, thought to belong to ancient men, were also discovered. The site is 35 kilometers from Zhoukoudian, where the Peking Man lived, indicating other possible sites of ancient men in Beijing.

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Imaginary creatures

Via SuperFrankenstein came this link to Fantastic Zoology.

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Hitler Road address

Resident on Hitler Road in Circleville, Ohio, get strange looks from people. From The Associated Press:

The Circleville resident says after 30 years, he's used to the weird looks and questions. But the three rural roads and the cemetery that bear the Hitler name were around long before the German dictator.

Does Godwin's Law still apply?

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Devil told him to have sex with sheep

That Satan, he's such a prankster.

Nairobi - A cobbler suspected of sorcery was attacked and nearly lynched by outraged villagers in central Kenya on Tuesday after being caught having sex with a female sheep, witnesses and officials said. Joshua Kiplagat, 36, sustained a serious head wound when the sheep's owner threw a machete at him after finding him in flagrante delicto with a prize ewe in the Rift Valley district of Bomet, they said. He was then tied to a tree stump for five hours before being frogmarched naked with the violated ovine in tow to a police station where he confessed to several acts of bestiality that he blamed on the devil, they said. "I was sent by the devil to do that," Kiplagat told the angry crowd which included several people who accused him of being a warlock and one disgusted woman who claimed to have seen him engaging in sex acts with a dog.

In his defense, he did say he wore two condoms.

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Massive crack in Texas

Fill free to make your own punchline. From First Coast News:

CLAUDE, TX -- A massive crack in the earth opened up last week in Claude, Texas and its creating a stir among geologists.

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Ginmar

Adding Ginmar to my sidebar. She writes terrific Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic and she knows about a lot of other horrors too. She should have been in my sidebar earlier.

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Source of Stonehenge stones

At least one mystery is finally solved. From The Western Mail in Wales:

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have solved one of the greatest mysteries of Stonehenge - the exact spot from where its huge stones were quarried. A team has pinpointed the precise place in Wales from where the bluestones were removed in about 2500 BC. It found the small crag-edged enclosure at one of the highest points of the 1,008ft high Carn Menyn mountain in Pembrokeshire's Preseli Hills. The enclosure is just over one acre in size but, according to team leader Professor Tim Darvill, it provides a veritable "Aladdin's Cave" of made-to-measure pillars for aspiring circle builders. Within and outside the enclosure are numerous prone pillar stones with clear signs of working. Some are fairly recent and a handful of drill holes attest to the technology used. Other blocks may have been wrenched from the ground or the crags in ancient times. They were then moved 240 miles to the famous site at Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire. The discovery comes a year after scientists proved that the remains of a "band of brothers" found near Stonehenge were Welshmen who transported the stones. The skeletons were found by workmen laying a pipe on Boscombe Down and chemical analysis of their teeth revealed they were brought up in South West Wales

And, for the record, I was in Cairo when those bodies were put into the ground. I had nothing to do with it. HP will vouch for my alibi for me, I'm sure.

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Friday vampire dance party

"...and the bodies stank."

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Scotland's big cats

I haven't done a big cat up date in ages. Here's one from The Scotsman.

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Romania and vampires

Will Romanians' belief in vampires scuttle Romania's chances to join the EU? From Reason:

"Ask any priest in this region, and he'll tell you he knows these things are going on," he said. "I know it sounds like a bad B movie, but it's a pagan ritual that happens several times a year... Before the dead is put in the coffin, his relatives insert a needle above his bellybutton to prevent him from becoming a strigoi. But if he is already buried, they have to dig up his grave in the middle of the night. The family drinks a lot before opening the coffin!" He showed us some freshly disturbed graves from the local cemetery, tried to explain the finer distinctions between a strigoi and a moroi, and seemed to regard his flock's weird habits with a slightly exasperated but gruffly empathetic tolerance. Romanians, famously insecure about their international image, worry that such folkloric outbreaks may scuttle their chances at joining the European Union on schedule in January 2007. But the real obstacle to EU accession right now is not vampires or nun-crucifying priests, but the doddering ghouls in Brussels, who are suddenly uncertain they can digest any more post-communist countries after swallowing 10 in 2004.

I didn't know the EU was so opposed to vampires.

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Phantom flyers

This falls more under cryptozoology, but it's fascinating. From The Guardian:

The notion that large, hitherto unidentified creatures may exist in our oceans and wildernesses is one that most people are comfortable with. But could colossal, primitive lifeforms, invisible to human eyes, also populate our skies?

Trevor James Constable, sailor, aircraft historian and scientific iconoclast, certainly thinks so. Inspired by Wilhelm Reich's orgone energy, Ruth Drown's radionics, the writing of Charles Fort and Arthur Conan Doyle's story The Horror of the Heights, Constable became convinced that the UFOs he heard so much about in the 1950s weren't alien spacecraft, but living beings. Armed with a camera fitted with high-speed infrared film and an ultraviolet filter, Constable set out to reveal these sky beings to the world. His photographs certainly show something. To the untrained eye they look like discolorations produced during the developing process. But stare long enough and they take on the appearance of floating, zeppelin-sized amoebas.

I heard this theory on Art Bell's Coast-to-Coast AM years age and find it fascinating.

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Australian feared castle ghost

Apparently at least one cricketer on Australian's team was frightened afterall. From Fox Sports:

ENGLAND bowler Darren Gough kept spirits high as he made a light-hearted dig at Shane Watson's fear of ghosts during last night's tri-series cricket match at the Riverside Ground. The Australian allrounder came in for plenty of ridicule this week after it was revealed he slept on the floor of teammate Brett Lee's room because he was spooked by tales of a ghost haunting the 600-year-old Lumley Castle, where the Australian team stayed. Towards the end of Australia's innings, Gough made a point of getting in the face of Watson and shaking his arms in the air, ghost-like, and wiggling head while yelling boo. Watson did not respond to Gough's antics and later copped ridicule from crowd members, who put white sheets over their heads in some more friendly jibes.

England's spooky strategy paid off against Bangladesh too.

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Land of the Dead

Eh, Michael Sullivan, what does he know? From The Washington Post:

Don't get me wrong. "Land of the Dead" is fairly intense. Intensely gory and violent, that is, as has come to be expected from the genre. It's just not very frightening. Not half as frightening as, say, last year's "Dawn of the Dead," a remake of Romero's own 1978 film. That remake was not just gory, but way scary, funny and smartly self-aware, with a touch of social critique and a deliciously pessimistic unhappy ending thrown in. Other than the opening shot of "Land," however, in which Romero's camera pans past a battered diner sign pointing in the direction of "Eats" (get it?), there's no real joy in this undertaking, which seems to prize grossing out the members of its audience above freaking them out.

Let's see what The New York Times thought:

In "George A. Romero's Land of the Dead," an excellent freakout of a movie, the living no longer have the advantage or our full sympathies. The fourth installment in Mr. Romero's vaunted zombie cycle (which began with his 1968 masterpiece, "Night of the Living Dead"), the new film is also the latest chapter in what increasingly seems like an extended riff on Dante's "Inferno." In the earlier "Dead" films, Mr. Romero guided us through circles of hell that, despite the flesh-eating ghouls, looked a lot like the exurban world outside our windows. With this new movie, we jump straight to the ninth circle, where Satan is a guy in a suit and tie who feasts on the misery of others, much as the dead feast on the living. An army of the dead in George A. Romero's new film. It's a sign of both Mr. Romero's waggish humor and control as a director that the guy in the suit and tie is played by the cult-movie icon Dennis Hopper, an often unrestrained performer who here is right on the money. snip With "Revenge of the Sith" and "Batman Begins," "Land of the Dead" makes the third studio release of the summer season to present an allegory, either naked or not, of our contemporary political landscape. Whatever else you think about these films, whether you believe them to be sincere or cynical, authentic expressions of defiance or just empty posturing, it is rather remarkable that these so-called popcorn movies have gone where few American films outside the realm of documentary, including most so-called independents, dare to go. One of the enormous pleasures of genre filmmaking is watching great directors push against form and predictability, as Mr. Romero does brilliantly in "Land of the Dead." One thing is for sure: You won't go home hungry.

As Zombie_Tom would say, MMMmmm. Brains. UPDATED. Slate liked it too.

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Cursed

Just saw an ad on IMDB I thought funny. "Beware of The...Cursed." Having seen the movie in the theater, I can say that is very good advice for the newly released DVD. Probably not in the way intended by the ad's copywriter, but you never know.

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Haunted art

Via The Groovy Age of Horrors came this link to