Hey, Mom! The Explanation.

Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.

Thursday, October 31, 2024

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3544 - Halloween 2024 - A Collection of Creepy, Ghastly, Ghoulish Delights from Previous All Hallows' Eves

1997 for ZOO BOO

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3544 - Halloween 2024 - A Collection of Creepy, Ghastly, Ghoulish Delights from Previous All Hallows' Eves

Halloween is always a special day because I am not enjoying myself and working the whole time.

I have been known to be grading papers as I am distributing candy.

Now, we live in a town with a downtown candy festival, and so kids just go to that and I can stay home, stay inside, and not stay up late.

This post collects lots of my past Halloween content, including music: Witchhouse, Italian Occult Psychedelia, and my classic Halloween mix that I played in class all week: Bereft in Deathly Bloom, named for a line in the Bauhaus classic: "Bela Lugosi is dead."

I also included my HUGE love letter to the great 1970s Marvel comic Tomb of Dracula, definitely one of my top five favorite comic stories of all time.

Lots of stuff here. I hope you enjoy exploring.

And a picture of my Mom and Dad in costume up top. They loved treating the "goblins."

Thanks for tuning in!


I was actually at this church, named for this day, or this day named after this church, which we found quite by accident: SERENDIPITY!


From Our London trip - May 2024




HALLOWEEN MUSIC!!














Monday, October 30, 2023

I have curated a great deal of IOP content here for both my exploration and yours.

Check it out and HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

Monday, October 18, 2021

Monday, October 31, 2022

Monday, October 25, 2021

Monday, August 9, 2021





Saturday, October 28, 2023




PLEASE...

VOTE!!!



COUNTDOWN!!!


Tuesday, October 31, 2023


Wednesday, November 1, 2023



A Sense of Doubt blog post #3179 - Halloween 2023 - part two

I decided to split Halloween in two.

I like Halloween.

I have collected several Halloween-themed posts from years past and re-shared one of them here, below.

Thanks for tuning as always.

Enjoy.








Thursday, November 1, 2018

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Tuesday, October 27, 2020






A Sense of Doubt blog post #2447 - HALLOWEEN part one 2021 and VAMPIRES - Weekly HODGE PODGE FOR 2110.30

Various stuff for Halloween.

A special HODGE PODGE edition.

ENJOY.


Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #1123 - Kong Wrecks Halloween - Throwback Thursday for 1810.18 on Saturday






 Vampira and Bela Lugosi on ‘The Red Skelton Show; 1954#retrohorror pic.twitter.com/8gIlfTj7Ak









Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #1127 - Throwback Halloween 1979



Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #847 - Sense of Dread - Here comes the March of Octopuses - Happy Halloween



Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #842 - My Parents The Pumpkins - Throwback Thursday 1710.26



Sunday, October 30, 2016

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #481 - Lizzie Borden




Thursday, October 27, 2016

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #478 - Halloween 1967


Wednesday, October 31, 2018


A Sense of Doubt blog post #1349 - Bereft in Deathly Bloom - Halloween 2018 - Musical Monday on Wednesday 1810.31


URL TO THE MIX ON YOU TUBE






DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS IG









Tuesday, October 27, 2020

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2079 - HALLOWEEN STUFF FOR CLASS - poems, STEPHEN KING, and VAMPIRES


https://theculturednerd.org/2020/05/first-look-at-stephen-kings-the-stand-tv-adaptation-revealed/

I did a Halloween themed set of value-packed presentations in class today with my usual book recommendations, poems, and songs.

The pre-Halloween class started as it always does with the Bauhaus classic "Bela Lugosi's Dead."

Shared via this mix:

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1349 - Bereft in Deathly Bloom - Halloween 2018 - Musical Monday on Wednesday 1810.31


As featured in the 1983 film by Top Gun director Tony Scott entitled The Hunger with Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, and David Bowie.

THE HUNGER IMDB

THE HUNGER - WIKIPEDIA









BAUHAUS - "BELA LUGOSI'S DEAD"

Bela Lugosi Is Dead
White on white translucent black capes
Back on the rack
Bela Lugosi's dead
The bats have left the bell tower
The victims have been bled
Red velvet lines the black box
Bela Lugosi's dead
Undead undead undead
The virginal brides file past his tomb
Strewn with time's dead flowers
Bereft in deathly bloom
Alone in a darkened room
The count
Bela Logosi's dead
Undead undead undead
Songwriters: Daniel Gaston Ash / David John Haskins / Kevin Michael Dompe / Peter John Murphy
Bela Lugosi Is Dead lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.




Next, I talked about vampires as seen in the link above. I continue to maintain that Marvel's The Tomb Of Dracula from the 1970s by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan is one of the single best horror comics of all time. I am due to make a massive tribute to that amazing book. By the end of the year, I am going to do that.



I am ashamed to admit that I was tired and attributed the 1931 Dracula film with Bela Lugosi to Warner Brothers rather than Universal. Terrible mistake. Moment of shame.


SO I ASKED MY STUDENTS, WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE DRACULA??



Bela Lugosi - 1931 - Universal



Christopher Lee - 1958 - Hammer Horror Series




Gary Oldman - 1992 - Coppola Film




NOW - 2018 - from Warren Ellis' Netflix Castlevania


And I should have added:

NOSFERATU the Vampyre - 1979





Which was the model for the vampire in Salem's Lot that I shared about next.

Onto books, as I shared the I reading Stephen King's 1998 novel Bag of Bones right now, which is a terrific ghost story. I went through my usual schtick about reacting negatively to hype (except for JK Rowling who lived up to it) and how Stephen King is the best (or one of the best) of the blockbuster, best seller, popular novelists. I also talked about his book On Writing, which I just re-read for like the dozenth time.



AS I shared, my favorite Stephen King novel is The Stand, and after reading it some time in the early 1980s after its 1978 publication, I read the expanded 1990 edition, which I think was a bit over done.

Despite the fact that the novel's title comes from a line in Bruce Springsteen's "Jungleland," the last song on the classic 1975 album Born to Run. 

Though I love the book for the apocalyptic result of the super flu pandemic and the characters that King defines with such clarity and verisimilitude, I am not as crazy about the second half of the book and the "stand" against Randall Flagg. And yet, I read it.

Though the original mini-series was good (and had a great cast), I am very excited for the new series on the CBS streaming network starting in December.
Of course, for scary and vampires, I had to share with my students about Salem's Lotwhich patterned its vampire on the classic Nosferatu.

Great book: scary!




And of course, no discussion of scare factors and Stephen King would be complete with mentioning the novel The Shining, first adapted to film by Stanley Kubrick in 1980: IMDB and WIKI.

I explained that the King book is very different than the Kubrick film, and so Stephen King wrote and produced a TV mini series that was more faithful to the novel in 1997. It won many critical accolades and two Emmy awards.

But the Kubrick films is one of the most frightening things I have ever seen, and I saw it for the first time, at midnight, the night I graduated from high school after drinking hard alcohol for the first time (gin and tonic).



Also, I use an image of that carpet pattern as my phone background.

ALSO ALSO, the exteriors for the Overlook Hotel were filmed at Mt Hood, near here in Oregon.



And then the poem. I tried reading Poe's "Ulalume" (which will be tomorrow's blog post), and so I switched to my favorite Emily Dickinson that is equally frightening.

THIS POEM - 

“The Soul Has Bandaged Moments” - Emily Dickinson

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #1112 - reprint - soul has bandaged

GOOD BUT NOT MY FAVORITE

“I Felt a Funeral in my Brain” - Emily Dickinson

TOO LONG TO READ IN CLASS

“Ulalume” by Edgar Allen Poe

GraveyardQueens_dankamahara



NonaLimmen-IG-FULL MOON VIBES





+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2110.30 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2311 days ago
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2311.01 - 10:10
- Days ago = 3043 days ago
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2410.31 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3408 days ago & DAD = 064 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.