I'm baaaaack. With a special book review for Halloween

a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32597973-all-of-a-winter-s-night" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">
All of a Winter's Night by Phil Rickman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Just in time for Halloween, Phil Rickman, master of "gothic crime fiction" (for lack of a better term) is back with the best Merrily Watkins book in a while. If you haven't met her in books 1-13, Merrily is a C-of-E vicar in the village of Ledwardine (on the metaphysical grey area between England and Wales) who specializes in "night work," excursions into the paranormal that frequently culminate in exorcism. Merrily has a neo-pagan teenage daughter to worry about and a former folk-rocker boyfriend who worries about her.

In this latest excursion, Merrily is drawn into the pagan world when she witnesses a bizarre midnight ritual in her own churchyard at the graveside of a young man whose recent death has raised rumors about drug use and rural family feuds in the community. Hint: It involves sinister morris dancers. (No, really! Very scary, they.)

There are lots of other wonderful supporting characters who pop in from time to time in the series, but this latest is back-to-basics in characters and setting, though coppers Annie Howe and Frannie Bliss provide a solid subplot that links up, of course, to Merrily's night work) Rickman has said you don't need to read the books in order. But if you do, you'll get an interesting social/cultural evolution of rural village life spanning 1998-2017, and you'll get to know his great characters even better.


View all my reviews

Get ready for...Bloomsburg Halloween Windows, 2014!

 Every Halloween Bloomsburg high school and middle school students paint the store windows along Main Street, and every year I go out to take pictures of them. I can't post them all, but try to post a dozen or so of my favorites every year. I favor those with solid bcckgrounds and vivid colors or those that use the window displays as part of their composition because they photograph well, but plenty of other paintings work well in place, so you really gotta be there! If you're in Bloomsburg, take a walk down Main Street for a treat (or trick) ...Quick! Before it rains!

My favorites this year begin with three wicked women, and first place has to go to the above Frida-Kahlo-esque  beauty in the skeletal corset at Remit. (Wow! How does Remit always get such great windows?!)   She's the work of Kayla and Markar. The Italian restaurant, La Fontaine at the corner of Market & Main has this delicious Broadway witch (below left) labeled "Wicked," of course... courtesy of Sydney Gronka and Lindsay Carl.

This wonderfully evil lady (ala "Maleficent") resides at Sunset Holding Co.



















For sheer creativity, check out this button-eyed monster creeping out from an open shirt (torso only!) at PNC Bank . I also enjoyed the way the background display (advertising the PA Lottery!) at the Cigarette Store collected an assortment of anime creatures with their own agenda....

The demented clown on the door at the Capitol Restaurant (below) has wonderful color and surface texture. And he's happy, not too scary.(He's the work of  MC Kayla, Kelsey V and someone named Mareck? or Mariah? )

The Tim Burton-Style has become synonymous with Halloween, as this plump dancing ghost at Fog & Flame (by Cameron Gregory, Shayla Dillon, and Megg Mrozek) and the Frog-face ghost  creature in pinstripes at The Country Store (with Burtonesque wave in the background) illustrate.

And then there's the (truly massive) full moon with gnarled tree at Steph's Subs, below.

There's another lovely moon, this one a quarter slice, at Chrysalis Salon. Had to include it as the work is lovely, though it doesn't photograph well because the background display makes it difficult to get a good shot (my limitations, I'm afraid). Go see it in person. (signed only with initials, AH? ST and BG.)

I'll end this year's windows posting with three hilarious animals. Why pink has become a favorite Halloween color, I can't say, but it works for this black cat on fuchsia (below) the work of Karia Sosnowsi, Rebecca Lowe, and Tristan Wright.

 And (to give dogs equal time) check out  this terrified pink dog who has conjured the genie of the pumpkin (love those 3-fingered paws and bristly muzzle!) Signed, but can't read it, Danielle something?

Well, ok, one more cat....this one on the small center window as Hess' Tavern seems to be all puffed up and clawing out his own carved pumpkin (hope he's not about to use it as a box!) Seriously, I love this agitated fur for a feeling of "real" cartoon cat, thanks to Damon Shemory and Raven Houtz(?)

Halloween Windows 2013 Bloomsburg

Time once again for…(drum roll)…Bloomsburg Halloween Windows!

Every October local high school and middle school students decorate the windows of offices and stores in downtown Bloomsburg just for Halloween. It’s one of my favorite events during one of my favorite times of year. Call it whistling in the graveyard, if you like, but I love all this color and energy on a ghoulish theme!

The memento mori (reminder of death) has a long tradition in art. Probably the most famous is the optical illusion of a woman at her dressing table that turns into a skull if you look at it long enough. This modern take on the subject, ala tattoo art, is probably my favorite Halloween window this year. She even holds a looking glass. “All is vanity.” (If you’re in town, you can see her on the window of the Remit office on Main St.)

Tim Burton characters are recurring favorites. This year Frankenweenie joins the traditional Nightmare Before Christmas motif at the PNC bank. (Another Burtonesque scene without a painted background can be found at Chrysalis Salon, it even looks good with the dried floral arrangements behind it, but it didn't photograph well.

This beautiful Gothic Gargoyle (at Town Camera) is right around the corner from my house. I’ve always liked gargoyles. Remind me of home.

On the other hand, I have an ambiguous relationship with bats: I appreciate their ecological value, but find them creepy. They’re under threat in the northeast from “white nose” disease, so maybe that’s why none got into our house this year. And maybe that made me more amenable to paintings with bats in them.

Anyway, the bat population may be in decline, but they made a strong showing on the windows  this year, both in this orange whirling vortex (in the window of Steph’s Subs) and in the window of Fog and Flame, where a bat-girl doesn’t seem at all disturbed about getting one in her hair. 

Bats showed up in the background in a lot of paintings, too, like this haunted night scene on the door of Bloomsburg Diner.

I swear I’ve seen this smug cat before, and not just on the window of J. Lylo Jewelers. He kind of has a George Raft look to him. (Showing my age, now that's scary.)

Speaking of smug cats, I enjoyed this black kitten with a background of filigree text in the window of Exclusively Yours. The lacy letters are hard to make out but it reads, “When Witches Riding and Black Cats are Seen, the Moon Laughs and whispers, ‘tis Halloween.”

And if that's not cute enough for you...I couldn’t help but be charmed by this Baby Tiger Trick or Treater at the Capitol Restaurant and the window titled “Monster Bash,” at Balzano’s that looks like something out of a Maurice Sendak Tim Burton collaboration.

This pretty depiction of the wind blowing fall leaves at Van Dyke Goldsmith is an unusual theme, too.

Ok, it’s Halloween, and sometimes cute just has an edge to it. Check out this zombie toddler with an arm in her teeth and a yowling kitty cat grasped in her little green fist at Sneider’s Jewelry. 

The patchy green creature at Bloomin’ Bagels seems to be a near relation.And as long as we’re on a green-skin theme, I like this Frankenstein, too.Friendly, enough, but with a writhing red snake ascending his arm.

There are  windows in the “cute category” at Lauren-Nicole’s Salon on East St near Main, too, but the real grabber there is this skeletal clown;  the diagonal composition just makes it weirder. There’s another clown (of the demented variety) at Philip’s Emporium in Main Street.

Don't Blink!

Last month at Ste. Chapelle....They've found a way to deal with the angels. Don't blink!

Under a Car Park in Leicester

The woman in white

stoops over the bones,
lovingly scrapes the mud
away from a crooked line
of vertebrae that snakes
along the bottom of the ditch. 

She must know who he is

already. But proof takes time,

four years, or more like 500,

a process of history and dna.

There is no coffin, nor shroud,

and the grave is perfunctory:

hurriedly dug, with sloping sides

 and too short for the corpse.

At the press conference, cheers

--after a moment of hesitation.

After all, everyone has heard

the rumors, read the play.

But what do we know, really?

There are battle wounds,

the victors’ need for legitimacy. 

Layer after layer

of time’s bitter sediment remains

to brush from old wounds.

In this way, anyway, 

a king’s death is like any other.

 

Halloween Windows 2012 Bloomsburg

 

The electrified kitty and pumpkin at Criterium Peters Engineering on Main Street  tells us it’s time once again for… Bloomsburg Halloween Windows!

Every year Bloomsburg area schools team up with selected downtown businesses to decorate for Halloween. Some are cute, some are scary, some are references to popular cartoons, others are wildly original. These are some of my favorites for 2012.

We had some rough weather right after the paint went on this year, so only 2 days later some of the works were peely. Think past those bare patches if you can (and the faults of the photographer with her new unfamiliar camera) and you’ll have an idea of their original quality. Since I took these pix, we’ve gone thru the Frankenstorm (Hurricane Sandy) so much of what you see here no longer exists.













Some windows feature figures without painted backgrounds, allowing reflections or the store interiors to become part of the work. The effect can add to the piece: The not-so-Grim Reaper on PNC bank (above left), looks more substantive than the ghostly cars and trees of the reflected street.
 

The black and white tiles behind this scarecrow above right (the work of Amanda Shaleen, Sophia Birrano and Ashlyn Siciliano) at Balzano’s East adds depth and a weird optical "Caligari” effect.

This large window (signed SS and JE) at Kid’s Stuff becomes a collage with the merchandise display behind Burton’s Nightmare and Frankenweenie characters. And the combination of reflection and background in Twister Treat, below (by KM and MS) at Al’s Menswear makes the characters stand out (I especially like that chunky skeleton.)   

The trick or treaters on this little window with a metal frame on the FNB, Main St looks almost theatrical with the vertical blinds behind it.

Works with painted backgrounds have color on their side (and they’re easier to photograph, too.)  This cat mummy below (signed LU and DM) at Exclusively Yours jumps out from  under a shady overhang, and  the wild scene of “Dinner is Served”  below that, (by Lindsey Carl and Sydney Gronka from Central HS) on Bardo Tires has a demented circus-like feeling.   

 

 

 

More of my favorites for color are like these Zombie sisters (above) on the window of the Dutch Wheelman (by Mark Gallagher  and MacKenzie Johnson)...

and this unsigned elegant color-morph raven  (right) on Neighborhood Advisors Insurance.

Finally, my favorite for this year is beautiful rather than scary. This owl and fox, below, by Cherish and Brie K companion piece to another fox on the same building that alas, did not photograph well) on Sunset Holding LLC. (Pay no attention to that reflection of the woman behind the camera!)  Scroll down to have a closer look at those luscious feathers on the detail of the owl.

That's all for this year! But note that most of the paintings weren’t signed or initialed this year, or they were marked with handprints or thumbprints, like the cave paintings at  Lascaux.  What is this, an anti-egotism movement? In ART? Now that’s scary!

Mardi Owl

Formula: Mardi Gras Mask + Plastic Owl = Found Object Combination ala Duchamp (see further views below.) This pretty much encapsulates my approach to creativity these days. Enjoy!