You thought it would be fun to spend the night in a haunted house. There are plenty of haunted places around after all, and you’ve seen them on the History channel. You wanted to go, but when your friend bailed out on you it seemed like it would be less fun. Regardless, you kept your reservation on the grounds that it was pretty hard to get this time of year. It wasn’t just that the hotel was haunted, but you loved the look of the old furniture, and were looking forward to the fancy breakfast the next day. As you check in, the hotel staff jokes that the breakfast is to celebrate your survival of a night there.

You get settled in the room easily enough. You run your hand over the finished wood and decorative carvings. It’s beautiful, you think. You wait up for a few hours hoping that something will happen, but eventually get tired and turn in for the night. Around 4am, you hear a noise that pulls you from that comfortable sleep. For a minute you think that it sounds like a ring tone, perhaps one of the other guests got one of those unpleasant early morning phone calls from a drunk friend asking for a ride home. But as you listen closer it sounds like singing. You sit up in your bed and glance around, peering into the darkness as best you can … then you feel the old springs in the mattress move. It feels like someone is sitting on the foot of your bed, but you don’t see anyone there. The singing, that sounded faint and far away is now a close-up humming. It’s a soft gentle song, like a mother might sing to her child, but in this situation it is the opposite of relaxing. You’ve been waiting for an experience like this, you tell yourself. This is why you came here. So why can’t you move or speak or breathe? You feel the mattress shift again, and you manage to whisper “hello…?” But the ghost of whoever it was, has already gone.

May we reconvene under the blood red moon,
-Black Widow

There are a few dance competition shows on the air currently, and we cant help but watch them. Not for the competition aspect, or for what the judges have to say; we watch them simply to see the routines that these people practice so hard to perfect. We watch to see the art of trained, toned bodies in perfect fluid motion. Dancers are artists, and they are graceful talented people. So even though you may/may not have the skill that they possess, you can still show your support for what they do by being a dancer for Halloween this year.

The best part about choosing to be a dancer for Halloween is that there are so many different kinds of dancers, which means there are plenty of options for you to mull around in your head.

- You could be a ballerina and dress in a leotard (very cheap if you purchase on the net), or a complete tutu.
- An Irish river dancer with skin-tight pants, and a big poofy-sleeved shirt.
- A hip-hop dancer with stylish designer (or imitation designer) clothing and a bandanna tied somewhere for effect.
- A ballroom dancer with a beautiful flowing down and an elegant up-do for your hair.
- A belly dancer with a beautiful beaded bra-top, and a long flowing skirt or shear pants.
- A tap dancer with a top hat, cane, and tailcoat. Pants optional.
- A flamenco dancer with a long dress where the skirt begins to ruffle at the knee and continues all the way to the floor. A fan would be useful for this costume, as well as some ruby-red lipstick.
- A swing dancer dressed in fun 1950’s styles. (Definitely get suspenders for this one, guys.)
- Or you could be one of the people from ‘Stomp’ (it’s kind of dancing, yeah?) and wear a wife-beater, cargo pants, work boots and carry a trashcan lid with you for the music making.

Being stricken with a mental illness or disorder is hard enough on a person, but some had the misfortune to be born in an age where medical understanding of the mind was not like it is today. Up until the 1960s the methods for trying to cure or improve the behaviors of the mentally ill were bordering on inhumane. The different types of mental illness weren’t understood, and the treatments were basically taking a stab in the dark. If there any improvement, (even if the improvement was putting a violent man into a vegetative state) that was reason enough to continue using these methods on people.

Of course there was the general treatment of putting a person in a straight jacket, and then in a padded room so that they could not injure themselves or others, but that didn’t do much towards ‘fixing’ the person. Some other methods of improvement included wrapping the individual in sheets that were wet thoroughly with water and then put in a freezer, or by submerging them up to their chin in an ice bath. This was supposed to calm them, but generally reeked havoc on their bodies. Other ways to cure included electroshock therapy, castration on sex offenders, insulin shock therapy, and the infamous lobotomy.

A lobotomy could be used to ‘treat’ anything from schizophrenia to depression, or (if it was closer to the 1930’s range of time) for ridding undesirable qualities people found in their children such as “youthful defiance” or “moodiness”. Could you imagine telling your parents that you ‘aren’t going to live by their rules anymore’ and their response would be to take you to the doctor to get part of your brain removed or destroyed? It seems terrifying, but it happened, quite often.
The techniques varied, sometimes it was as explained in that article; the surgeon would insert an ice pick behind your eye and squish it around against your brain. But other times it involved opening up the skull and removing parts of specific lobes, or drilling a small hole and pouring boiling water inside.

The mentally ill of this time were poor poor souls indeed. Be grateful that you were born without illness, or at the very least, born in a time where it could be treated properly.

May we reconvene under the blood red moon,
-Black Widow