Today is the last Friday in October, which means it’s National Frankenstein Friday! Weary from the work week? Well, give your system a jolt with a spookalicious drink to kick off the last big weekend of the Halloween season. Miss Information teaches us that science can be fun with this freaky good Frankenstein Cocktail.
New Jersey native William Basso grew up in a home, surrounded by art, courtesy of his parents, who were both artists. After graduating with a degree in illustration from Parsons School of Design, he moved to California to work on special effects in the movie industry, lending his talents to such blockbusters as Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Edwards Scissorhands.
Influenced by comics, horror and Renaissance and Eastern European art, his artwork is a combination of mixed media including drawing, sculpture, and photography, among others. Vivid in detail and heaving with emotion, Basso’s art tells stories though his character creations, not unlike something you’d find in a stage play.
Why we love them: Basso’s ornate art usually incorporates light, pale or soft colors, which slowly draw viewers into his strange and creepy world, which is sometimes gruesome, but not jarring or in your face. It’s a subtle morbidness that allows our lingering curiosity to play out naturally.
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone. Then — in my childhood, in the dawn Of a most stormy life — was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
Happy October! Kicking off Wicked Art Wednesdays this Halloween season with illustrator, designer, and master horror artist, Sam Heimer, who credits Edward Gorey, H.P. Lovecraft, and Alfred Hitchcock, among others, as early influences on his work. His art invokes the Halloween spirit with scenes of trick-or-treaters, skeletons, pumpkins, classic movie monsters, aliens, and Victorian and Steampunk themes, as well as film noir.
Why we love them: Chances are you’ve come across Sam Heimer’s art before and a big part of the reason is he still takes custom orders. No, seriously, I’m not sure if you all understand how big an opportunity that is. From magazines to book covers, t-shirts to beer cans, Sam Heimer’s work is everywhere and Halloween fans are better for it. He smoothly blends horror with whimsical trick-or-treat scenes, reminding us just how thin the veil between innocence and evil is on Halloween night. If terrifying could be cute, it would be a Sam Heimer piece.
October 1st is only a few days away and it’s one big Halloween party all day, every day, around here. This season, I’m encouraging people to do two things, 1) be Green for Halloween, and 2) take the Halloween Pledge, a pledge to practice one old Halloween tradition and introduce a random new tradition into your celebrations this year.
Before I share the schedule of festivities coming in October, I have an exciting new development to report, Halloween Haiku has new message boards! You can access the forum by clicking on the spinning pumpkin on the right sidebar of the home page.
The forum hopefully will be a place where we can have a little fun together. There’s going to be Halloween trivia, scary movie trivia, along with random chat and silliness, and a special contest on Halloween Day.
Halloween 2019 Schedule
Monday Macabre
Every Monday, you’ll find spine-tingling haiku so scary, you’ll sleep with the light on
Tuesday Terror
Every Tuesday, we’ll be celebrating the best of horror cinema, dug up from the Hollywood Vaults
Wicked Art Wednesdays
Every Wednesday, I’ll be showcasing art from five of the most brilliant Halloween artists in the industry
Throwback Thursdays
Every Thursday, we’ll share in the memories of vintage Halloween and Halloween traditions
Friday Fright Nightcaps
Every Friday, you’ll find chilling adult cocktail recipes from the other side
Sinister Saturdays
Every Saturday, I’ll be serving up decadent desserts and savory Halloween recipes so sinful, you might need an exorcism on November 1st.
Poe Sundays
Grab a cup of tea, sit back, and read the chilling classics of the Master of the Macabre, Edgar Allan Poe
October 31st – Halloween Haiku Challenge
On Halloween day, people will have the opportunity to post their own original, spooky haiku for a chance to win a prize bag, valued over $25 (more details to be announced).
31 Days of Halloween (on Social Media)
Instagram – Halloween Haiku Photo Challenge Join us in posting cool pics to match the #HalloweenHaikuPhotoChallenge this October. Don’t worry about missing any days. It’s Halloween, you should be out having fun. You can post anytime, just remember to use: #HalloweenHaikuPhotoChallenge
Twitterween Halloween Haiku is a proud member of the Samhain Society, and I’ll be happily sharing the Halloween fun and festivities of my fellow community-goers. Everyone has been working so hard and I’m super stoked to join in the celebrations.
Pinterest Check out our boards for more Halloween fun ideas and inspiration. We’ve got at least 5 new boards!
Wishing you all a fun, safe and memorable, haunting season!
As we celebrate World Environment Day, here’s ten things that will help save the environment this Halloween.
Not just a Jack-o’-lantern
Don’t let your pumpkin guts go to waste. Save the seeds and bake them for an awesome snack. Use the flesh to make puree or pumpkin juice, or even eat it raw. Check for recipes online. You can also freeze pumpkin and use it later to make sides, pies and other holiday desserts.
Happy Walpurgisnacht! We are halfway to Halloween and another long, hot, miserable summer is just around the corner. Last year, around this time, I shared with you 10 Things to Do When It’s Not Halloween. Sometimes, we tend to focus on the bad so much that we forget to concentrate on the good, like the fact there are plenty of Halloweenesque activities to do to keep us happy until October.
Plant a pumpkin
The Pumpkin is the ultimate symbol of Halloween. It’s the heralded icon. The shepherd of the holiday. One could argue it’s the whole reason that Halloween even exists. Planting your own pumpkin can be rewarding in a number of ways. For starters, you’re doing something nice for the environment. Your pumpkin can be insecticide and chemical-free. Second, it might be more economical than buying a pumpkin at the store, particularly if you live in rural areas. Next, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that gardening relieves stress. Watching your little pumpkin grow makes you happy. That alone is totally worth it. Next, you can brag about it on your Instagram and social media. Create a photo album tracking your pumpkins growth. Lastly, you’ll have an amazing pumpkin to carve into a jack-o’-lantern by Halloween!
Lemax and Department 56 are awesome, no doubt about it, but they’re also a little pricy. Why not try and create your own Halloween village? Everything you need, ceramics, materials, and the tutorials that teach DIYers how to create certain looks with paint, can all be found online. Likewise, you can find paint, brushes and other materials at your local arts and crafts stores. You can paint your own ceramic haunted house and knick-knacks, or add new items to storebought villages piecemeal.
Bonus: Painting ceramics can be a soothing way to relax and hone in your concentration skills
ABC’s dark gothic soap opera Dark Shadows featuring vampires, witches, ghosts, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures, aired 30-minute episodes on weekdays from 1966-1971.
The first season sluggishly produced efficient melodrama, romance, and the usual family squabbles, as found in a typical daytime soap, until introducing the charismatic, creepy, and somewhat sexy character of Barnabas Collins, a centuries-old vampire played by Jonathan Frid. From that point, the show became his show and Frid’s portrayal of the powerful Barnabas helped boost audience viewership and eventually, made him a horror icon.
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Create your own Halloween florals
You can certainly wait for fall to buy some artificial autumn florals or black roses, but it’s always been my belief that some fake flowers are “fuller” than others, during different times of the year. This is certainly just an opinion, based on no facts whatsoever, but if we always paid attention to facts, we’d have no fun at all!
For those of you looking to dye real flowers black, the good people over at Florist Chronicles have put together one of the most comprehensive tutorials on how to create black flowers that I’ve ever seen. Check it out: www.floristchronicles/2011/create-black-flowers
After you create some black florals, you may need a haunted vase to put them in. You can turn any dollar store vessel into a gothic or Halloween centerpiece with some black paint, a glue gun, some fake spiders and other Halloween objects.
Cemeteries are lovely quiet little places, open all year around. There’s nothing more relaxing than sitting under a tree and enjoying the sights and sounds of nature of a cemetery in the springtime, a time when the flowers and trees are in full bloom. There’s something meaningful, even bit ironic, about so much life flourishing among the dead. Just when you thought your little goth heart didn’t like pastels.
Go early and you’ll have a chance to photograph the gravestones before the morning mist burns off, or try in the late afternoon to catch those eerie shadows falling over the tombstones.
It’s hard to believe that 2019 is already here. The holidays were such a blur. Just yesterday, we were celebrating Halloween, and now, it’s ten months away. If you’ve been stopping by weekly, I thank you for your support. If you’ve just stumbled upon this little blog for the first time, I welcome you.
I’m not big on resolutions, but I do anticipate to do bigger and better things than the previous year, so now, there’s only conjuring up the willpower to pull off the ideas that I have in my head. This year, you can expect more Halloween haikus, chilling stories, awesome horror movie lists, spooky artist showcases, and all the Halloween or spooky related stuff that we can dig up.
Halloween is bigger and more important than ever. The pagan ways are finding their roots again in a new generation of believers, and I believe Halloween is huge part of that revival. Halloweenophiles are growing in numbers and sharing their ideas with the rest of the world. Countries where Halloween didn’t previously exist, are now showing signs of celebrations. Plus, it’s the only holiday where fans like to keep the party going all year long. Every day is Halloween, we just go a little crazy in October.
I wish you all good fortune, peace and happiness this year. Keep believing in the magic of Halloween.
Influenced by comics, horror and Renaissance and Eastern European art, his artwork is a combination of mixed media including drawing, sculpture, and photography, among others. Vivid in detail and heaving with emotion, Basso’s art tells stories though his character creations, not unlike something you’d find in a stage play.
Halloween Horror Haiku 
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