Happy All Hallow’s Read!

Sweet dreams, and happy reading.

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Caramel Apple Wedges

Here’s one of my favorite tricks for a quick treat on Halloween (or anytime I get the urge): Caramel Apple Wedges.  Three ingredients—caramels, milk, and apples; scale according to need.

Unwrap the caramels, and put them in a microwave-safe dish (I use one of the kind that has a lid for easy storage).

Add about 1 1/2 tablespoons of milk per dozen caramels.  Microwave on high for 30 seconds, then stir, microwaving for 20 seconds at intervals to soften.

Keep stirring and microwaving until smooth.  Keep the microwave times short—you don’t want the milk to curdle or the caramel to burn.

Cut apples into wedges, and serve with caramel to dip.  My favorite eating apples lately are Honeycrisp.  I like a tart, crisp-textured apple, and these (as their name implies) are nice and crisp, but they are also juicy and full of flavor, and not (despite their name) too overly sweet.

On second thought, don’t worry about a lid; storage isn’t likely to be a problem!

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Feral Alphabets: E

From: Trick or Treat!

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velyn exhaled in exasperation.  Ectoplasm was everywhere. Even her evening wear had not escaped.

“Ethan,” she enjoined the empty ether, “when you expired—so expeditiously—I expected that would be an end to our engagement.”

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All Hallow’s Read: Free eBook at Jaded Monkey

Affehaus of Jaded Monkey was inspired by my All Hallow’s Read eBook, Bedtime Story, to write one of his own, but suggested (correctly) that turning it into an eBook sounded like a lot of work.  I thought it was a cool story, and offered to do the design and formatting in exchange for bananas promotional considerations (and hey, look, I’m not just using that Graphic Design degree for cultivating mold in the shapes of letters of the alphabet)!

The story is called Jackanapes, and you can pick up your very own digital copy over at Jaded Monkey.

Edit: It seems Jaded Monkey is having some technical difficulties.  Meanwhile, you can download you copy of Jackanapes here. (He’s baaaack.)

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Wall and Sundry, Halloween 2011

Here’s a bonus Halloween edition of Wall and Sundry—a ghostly trio of butternut squash.

Boo!

click for desktop wallpaper (iPod wallpaper below the fold)

 

 

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Unpredictable and unrepentant, Halloween also remains stubbornly unofficial and underground, and this may be the key to understanding the tumult that regularly erupts in its name.  Despite the considerable cultural space Halloween now occupies, despite the billions of dollars it annually spins, and despite the passionate commitment millions devote to the holiday, no legislative body has ever seriously considered making it legal.

-David J. Skal, Death Makes A Holiday,
A Cultural History of Halloween

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All Hallow’s Read: Free eBook

When I was small, I was drawn to ghost stories.  Like a moth to a flame, you might say, since I inevitably scared myself up-all-night silly—to my parents’ chagrin.  Every oddly shaped lump of laundry, every bit of bric-a-brac would metamorphose into something terrifying, as soon as the lights went out.  Nowadays, I’ve gotten a little better at not letting my imagination completely carry me off, but also, and more importantly, I’m the one in charge of the light switch.

I’m still a moth to that flame sometimes, though.

Like the time (when I was not-so-small), that I sat down in the cozy late afternoon sunlight to play a bit of Resident Evil, and became so engrossed in the dark and scary digital world that I didn’t notice the light slipping stealthily out of the room.  The very real room.  Where I was sitting.  Until I suddenly realized that I was sitting in the dark, with zombies, and the nearest light switch was yards away, across what was sure to be zombie-infested darkness.

Just imagine if there was no light switch.

I know, no light switch, no Resident Evil, you say.  We’re somewhat distanced today from the coming of night, but imagination is still with us. We can still imagine what it would be like to have every day slide inexorably, inevitably into darkness. Once, we lived our lives in that balance, in the struggle between Light and Dark, Life and Death, Summer and Winter, and we planted Halloween at the crossroads.

Halloween is a celebration of imagination, and we often share that imagination by telling each other stories.  We’ve always been telling stories for Halloween—stories about the future, and the past.  About who we are and who we want to be.

But especially stories about what we’re afraid of.

Recently, author Neil Gaiman (someone who knows about imagination) proposed that we make it a formal, informal tradition— that we give each other scary books, the week of or on Halloween.

This is a tradition that I will be happy to leave a light on for.

So here, to celebrate, is a short, spooky eBook (a story previously posted, in two parts, in this post and this one)—my All Hallow’s Read present to you:

Bedtime Story

pdf eBook: click to download

Happy All Hallow’s Read!

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Feral Alphabets: D

From: State of Decay

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on’t go in the basement.

on’t say I didn’t warn you.

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All Hallow’s Read

All Hallow’s Read is fast approaching.  Below is the second half of Bedtime Story (the first half is here, in case you missed it).  Next Monday, I’ll post a .pdf of the complete story.

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Feral Alphabets: C

From: Cast of Shadows

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reeping in around the edges of the world, the shadows were always with us. Our stealthy companions. Playful mimics.

It seemed they always had been with us… We took their silent attendance for granted.

And then, one day, they stopped obeying our direction.

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