what about the plastic animals?

Houdini's House

Harry Houdini died 86 years ago today.  He lived at this house on W 113th Street for the last 22 years of his life.  Houdini and his wife Beth had an agreement that, if there was an ability to communicate from the other side, he would do so if she held a seance on the anniversary of his death.  There is an "official" seance held every year to this day.  I did not see any evidence of paranomal activity when I walked by the house this morning.

An exhibit, Houdini: Art and Magic, just opened at the Jewish Museum.

Once a Bum, Always a Bum

I don't remember this costume but I was a Halloween hobo one year.

Getting into the Spirit

Locust Grove, Ohio might not be large enough to have outskirts, but on the outskirts of Locust Grove is this enthusiastic display of Halloween creepiness.  Nearby I also came across a flock (gaggle?) of turkey vultures feeding on the previous night's roadkill.  Talk about creepy!  And Locust Grove is nowhere near Hinckley.

Tomorrow the secret mission mentioned a couple of weeks ago is revealed as we return to "a little valley, or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world.  A little brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose..."

Walter, Andrew and Louise, and Sam

Walter Chrysler

Andrew Carnegie and Louise Whitfield

Samuel Gompers

In the Halloween spirit I thought a little morbidity was in order for this week.  Actually, I'm just following Dane's lead.  Walter Chrysler, Andrew Carnegie and his wife Louise Whitfield Carnegie, and Samuel Gompers are all resting comfortably in the same cemetery near Tarrytown, NY.  Read into it what you will but Carnegie and Gompers are practically neighbors for eternity. 

I saw these folks on my secret mission earlier in the month.  They weren't the objective of the mission.  That will have to wait until Halloween itself.