It’s Halloween—time for some of our regular Britannica political bloggers (Lilly Goren, Joseph Lane, Allan Lichtman, John Pitney, and me) to dress up in their prognosticator clothing and look into their crystal balls and predict Election 2008. And, if we’re right, the news for John McCain and Republicans is pretty gloomy: they should get ready for a bumpy Election Day. All of us picked Democrat Barack Obama and for the Democrats to sweep most of the toss-up Senate races and pick up seats in the House. The only bright news for Republicans, however, is that most of us think that the Democrats will fall tantalizingly short of a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Well, except for Lichtman and me, that is (well, I guess that’s 40% of us, so maybe not really that much of a glimmer). We both have the Democrats finishing with 59 seats in the Senate–if you include Bernie Sanders and exclude Joe Lieberman. If that happens, I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the Democratic caucus, as they haggle over whether to keep Joe in the caucus or boot him out for supporting McCain in the election–and what the terms of staying in the caucus might be. Oh, the drama could continue, giving great fodder to pundits who will be searching for something to say after November 4.

Presidential Predictions. The top-line numbers from our pundits are:

• Lilly Goren: Obama 291, McCain 247
• Joseph Lane: Obama 353, McCain 185
• Michael Levy: Obama 338, McCain 200
• Allan Lichtman: Obama 375, McCain 163
• John Pitney: Obama 306, McCain 232

The Battlegrounds: Despite the disparity in numbers, there was actually quite a lot of agreement among us as to who would win the battlegrounds (of course, how you define a battleground is a bit in the eye of the beholder).

• Unanimity: In 8 battlegrounds, all of our bloggers predict an Obama victory: Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania,
  Virginia. This emerging consensus on Virginia is quite historic, as the Democrats haven’t carried the state since 1964 in LBJ’s romp over another Arizonan, Barry Goldwater (perhaps Arizona Republicans just can’t win in Virginia).
• 4-1: In Ohio Goren goes against the grain, predicting a McCain victory, in Nevada Pitney was the lone blogger predicting a McCain victory, and in Obama’s neighboring states of Missouri and Indiana Lichtman is alone in thinking that proximity and the Chicago media market will help Obama put this in the Democratic column,
• 3-2: In the Old North State, North Carolina Goren, Levy, and Pitney gave McCain the edge, while Lane and Lichtman thought Obama would put the state in the Democratic column for the first time since 1976; in Florida Goren and Pitney predicted a McCain victory, while Lane, Levy, and Lichtman thought the Democrats would be able to erase the bitter memory of 2000

The Senate: Overall, we’re all predicting huge gains for the Democrats. Pitney and Goren give the Democrats 57 seats after the election (again, including Socialist Bernie Sanders and excluding Joe Lieberman), Lane at 58, and Lichtman and Levy 59 (yes, I always go out on a limb–though I was spot on with my Senate picks in 2006). Disagreements existed in only a handful of contests. In Georgia, Goren and Levy thought that Saxby Chambliss would lose his seat. Lichtman was the sole blogger to predict that Susan Collins (note: thanks to James Campbell for point out an error in the original) would get knocked off in Maine. Pitney was alone in selecting the Democrats to win the open Nebraska Senate race. And, Goren and Pitney thought that Barney Frank might remain the only comedian in Congress–that Norm Coleman would hold off comedian Al Franken and retain Minnesota for the Republicans. Thus, despite Democratic glimmers of hope in Kentucky (Mitch McConnell’s seat) and in Mississippi (Roger Wicker’s seat), none of us saw these red states turning blue for the Senate. There was also unanimity that the recently convicted Ted Stevens in Alaska would lose to his Democratic opponent. We also all agreed that it’s goodbye to John Sununu (New Hampshire), goodbye to one Udall kin (Gordon Smith of Oregon) and hello to two others (New Mexico and Colorado), and hello and goodbye to Joe Biden, who will sail to victory in Delaware, only to be forced to resign his seat in January (assuming our predictions in the presidential race are correct).

House of Representatives: There was also an amazing amount of consistency among our bloggers in predicted the final outcome of the House races.

• Lane: Democrats 255, Republicans 180 (Net +22 for the Democrats)
• Levy: Democrats 257, Republicans 178 (Net +24)
• Lichtman: Democrats 265, Republicans 170 (Net +32)
• Pitney: Democrats 266, Republicans 169 (Net +33)

The great thing about predictions is that all of us will be wrong in our assessment. We invite you to tell us where you agree–and disagree–with our picks.

The United States does not have a monopoly on the paranormal. Many supernatural elements of our Halloween traditions originated in the pre-Christian Celtic festival of Samhain, when the souls of the dead wandered at night and people lit bonfires and left offerings (treats) to stop ghosts from going bump in the night (tricks). Harvest festivities in Europe, particularly in Ireland and Scotland, also contributed to Halloween lore; some, such as the game of bobbing for apples, could go all the way back to the Roman celebration of Pomona. Although only a few foreign haunted libraries are listed here, I suspect someone with multilingual talents and access to primary print sources could turn up many more.

This winds up a fairly comprehensive list of libraries with ghosts, or at least ones that patrons, staff, or local folklorists have associated with paranormal happenings. If I’ve missed anything, or my list needs correction or updating, please send along your comments and suggestions.

Canada

• Calling Lake (Alberta) School. A dark, shadowy figure has often been seen in the library of this Indian school.
• Montreal, Quebec, McGill University, McLennan Library. A man in an old-fashioned coat haunts the sixth floor of this 1969 structure. When people talk to him, he looks directly at them and disappears.
• Timmins, Ontario, École St.-Alphonse. A small shadow leaps from shelf to shelf in the basement library.
• Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, The Grange. Built in 1817 and occupied at one time by controversial essayist Goldwin Smith (1823–1910), this estate’s library is home to a gaunt, shadowy haunt. Archivist Elayne Dobel Goyette said she recalled hearing about three different spirits when she worked there as a guide in the early 1990s.
• Vancouver, University of British Columbia Library. An old lady in a white dress has been seen.

England

• Arundel Castle, Sussex. A “blue man” ghost, apparently dating from the late 17th century, has been seen browsing the bookshelves.
• Blackheath Library, St. John’s Park, London. The library in this former vicarage is inhabited by the ghost of Elsie Marshall (1869–1895), who grew up in the house. Lights come on when the building is empty, and an unseen presence brushes past people at the door.
• Bristol Central Library, Reference Library. The gray-robed monk who haunts Bristol Cathedral is said to visit the library next door to consult theological books.
• British Library, St. Pancras, London. If there are any spooks in the new facility that opened in 1999, no one is saying, but when it was under construction in 1996, workmen heard clanking sounds and one civil servant saw a “weeping man in 18th-century dress,” according to the Sunday Times, May 19, 1996.
• Combermere Abbey, Shropshire. A visitor to the abbey library, Sybell Corbet, took a time-lapse photo of the favorite carved oak chair of Wellington Henry Stapleton-Cotton, 2nd Viscount Combermere, on May 12, 1891, at the same time that the man was getting buried four miles away. When developed, it showed a blurry image of a bearded man sitting in the chair.
• Farnham Library, Vernon House, Surrey. Charles I slept in this building one night in 1648 when he was taken to London for eventual trial and beheading. The room that he occupied, now an office area, has a “heavy psychic atmosphere.”
• Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk. William Windham III, an 18th-century scholar and close friend of lexicographer Samuel Johnson, haunts the library at this old estate. David Muffon was in charge of putting the estate in order after it was acquired by the National Trust. In November 1972, he was working at a desk in the library when he noticed a “gentleman sitting in the armchair by the fireplace reading books. It was so natural I thought nothing about it. . . . After about 15 seconds he put the book down beside him on the table and faded away.” Muffon asked the old family butler if the house had any ghosts and was told, “Oh yes, there’s the ghost of William Windham who sits on the armchair on the far side of the fireplace.” For many years the butler had set out books, specifically those given to Windham by Samuel Johnson, on the table for the ghost to read. “Rather more interesting,” Muffon revealed, “the next year we actually found in a trunk in the attic clothing very similar to the clothing I saw the ghost wearing from the 1780 period.”
• Gravesend Library, Kent. A toilet in this 1905 Carnegie library has flushed itself three times in the past 11 years, always on a Friday night after patrons have gone home. Librarian and ex-Royal Marine Gordon Jenns said he heard mysterious footsteps prior to each flushing.
• Holland House, Cropthorne, Worcester. The ghost of Mrs. Holland is seen in the library of this Tudor retreat house.
• Leeds Central Library, West Yorkshire. A man who committed suicide in the library not long after it opened in 1884 has been seen as a floating, ghostly figure in the third-floor reading room, according to the October 12, 2008, Yorkshire Evening Post. The creepy Victorian block in the boiler room is said to be occupied by a man who once hid there after committing a crime.
• Longleat House, Red Library, Wiltshire. Reputedly haunted by an elderly gentleman dressed in black. Librarian Dorothy Coates said the spirit was friendly and could be the ghost of Sir John Thynne (1512–1580), who was responsible for the original building at Longleat.
• Mannington Hall, near Cromer, Norfolk. Antiquarian Augustus Jessop (1823–1914) saw the ghost of a large man in an ecclesiastical robe as he was consulting books in the library late on the night of October 10, 1879. The figure was examining some of the volumes Jessop had piled on the table, disappeared at a slight noise, then reappeared briefly five minutes later.
• Raby Castle, Durham. The library is haunted by Sir Henry Vane the Younger, who was beheaded for treason in 1662. His headless torso sometimes appears on a library desk.
• Windsor Castle, Royal Library, Berkshire. Elizabeth I and Charles I are said to roam the stacks.
• York Central Library. In 1954 the library was disturbed by a series of paranormal incidents involving a book titled The Antiquities and Curiosities of the Church (1897). Every fourth Sunday at 8:40 p.m., an unseen hand would remove the book from its shelf and drop it to the floor. An intense cold spot would presage the event, and on at least one occasion the caretaker reported seeing the outline of an elderly man searching for a book.

Scotland

• Brodick Castle, Isle of Aran, North Ayrshire. The ghost of an old man has been seen in the library.
• Rammerscales House, Lockerbie, Dumfries. The library of this 18th-century stately home is haunted by its former owner, James Mounsey. A teacher and students that lived there during World War II were so frightened of the ghost that they preferred to sleep in the stables.

Ireland

• Marsh’s Library (pictured right), Dublin. Founded in 1701 by Archbishop Narcissus Marsh (1638–1713), this was the first public library in Ireland. In the early 20th century, the inner gallery was said to be haunted by Marsh himself, wandering among the shelves and rummaging through volumes looking for a lost letter from his niece. But in the morning things were always found to be in order.

Russia

• Kukoboi, Yaroslavl’ Region. The birthplace of the Russian witch Baba-Yaga, this village’s library once experienced a ghost, a young girl wearing an antiquated bonnet, who came in and disappeared after talking to the library staff, according to Pravda, August 18, 2004.

South Africa

• Africana Library, Kimberley, Northern Cape. Footsteps of someone pacing from room to room are attributed to its first librarian, Bertrand Dyer, who committed suicide by swallowing arsenic. Sometimes a man in 19th-century clothing is seen walking the corridors, and books serendipitously fall from the shelves, according to the Independent Online, October 19, 2007.

Philippines

• University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City. The College of Science Library and the Main Library are two of the many haunted places on campus.

Australia

• State Library of Victoria, Melbourne. This massive structure dates from 1856 and hosts many specters. The ghost of a female librarian named Grace keeps an eye on the children’s books in the Arts Collection, and a mustachioed gentleman protects the music stacks and piano. A clairvoyant sensed a malevolent presence in room S200. Poltergeist phenomena have been reported in the newspaper room. Glowing balls of light appear on the stairs. Security guards witness many of these antics after the library is closed.

Mexico

• Morelia Public Library, Michoacán. Library staff say that a “nun in blue” has haunted the 16th-century premises for many years. Director Rigoberto Cornejo said in Monterrey’s El Norte newspaper, “When I leave the building, I feel the sensation of someone following me. In fact, I can even hear the footsteps.” In 1996, library worker Socorro Ledezma requested a transfer because she felt paralyzed by an unseen presence standing behind her and blowing in her ear.

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Library Ghost Series

Monday: Libraries in the Northeast, U.S.

Tuesday: Libraries in the Midwest, U.S.

Wednesday: Libraries in the South, U.S.

Thursday:   Libraries in the West, U.S.

Friday (Halloween):  International Libraries

A Countess in Transylvania, Elizabeth Báthory (1560-1614), was known as the “Countess of Blood” and is considered the most famous serial killer in Slovak and Hungarian history.  She’s a macabre but fascinating subject, one of the 12 women represented in my “Regal Twelve” series of digitally montaged artwork, combining fashion and history with modern conceptions of beauty.  She’s a subject worthy of remembering on Halloween, and she’s credited along with her relative, Vlad the Impaler, as the two historical figures upon which Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula is based.

 

According to legend, Báthory struck a servant girl and drew blood when her pointed nails raked the girl’s cheek. When the blood touched Báthory’s skin, she became convinced that it had improved her complexion. The Countess reasoned that if she bathed in the blood of young virgins and drank their blood, she would rejuvenate. The killing spree commenced. She began to roam the countryside by night, hunting for suitable girls. Elizabeth is said to have bathed in their blood in a huge marble bath.

Accused of torturing and murdering more than 600 women, Elizabeth was eventually held without trial and then starved and sealed in a closet in her castle where she died four years later.

My composition (above), “Elizabeth Báthory – The Countess of Blood,” reflects upon the legend of the vilified Countess.

Running with wolves through a hazy dark forest, Báthory is lit only by a large full moon. Symbolically, the moon exerts influence over creatures of the night. When wolves howl at a full moon the image evokes the dark and sinister force of the moon. Báthory’s unnatural transformation from old to young is whispered through the fog which symbolises the soul passing from one world to the next. Her blood red hair, her long pointed red nails with blood dribbling from her mouth, are all confronting elements that reflect the vampire myth. The image alludes to the relationship between women and the moon. Báthory personifies the Greek goddess Artemis, “The huntress.”

Standing high on a cliff edge, the gothic castle is a symbol of the home that eventually became Báthory’s prison and then her grave.

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Alexia Sinclair (right) is an award-winning Australian photographer and digital artist.  Her digitally montaged work has been described as dark and sexy, baroque and magical, mixing avant-garde fashion and her work with contemporary fashion models with exotic European landscapes. 

She’ll highlight the women in her acclaimed “Regal Twelve” series on the Britannica Blog at various times throughout the year.  “Each character’s portrayal,” she says, “is approached through the eyes of a contemporary woman and, as such, is influenced by contemporary notions of beauty and power.” Learn more about Alexia and her artwork at alexiasinclair.com.

First published in 1820, Washington Irving’s short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is both a classic of American literature and a staple entry in the library of Halloween ghost stories told around the world. Most retellings have the Headless Horseman dispatching his poor, unwitting victim Ichabod Crane, which is just the way the citizens of the New York hamlet of Sleepy Hollow took the schoolmaster’s disappearance. But read on to the end of this story, offered for your pleasure in this hyperlinked edition, and you’ll see that Irving didn’t offer quite so neat a resolution.

Happy Halloween!

This year the Republicans are rolling out one of their oldest and most misleading charges: that Democrats and their supporters are planning to flood the polls with illegal voters.

Although the GOP first raised a hue and cry against Democratic voter fraud more than 40 years ago they have failed to turn up any credible evidence to support their allegations. The purpose of such charges has been to discredit their Democratic opponents and discourage minorities and poor people from voting.

In the 1964 presidential contest between Democrat Lyndon Johnson and Republican Barry Goldwater, Republicans launched “Operation Eagle Eye,” ostensibly to guard against illegal voters. The party planned to station 100,000 “eagle eyes” at polling places across America to spot fraudulent voters. In fact, this “ballot security” operation was targeted at minority neighborhoods in 36 cities and circulated handbills which warned that authorities could arrest voters who had an outstanding parking ticket or a traffic violation. Operation Eagle Eye turned up not a single fraudulent voter and had little impact Johnson’s landslide victory.

During the next twenty years similar ballot security operations failed to uncover voter fraud, but continued efforts to discourage voting by Democratic-leaning groups. This practice of “voter suppression” became so notorious that in response to a 1986 lawsuit file by Democrats the National Republican Party agreed to a consent decree in federal court that prohibited the party from engaging in anti-fraud activities that targeted minority voters. Of course, they could still level charges of voter fraud against Democrats and liberal groups.

In 1998, I had the opportunity to examine first-hand charges of voter fraud, when Republican gubernatorial candidate for governor of Maryland Ellen Sauerbrey alleged that fraudulent votes cast by dead people, prison inmates, and unregistered persons accounted for the 5,993 vote victory of Democrat Parris Glendening. As the state of Maryland’s consultant on voting rights, I was asked by Attorney General Joseph Curran to determine whether there was any truth to Sauerbrey’s claims.

My own work uncovered some unintentional errors by election officials, but not a single fraudulent vote among the 1.4 million ballots cast in the election. Likewise several weeks of judicial discovery and a trial in State District Court failed to uncover any illegal voters. The trial judge Raymond G. Thieme, who said in open court that he voted for Sauerbrey, tossed out her lawsuit. The case reached comic opera proportions when several allegedly dead voters began talking, including some who said they voted for Ms. Sauerbrey.

The administration of George W. Bush has made the discovery and prosecution of voter fraud a top priority. But its labors uncovered a molehill not a mountain of fraud.

From 2002 to 2007 the federal government has charged only 120 persons nationwide with voter fraud. These were all isolated cases against single individuals or small groups involved with local contests. Not single case implicated the Democratic or Republican parties or affiliated groups in efforts to influence the outcome of statewide, congressional, senatorial, or presidential elections.

In the current campaign Republicans have charged that ACORN, a liberal community organizing group, has committed fraud in its efforts to register new voters nationwide. In an extraordinary fit of hyperbole, John McCain said in the third presidential debate that ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.”

ACORN has been registering voters for many years. This year alone it registered some 1.3 million voters. Inevitably some forms will be false or inaccurate. But the submission of such forms only becomes voter fraud if efforts are made to cast votes based on fraudulent registrations.

Critics have derided ACORN for submitting registration forms in the names of Disney characters or Dallas Cowboy players. But does anyone seriously believe that the organization is planning to sneak voters into the polls under the name of Mickey Mouse or Tony Romo? A bipartisan report prepared for President Bush’s Election Assistance Commission in 2007 examined the alleged link between voter registration and electoral fraud. It concluded that “false registration forms have not resulted in polling place fraud.”

In a properly functioning democracy all votes must be fully and fairly counted. But the last thing that the American people need in the final days of this crucial presidential election is another debate over phony charges of voter fraud.

Let’s see: you’ve got your bags of candy bars, your tray of apples, your popcorn balls. You’ve got your costume choices narrowed down (do I go as George Clooney or George Bush this year?). You’ve arranged to take the next day off from work to nurse your hangover. Halloween is thus prepared. The only thing that’s left to do is to throw together an appropriately weird party tape (never mind the anachronism: the phrase trips off the tongue so much more easily than “iTunes playlist”) to entertain your guests and put the fear in the people who dare come to your door. Here are ten cuts to get you started.

1. “Monster Mash” (Bobby “Boris” Pickett, Monster Mash & Other Love Songs)

Sure, it’s obligatory, like singing “Jingle Bells” at Christmas. But Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster Mash” is not only a novelty song par excellence, but also the quintessential Halloween pop tune. In the late 1950s, a young Army veteran named Bobby Pickett wandered into Hollywood, dreaming of making it big as an actor. Instead, he wound up singing in a doo-wop group called The Cordials, for which he and fellow singer Leonard Capizzi dashed off a novelty tune for a Halloween dance. Sung in a patently cheesy imitation of Boris Karloff—whence the “Boris” in Pickett’s stage name—”Monster Mash” sailed to a number-one spot on the pop charts in 1962. With it, Pickett’s fate was doomed; follow-up songs like “Monster’s Holiday” and “Monster Motion” failed to wow the crowds, and when Pickett was called on to take the stage over the next three decades, it was only to sing his “graveyard smash.”

2. “D.O.A.” (Bloodrock, Bloodrock 2)

Coming out of Texas’s weird psychedelic scene at the end of the 1960s, the quintet that eventually took the name Bloodrock pledged to outdo Vanilla Fudge and Cactus in outright heaviosity. They instead wound up as poor cousins to Grand Funk Railroad on the hard-rock concert circuit, earning almost no airplay except for a throwaway tune on the B side of their second album. Clocking in at 8:35 and heavily edited for AM radio play, “D.O.A.” opens with sirens, a wailing Hammond organ, and a vocal line in which a mangled, moribund narrator spins the tale of a plane crash (”I remember / we were flying low / and hit something in the air”). Far more graphic than death-rock predecessors like “Teen Angel” and “Tell Laura I Love Her,” “D.O.A.” made it to #36 on the Billboard charts on January 2, 1971, and then sank into oblivion. While Bloodrock 2 was reissued as a CD in 1995, “D.O.A.” has yet to become a standard cover for the gothic legions, though it’s a death-metal classic that deserves wider exposure.

3. “Tubular Bells” (Mike Oldfield, Tubular Bells)

Filmgoers who ventured into theaters in 1973 to see William Friedkin’s film The Exorcist got the shock of their lives. So frightening that it quite literally sent some viewers screaming down the aisles, it remains a high point of the horror genre (and has just been reissued with previously unseen footage). Those filmgoers got another treat: in the film’s soundtrack, they heard the brooding work of 20-year-old English musical genius Mike Oldfield. Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, the first album released by Virgin Records, shot to #1 on the U.S. charts and remained there for more than a year. Oldfield followed the original release with two more discs in the Tubular Bells series. Both are fine specimens of progressive rock, but the first album is the scariest—especially in its later moments, when fiendish grunting voices join in the fun.

4. “Escaping Point” (Tangerine Dream, Firestarter)

An adaptation from a Stephen King novel, 1984’s Firestarter has a fine cast (including George C. Scott, Martin Sheen, and a very young Drew Barrymore) and an interesting storyline that prefigures the conspiracy-theory excesses of The X Files. Its strongest point, though, is its atmospheric score, composed by Christopher Franke and the futurist German musical collective Tangerine Dream, who released the soundtrack album in 1990. The layered synthesizers are perfectly pitched to the action, which ranges from the eerie to the unsettlingly violent; nowhere is this more true than on the atmospheric cut “Escaping Point.”

5. “Witchcraft” (Frank Sinatra, The Capitol Years)

We’ll lighten the mood at midpoint with Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh’s lounge classic “Witchcraft,” written in 1958 and recorded two years later by Frank Sinatra, who gave the lyrics (”Those fingers in my hair / That sly come hither stare / That strips my conscience bare / It’s witchcraft”) a nicely steamy reading. Sweet and even schmaltzy on its own, “Witchcraft” makes a wonderfully creepy cameo in the soundtrack to Bob Balaban’s 1989 film Parents, a cinematic paean to the joys of cannibalism.

6. “Train Attack” (Donald Rubinstein, Martin)

Best known for Night of the Living Dead, cult-fave director George Romero puzzled critics and viewers with his 1978 film Martin, a weird take on vampires in a decidedly grimy disco-era Pittsburgh. The film doesn’t stand up particularly well, but Donald Rubinstein’s jazzy score, recently reissued on CD, is a masterpiece of melancholia. “Train Attack,” which marks an early, especially horrible moment in the film’s action, is the cut to play when you’re looking to set spines to tingling.

7. “Excellent, Mr. Renfield” (Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet, Dracula)

Tod Browning’s 1931 classic film Dracula, though tame by modern standards, was the scariest cinematic shockfest of its time. In 1999, Universal Pictures reissued the film with a new score by contemporary composer Philip Glass. The ominous “Excellent, Mr. Renfield” makes a nice bridge in any Halloween mix, though the whole album is worth listening to, just as the restored version of Browning’s eloquent film bears repeated viewings—for, among other things, Dwight Frye’s campy portrayal of a madman in action, which no other actor has yet bested.

8. “The Ballad of Dwight Fry” (Alice Cooper, Love It to Death)

“Flies and spiders, master!” Before he was a golf fanatic and talk-show fixture, Alice Cooper, Vince Furnier to those who knew him when, was the ruling king of shock rock, a throne to which he ascended on the back-to-back release in 1971 of his albums Love It to Death and Killer. Cooper immortalizes the aforementioned Dwight Frye (whose name lost its final “e” in Cooper’s haphazard spelling) on the first album, a masterpiece of giggling lunatic pop of the kind not seen since Porter Wagoner unloosed “Rubber Room” on an unsuspecting world. Alice’s otherworldly rant makes the histrionics of young Marilyn Manson seem amateurish by comparison.

9. “I Put a Spell on You” (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Voodoo Jive)

Now, Marilyn Manson has brought great joy to the world, let it be said, in such fine moments as his disemboweling of The Eurhythmics’ “Sweet Dreams.” His rendering of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s 1956 hit “I Put a Spell on You” doesn’t hold a candle to the original, though. Hawkins, who died in 2000 at the age of 70, was a one-of-a-kind mad scientist of music. In the 1950s, figuring he needed a musical gimmick to distinguish himself from other R&B acts, Hawkins opened his act by emerging from a sealed casket to deliver weird, jabbering lyrics that hinted at murder, mayhem, and worse. His “I Put a Spell on You,” allegedly recorded in the dead of night under the influence of a couple of bottles of whiskey, is a landmark of horror rock.

10. “Sympathy for the Devil” (The Rolling Stones, Beggar’s Banquet)

When The Rolling Stones got back to rock & roll basics after a disastrous attempt at psychedelia, they did so with a rumbling, creepy piece of arena rock that unfolded demented images of stinking bodies, assassinated politicians, and Beelzebub himself. The unintended soundtrack for the mayhem at 1969’s Altamont rock concert,* which drove a stake into the heart of the peace-and-love era, “Sympathy for the Devil” remains a stunning piece of bad-boy rock—and an appropriate way to mark the last gasps of a Halloween evening.

I look forward to having your nominations for next year’s mix tape. Black Sabbath, anyone?

______

* Purists will remember, of course, that the infamous murder committed at the concert was done to the strains of “Under My Thumb.”

A picture paints a thousand words . . .
 
 

It’s no secret that the American movie-going public often regards their cinema stars as script-reciting models with minimal capacity for thoughtful insight into other professional disciplines. Yet actor Brad Pitt disproves this premise with his much publicized passion for architecture and his involvements with various housing initiatives such as those in New Orleans assisting homeless Katrina victims.

In this brief portion of an interview with Charlie Rose, the actor shares his thoughts on the importance and the impact of this design profession on our day-to-day lives.

Western wraiths from Washington to Wyoming are highlighted in this fourth segment of a five-part overview of library ghosts. Yesterday’s post included libraries in the Southern United States; tomorrow’s will include haunts from outside our borders.

If I’ve missed anything, or my list needs correction or updating, please send along your comments and suggestions.

California

• Alhambra, Ramona Convent Secondary School. Founded in 1889, this is one of the oldest operating schools in the state. Students have seen a nun in a white habit roaming in the library.
• Chowchilla, Madera County Library, Chowchilla Branch. This new branch stands on the site of a bowling alley that burned down when its kitchen caught fire. The circulation area lies on the approximate position of the kitchen. Some say a cook who perished in the blaze can be seen in a flash of flame.
• Clayton, Contra Costa County Library, Clayton Community Library. The library’s temperature-activated security system has gone off when no one is around, suggesting to a local ghosthunter that heat from a haunt is the cause. The clock and air conditioning also behave suspiciously, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, October 31, 1997.
• El Centro, Central Union High School. Footsteps, talking, and doors slamming are heard in the library. In the library basement, where detentions were held in the 1980s, footsteps, crying, and laughing are heard, according to the Shadowlands website.
• Glendale, Brand Library and Art Center. The presence of city developer Leslie Coombs Brand (1859–1925) can be felt in this 1904 mansion of Spanish-Moorish-Indian design, called El Miradero, which was Brand’s home until his death. It was converted to a library in 1956 under the terms of his will. The October 30, 1993, Glendale News Press collected some stories about the ghost, which manifests as a moaning voice, phantom footsteps, falling books, and cold spots, especially in the library tower. Former Senior Customer Service Representative Lisa Blessing said she once saw a male figure climbing the stairs.
• Long Beach Public Library. The apparition of a young girl in Victorian attire was seen by a new employee in 1995 in the genealogy room. The north elevator behaved bizarrely in the late 1980s. One staff office featured strange rustling sounds and spontaneous equipment switch-ons. Appropriate books are said to serendipitously fall from the shelves.
• Los Angeles, California State University, John F. Kennedy Memorial Library. In the late evening and early morning, locked doors open and faucets turn on in the third floor south area. Cold spots are reported in the restrooms.
• Los Angeles Public Library, Cypress Park Branch. Ghost sightings have been reported since the library opened in 1924. The old fireplace, the men’s room, and the occult section seem to be the centers for cold spots and whispers.
• Riverside, University of California, Tomás Rivera Library. A female ghost, some say, haunts the older part of the library, mainly at night on the first and second floors. Maintenance men have reported sounds and cold spots.
• Sacramento Public Library, Sacramento Room. This special collections area opened on the second floor of the central library in April 1995. The staff can hear sounds like Mylar rustling or someone shelving books. Two witnesses have seen and heard one of the glass doors close by itself. According to the Shadowlands website, “One employee working in the office a little before 7 a.m. heard the wooden shutters on the door leading into the copy machine area rattle. Thinking it was a custodian entering, he initially paid it no mind until he realized he had not heard the front door, which was locked, open.” Needless to say, no custodian had been there.
• San Bernardino, St. Thomas Aquinas High School. A student who hung himself is said to appear floating in the library.
• Upland, Pioneer Junior High School. Books have reportedly fallen off the shelves spontaneously in the library.
• Yorba Linda, Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace. Shortly after Nixon was entombed on the grounds in 1994, a night watchman reported seeing a luminous green mist over the president’s grave. He also heard tapping sounds emanating from an exhibit room, according to the LA Weekly, September 30–October 6, 1994.

Colorado

• Denver Public Library. Staff say there is a presence in the basement that shoves people.

Montana

• Billings, Parmly Billings Library. Acquisitions Librarian Karen Stevens has written a book about Montana ghosts, Haunted Montana (Riverbend, 2007), in which she devotes an entire chapter to the library’s various haunts that she has investigated: the dark-haired woman in the basement; strange whistling and a male ghost wearing jeans and work boots on the second floor; a white shape that moves outside the windows on the fifth floor; and odd movements in the book stacks of the Montana Room. Construction crews in the fall of 2005 reported numerous paranormal incidents.
• Billings, Western Heritage Center. When this building served as the Parmly Billings Memorial Library in the 1950s, it had an unsettling atmosphere. Child-like footprints found in the attic are attributed to Priscilla, the ghost of a young girl.

New Mexico

• Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System, San Pedro Branch. In the evenings, a disembodied voice has allegedly been heard to say, “Please come check out a book.”

Oregon

• Pendleton Center for the Arts. Originally a 1916 Carnegie library, this building was the Umatilla County Public Library in 1947 when Assistant Librarian Ruth Cochran suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while she was closing the building October 11. She went to the basement to rest, but was found the next day and taken to the hospital, where she died. Spooky events in the library were blamed on Ruth until it moved to a new location in 1996. Once, a custodian was alone in the building painting the children’s room when the intercom system buzzed repeatedly.
• Portland, Multnomah County Library, North Portland Branch. In the early 1990s, a man was seen several times on a security camera sitting in the second-floor meeting room when the room was closed and empty. On one occasion, a library assistant actually watched the figure vanish from the screen as a supervisor walked upstairs to investigate.
• Union Carnegie Public Library. Strange noises emanate from a storage room in the basement.

Utah

• Provo, Brigham Young University, Harold B. Lee Library. Moaning voices can be heard in the Music Library on level 4.
• Salt Lake City Public Library, Chapman Branch. KSL-TV reported October 28, 2004, that Circulation Specialist Andrea Graham saw a ghostly form as she opened the 1918 Carnegie library one morning, and she also watched a puppet launch itself from a window ledge.

Washington

• Bellingham, Western Washington University, Mabel Zoe Wilson Library. Odd sensations and cold spots are felt in the microform room on the second floor of this 1928 library, according to an article in the April 27, 2007, Western Front student newspaper. Some feel that Wilson, who helped make the first card catalog for the library, is the ghost. The library was dedicated to her in 1964, the year she died.
• Snohomish Carnegie Building. Catharine McMurchy, library director from 1923 to 1939, died in 1956 and her ghost could be seen or heard walking in the basement of this 1910 Carnegie before the library moved to modern quarters in 2003. In 1991, Children’s Librarian Debbie Young was taking a break in the staff room when she saw an older woman walk down the stairs from a storage area and exit the room. For a while the library had a ghostcam to try to catch her appearances, the last of which may have occurred the night of November 9, 2002, according to the Everett Herald of January 24, 2003 (although it could have been a janitorial service worker). The building now houses a few city offices, with the Arts of Snohomish Gallery in the annex.
• Spokane, Centennial Middle School. Students have seen an old woman with no legs floating around in the library, according to the Shadowlands website.
• Tacoma Public Library, Anna E. McCormick Community Rooms. This 1927 building served as the stacks area of the library until 1984 when a substantial addition was made to the north end. Maintenance workers reported disturbances in the old building for a three-week period in 1995, shortly after the terms of a bequest changed the name of the addition to the Anna Lemon Wheelock Library. Water faucets turned on, boxes fell to the floor, and one person saw the apparition of a gray-haired woman, possibly Anna McCormick who had funded the original library.
• Toppenish, Mary L. Goodrich Library. A man and woman have been seen looking out one of the top-floor windows.

Wyoming

• Burns High School. The library walls are said to shake mysteriously, according to the Shadowlands website.
• Byron, Rocky Mountain High School. In the 1950s, School Superintendent Harold Hopkinson was startled one night by footsteps walking down the hall; then he heard the library door open and close twice. “As I stood there looking,” Hopkinson remembered, “those footsteps went right past me and there was no one there. I heard them continue down the stairs to the front door, which I heard opening. . . . I didn’t dream it. There really was something walking on that old floor, which used to creak in a certain way.” He said his predecessor refused to go to that part of the building after dark, and so did he for some time afterwards. The custodial staff agrees that something is amiss. Eddie Davis, who was a maintenance man at the high school for 13 years, heard a blood-curdling scream coming from the girl’s restroom late one night in 1989. “It set my hair on end,” he said. But when he cautiously went inside, there was no one there. Another time, Davis’s wife, also a custodian, was retrieving some materials from the second floor when she saw a small, “smoky-looking something” in the hall. “It stunk to high heaven,” she said. “I got the feeling that thing was telling me to jump out the window. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t get to the door. But finally I took off and ran. I wouldn’t want that to happen to me again,” she whispered.
• Green River, Sweetwater County Library. Lights have gone off and on mysteriously ever since the library opened in 1980. Flapping sounds reverberate through the building at night. Former Director Patricia LeFaivre said that her staff has seen dots of light dancing on the walls inside the closed art gallery room in such a way that ruled out an external light source like car headlights. Back when the library had electric typewriters instead of computers, at least two of the machines were seen to type on their own. There was no paper loaded at the time, so if these were messages, they were lost. The staff experimented by leaving paper in the typewriters overnight, but no phantom typing occurred. The most bizarre event occurred some years ago when the interlibrary loan librarian turned away briefly from her computer—it was a dedicated Geac terminal—and when she looked back she saw her name spelled out on the screen. “I don’t think the system could have done that itself,” LeFaivre explained. “It had no word-processing capabilities, and at that time we didn’t have email. Her name appeared in quite large letters . . . with nothing else on the screen.” Since 1993, the staff has kept a record of all odd goings-on in a Ghost Log. The library was built on top of a cemetery dating from the 1860s. Most of the graves, primarily those of Asian railroad workers, were moved in the 1920s, but a coffin turned up as recently as 1985. Paranormal activity most often takes place when maintenance crews are working on the building or the grounds. LeFaivre added, “What’s interesting is that when we finally accepted the ghost’s existence, it seemed to quiet down—like it just wanted to be recognized.” The staff lounge often causes people to become sick. In 2005, both the Southwest Paranormal Investigation Society and the Colorado chapter of the American Association of Paranormal Investigators obtained odd audio recordings and strange images on film. In 2008, the library launched a ghost blog.
• Thermopolis, Hot Springs County Library. Books strewn about, strange noises, and shadowy figures have been reported.

 

Work by Alice Channer.

In honor of the 100th birthday of London’s famed “Roundel” (shown below), symbol of the city’s famed Underground (”Tube”) subway system, the Transport for London has commissioned 100 artists to produce 100 “brand new works of art that are inspired by the Roundel as a contemporary symbol for a world class transport system.”  Two prints will be made of each work: the first print will go into the Underground archive of famous art, by such artists as Man Ray, and the second will be offered to the public through an online auction.  The new works are on display through October at the Rochelle School in Shoreditch, London, and many of them will also appear as posters throughout the Underground system.

“We hope that the work will help put art at the centre of London life and add an artistic treat to our daily commutes,” says Moira Sinclair, Executive Director of Arts Council England. “We look forward to seeing these new posters reacting to one of the world’s most recognisable, and best loved, icons.” 

With the kind permission of the TfL, the Britannica Blog will highlight one of these new works of art daily in honor of the occasion.