I grew up in a Connecticut suburb and had a very small group of sheltered friends. We liked being sheltered, because it allowed us to do our homework without the distraction of boyfriends and popularity. But the lack of boyfriends, popularity, and having any kind of interesting experiences started to weigh on us by the time we were seniors in high school. That year we started seeing bands, being slightly less responsible, and occasionally (twice) having parties where more than six people showed up. It was around that time, the year was 2002, that my friends and I went to a Rusted Root concert at a nearby college. It [...]

Mr. and Mrs. White and their son, Herbert, welcomed their friend Sgt. Maj. Morris back from his time in India. He brought them stories and a souvenir: a mummified monkey’s paw, which would grant three wishes but came with a warning not to interfere with fate.

The next morning, Mr. White decided to test these so-called powers and wished for £200. Nothing happened. Satisfied, he set the monkey’s paw aside and the Whites went about their lives. Herbert went off to work, and it was full dark before the Whites heard a knock at their door. It was uniformed officers from Herbert’s factory, with shocking news: There had [...]

As a special gift to those of you who need inspiration for your 'Pinup Halloween costume, James Kuhn spent every day this year making his face a different version of the best thing in the whole world with makeup. And he's supposedly going to continue, every day, until the end of 2011. Step one for all of these looks: Get a large, clean-shaven man face and a bald head. Step two: Become an artistic genius. You're two-thirds of the way there!

[via]

The wonderful Neil Gaiman explains All Hallow's Read.

(Don't read The House of Leaves, though. Too scary. Too heavy, also. And too requiring-of-you-to-turn-the-book-upside-down-sometimes.)

Kate Thornbery made our dreams come true this weekend. Bravo, Kate. Bravo.

Of all the many things I love in this world, two that rank near the top of the list are discovering delicious taste combinations, and finding ways to make sense of my life through the use of charts and graphs. It’s almost Halloween, and I spent 20 minutes (and an undisclosed number of dollars) in the corresponding candy section of Target this weekend. To excuse that behavior to myself, I made the whole thing into a graphical microeconomics project. Sort of.

First, let me get this out of the way right now: What you need to know is that there has never been nor will there ever be a Halloween [...]

City officials are thanking the more than 100 volunteers coordinating and performing patrols around the city for the low number of fires this evening… Around 50 volunteers manned the police mini-stations, while 100 others performed patrols throughout the city, either on foot or by car… The number of fires thus far is down from the eight reported on the day before Halloween in 2010 and a dramatic decrease from the city's high of 200 fires on Devil's Night in 1994.

Where I grew up, all the cool kids spent the night before Halloween setting fires, spray painting stuff, and Nair-ing people. (I spent it pre-grounded, usually.) It looks like [...]

Can I borrow your dress, Sugar?

Also known as "spider ballet," spider dressage (or, dressage araignée) is the highest form of spider training, and its fundamental purpose is to develop, through standardized progressive training methods, a spider's natural athletic ability and willingness to perform. At the peak of a dressage spider's gymnastic development, the spider will respond smoothly to a skilled rider's minimal aids. The rider will be relaxed and appear effort-free, while the spider willingly performs the requested movement.

[Via]