We began the Halloween festivities early with a family outing to the local amusement park, Worlds of Fun. Mary, Tori and I joined Abby, Mike, Jason, Dawn, Haley, and Elijah to celebrate Haley’s 14th birthday with a day at the park that we began attending when Jason and I were just wee lads.

In late September/early October Worlds of Fun begins their HalloWeekends…the park is decorated with typical Halloween imagery from top to bottom and is a great deal of….well…fun! We started off the day with the newest ride, Spinning Dragons.

We made several trips down the Mamba.

The first drop on the Mamba is 205 feet and we rediscovered just how fun it is to go down this in the last car as the momentum of all the cars before you really pulls you down that hill. It is said to reach speeds of 75mph and I don’t doubt it. It is quite the thrill.

We rode several other rides, took in some spooky-themed shows, and made a trip through both of the haunted houses, Carnival of Carnivorous Clowns

and Lore of the Vampire.

Both were walk-through haunted houses with live actors. The Carnival of Carnivorous Clowns was a more colorful haunted house filled with halls of mirrors and several jump-out moments. The Lore of the Vampire was a split-level haunted house much more typical of what you might expect. Very dark, more good jump-out moments, lots of smoke, lots of blood. It was entertaining, especially with the screams from my sister-in-law Dawn.

We ended up the day with the rides that get you soaked because we knew from past experience how miserable it was to walk around all day in wet clothes. The most enjoyable of these was a newer ride, the ThunderHawk.

From the official website description “After being lifted to a height of nearly 60 feet, ThunderHawk’s gondola will invert, passing riders through a shooting fountain, while rotating in a circular motion both forwards and backwards.” The biggest portion of the ride finds you doing 5 complete somersaults as you get closer and closer to the spraying fountains until, on the last flip, you are drenched with water. We did this a few times in a row to close the night off and had a long wet ride home. It was so very much worth it, however!

What a wonderful way to celebrate both Haley’s birthday (a few weeks late) and the beginning of October!

It is unbelievable… September has passed and it is October 1st. I love the month of October. I know that you already know that but I just had to mention it again. October is the month for unabashedly embracing frightful things. The temperature gets cooler, the nights are increasingly more dark, and Halloween is on its way. Am I excited about October? I’ll let the fact that I planned out things I could post this month approximately two months ago be my answer.

I revelled in Halloween as a child and I still have a great fondness for the holiday as an adult. It is this month of the year that my thoughts turn to Poe and Stoker, Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, and of course how I’m going to carve my pumpkins this year.

October is also major league baseball playoffs. I did not grow up a fan of baseball but as an adult I’ve developed a real passion for the sport, most especially during the playoffs/World Series. Other than the NFL there are no better playoffs in my opinion. The stadiums rock and you can feel the energy even as you sit in front of the idiot box. This year there is a wonderful foretaste of the playoffs in the American League Wild Card race between the Yankees and Red Sox. Last night’s Yankees/Red Sox game was reminiscent of last year’s ALCS…the best playoff series that I have ever seen, bar none. October baseball is incredible!

Things of a macabre, spooky, chilling and mysterious nature will dominate my posts this month. There are a whole list of likes and passions that I have waited to post on simply because they fit better thematically in the month of October. I’m very excited about blogging this month. Not all posts will be this way but many of them will be. There are birthdays, baseball, and other non-scary things that I will also post about this month. I hope you all enjoy the month with me and throughout the month that you take the opportunity to share the things that give you thrills, chills, and goosebumps. In the spirit of the month I’ve made a rather crude Halloweenish banner to head the blog. This may change and evolve throughout the month. Included is Ingrid Pitt from The House That Dripped Blood and of course the Corpse Bride.
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True to my word, on a non-horrifying note (I hope) I’d like to wish my brother-in-law John a very Happy Birthday. I went to college with John and worked with him an entire semester not knowing that he had a sister. Mary was out of school that sememster and when she returned my roommate and I mistakingly thought she was John’s girlfriend when she came up and hugged him one morning at lunch. Thankfully she wasn’t and the rest (as far as I go) is history.

John shares his father’s unique sense of humor (read corny) and couples it with a love of movies, games, etc that is very similar to my own (I must admit that I too have a corny sense of humor as those who rode to and from Chicago with me can testify). John and his family have recently moved to the Kansas City area and its great to have them close. Throughout the years I haven’t been able to spend alot of time with John so its been nice to catch movies and go out to lunch lately. Despite the usual stereotypes about in-laws I am fortunate to be blessed with ones that I love and enjoy and John is a terrrific brother-in-law. Please join me in wishing him a very happy, blessed October birthday!

Kansas Citians awoke to cool weather this morning thanks to overnight lows that dipped into the 40’s. This excited me as I was able to pull my leather jacket (a gift from Scott on one of my early NYC trips) out of the closet for the first time this fall season. I absolutely love this coat. It is still in great shape after all these years, is very heavy, and just feels great when I have it on. I was so excited to be able to wear it this morning. Overnight lows in the lower 40’s tonight means I get to wear it in the morning again! I’m such a goof…I love fall!!!

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James and Jeff and I went to see Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride last night (my second time). Some others have posted after seeing it and I’m curious if any of the rest of you have seen it. If so I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can post them in the comments here or back on the Corpse Bride post.
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Today’s fall weather joy was tinged with sadness when I learned of the death of Jerry Juhl this past Monday from complications with cancer. Jerry Juhl was the head writer for The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock and other Henson productions and was essentially the number two creative force behind the Muppets right behind Jim Henson. Juhl had a hand in creating many of the beloved Muppet characters, most especially The Great Gonzo. I’ve mentioned briefly in past posts that the Muppets were a big deal to me growing up and I have a real special bond to the quirky, bad-pun humor generated by the various Muppet characters. Jerry Juhl was responsible for a great deal of those memorable episodes. I still occasionally get sad when I think that Jim Henson is no longer with us as his creations were so wonderful and now I’ll add the death of Mr. Juhl to my sorrows. You can read a wonderful article about Jerry Juhl here. Of the many and varied bad, funny lines that Jerry Juhl wrote some of my favorites were spoken by Fozzie Bear. I am reprinting, without permission, these memorable Fozzie lines from the article I linked to above:

Why are crocodiles brown and flat?
Because if they were yellow and round, they’d be lemons.

What did the Momma Buffalo say to her child as he left for school?
Bison!

What did the German watch repairer say to his watch that would only go tick, tick, tick?
“Ve have vays of making you tock!”

What do you do with a wombat?
You play wom with it.

Why was the elephant standing on the marshmallow?
Because he didn’t want to fall in the hot chocolate.

Did you hear about the two antennas that got married?
The wedding was lousy, but the reception was great.

What’s red and smells like blue paint?
Red paint.

Goodbye Jerry, you will be missed.
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In the spirit of corny humor you need to go to this site and watch the recut trailer for the old Jack Nicholson/Stephen King movie, The Shining. It will take a slight bit to download. Wait for it, its hilarious and well worth it!

Wednesday, September 21st saw Jeff and I trekking across Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois on a the ultimate geek road trip: a 9 hour drive to attend Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys book signing. We talked like schoolgirls the entire way…without pausing to breathe…and the trip flew by.

Thursday morning we picked up Scott and that evening attended the book signing sponsored by Anderson’s Bookshop. It was a great evening. Neil read a chapter from Anansi Boys, answered questions, and then started signing books. I’ve heard Neil on interviews and CD’s and he has a nice, conversational tone that is a real pleasure to listen to. It was a great thrill to finally meet my favorite living author. Thankfully I had ordered my tickets early and Scott, Jeff and I were numbers 11, 12, and 13 in line so we were in and out of the event in no time. A fact that was doubly important since Jeff ended up taking the wrong exit and I got confused about where we were on the map and navigated us to Indiana on our way back to Jeff’s sister-in-law’s house.

(A rather ghostly image of my chubby self chatting with Neil as he signs my books)

(As predicted Neil was dressed in black with leather jacket and his trademark mop of black hair)

I got 3 things signed including my copy of Stardust which is also signed by the artist Charles Vess so I was extremely pleased. It was all that I hoped for.
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Friday Jeff’s wife Keri joined us as we hit several used bookstores, Chicago Comics, and did some touristy things. Despite his personal ban on going to bookstores until he reduces his book pile Scott managed to come away with a few items. Keri was the big winner as far as number of volumes, however. I had a rather
serendipitous moment in one store. For years I have looked for a science fiction book that had the word ‘stars’ in the title. It was a book I always wanted to read from my uncle’s shelf when I was a kid and I could remember very well what the cover looked like. I had mistakingly always thought it was The Stars, My Destination by Alfred Bester. I was telling Jeff the story and I pulled a copy of Isaac Asimov’s book The Stars, Like Dust off the shelf…nope, not it. I then saw another copy and pulled it off and in mid sentence of my story said “…and oh my gosh this is it!” Very exciting!
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(Jeff and Keri waiting for the “L”)

The sky was cloudy and the temperatures were in the upper 60’s on Friday, perfect weather for walking around the city. We walked through Millenium Park. I’m not always impressed with the large sculptures that cities choose to display but I really liked the Bean.

(An interesting shot taken from inside the bean)

We also wandered around the Navy Pier area which was very nice. A dislike of ferris wheels kept the group from riding, but it was one of the neat things that could be done at the Navy Pier.

From the pier you could see a really nice skyline view of downtown Chicago.

We looked through some art galleries and, true to our childlike natures, ended up in a very large mall for the sole purpose of shopping in the Lego store. If you’ve never been they are very cool as there are several large pieces made entirely of Legos. In addition to Darth Vader, R2-D2, a giant snake and a dinosaur there was this large spider.

and Scott found a friend.

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I haven’t been to any other major league ballparks besides here in Kansas City so I was thrilled that we had the opportunity on Saturday to attend a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Jeff’s brother-in-law Terry escorted us to the game and with inexpensive standing-room-only tickets we were able to get inside and ended up with great seats.

I love the history of Wrigley Field including the fact that the scoreboard is still largely done by hand.

The game was rain delayed mid-way through the 7th inning with the Cubs down 5-3 to the Houston Astros. Our schedule didn’t allow us to stay and that was probably a good thing. When the rain finally let up and they resumed play the Astros wound up with an 8-3 victory.

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And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for…the explanation of the mysterious picture on yesterdays filler post:

Saturday Evening we attended a show at Lookingglass Theatre.

Set in the heart of downtown Chicago in the old Water Tower Water Works building, Lookinglass Theatre seeks to make theatre more accessible by putting on productions in a more intimate space. The theatre seats a maximum of 270 people, allowing a very up-close theatre experience.

(The wooden structure was removed for the performace we attended)

Lookinglass Theatre was started by a number of people including David Schwimmer (of Friends). Its purpose is to use theatre, dance, music and the circus arts to put on productions that “redefine the limits of theatrical experience and to make theatre exhilarating, inspirational, and accessible to all.”

Scott used his connections to obtain tickets to the sold out showing of Hephaestus.

Hephaestus features world-class circus artists including: members of the Wallenda family, former members of Cirque du Soleil, Ringling Bros. and Blue Man Group in a circus that will amaze and exhilarate the whole family.

In this circus retelling of the Greek myth, Hephaestus, the son of Hera, was born disfigured and cast out of the heavens. He falls to earth and becomes a great artist fashioning beautiful jewelry and even men out of metal. Using the elements of circus, theatre, live music, and dance, the story follows the God of the Forge as he meets underwater sea nymphs, creates men out of pure steel, and ultimately falls in love with the most beautiful of the gods.

In the link above you can click on this picture:

to see a Quicktime video that shows some of the acts in rehearsal which will give you a small taste of this wonderful production. It was tremendous to see the performances. Each character in the mythological tale performed their own unique act. The lighting, music, intimacy of the space and talent of the performers made for a magical evening. Mythology is always fascinating and to see it interpreted this way was incredible. The contortionist (Aphrodite) and Sea-nymphs were personal favorites but each energetic, acrobatic performance was unique and jaw-dropping. If this piece ever travels I highly encourage you to attend.

As Scott pointed out a show based on greek mythology made a perfect bookend to a Neil Gaiman weekend seeing as how he often mines folklore and mythology for stories. Well done!

And that was Chicago. It was wonderful to get some of my friends together to meet for the first time and we enjoyed the hospitality extended to us by Jill and Terry. Thank you all.

Just wanted you to rest assured that the absence of a Chicago post isn’t because Neil Gaiman asked me to accompany him on the rest of his book tour.

The details of our trip will be revealed later this afternoon or this evening. Included will be an explanation of the above picture. Thanks for your patience.