This is Otherland!
This is Halloween, this is Halloween
Pumpkins scream in the dead of night
This is Halloween, everybody make a scene
Trick or treat 'til the neighbors gonna die of fright
It's our town, everybody scream
In this town of Halloween
*evil grinning* hehehe I guess y’all have a catchy tune now, that’ll keep you humming through our whole spooky October newsletter! Finally, the time has come, the favorite night of ghouls, witches, killer clowns and werewolves is peeking around the corner, and (as you can see from our, often quite horror-heavy newsletters) there are some members of the Otherland crew who like nothing better than scary stories. On the night of October 31st to November 1st, the veil between the worlds is particularly thin, so why go out into the wild autumn night and accidentally get sacrificed in an ancient ritual, when you can make yourself really comfortable at home... equipped with all kinds of limited-edition extra creepy food, a hot bathtub with an orange bath bomb or even in your cozy bed - complete with bat/pumpkin fairy lights. And, of course, a damn good book to really celebrate the evening.
You’ll face so many exciting tips today that your fake vampire teeth will fly out of your mouth in shock. By the way, if you're not in the mood for black-orange or purple-green, just keep scrolling, this newsletter has a lot more to offer, this time with extra meta, thanks to review machine Tom. The rest: Take my Thing T. (Since when is my hand detached from my body??) and watch out, there’s an open grave on our way into the haunted fair:
Let's start with the all-time favorite, “Nightmare Before Christmas”. Not only do we offer the Tim Burton-illustrated edition, but we have also a nice tarot deck with all the characters. So if you do want to challenge this special night, please do it in style. If you're already sufficiently stocked up, did you know that an official sequel was released in 2022? "Long Live the Pumpkin Queen", written by Shea Shaw, takes us back to Halloween Town and puts Sally at the center of the story. Somewhat old school are the more sinister works of the famous Ray Bradbury, who was apparently also particularly fond of Halloween, as it is central to "The Halloween Tree", "Something wicked this way comes" and "The October Country". Other classic Halloween books include Washington Irwin's "Sleepy Hollow" from 1820, "Scary Stories to tell in the Dark" by Alvin Schwartz (including disturbing drawings, which will haunt you forever) and Agatha Christie's "Halloween Party". If you want more culture, I recommend the poetry collection "Poems bewitched and haunted" by John Hollander, which spans three thousand years of literary history from Homer and Poe to Baudelaire and Emily Dickinson. Another colorful anthology is "This is Halloween" by James A. Moore, appropriately with an evil grinning pumpkin on the cover. But there are also a few other books in which the festival is not the main character, but provides a spooky setting: "Kill Creek" by Scott Thomas and "Pine" by Francine Toon are both set on this night, but are also otherwise great autumn reads that will make your skin crawl on any other day as well.
By the way, if you're one of the lucky ones who dresses up and goes to a party: a book fits in every handbag and sweetens your way through the underground labyrinth of the subways......
Have a nice holiday, dance around the fire or cozy evening,
Werewolf-Esther and the Zombies, Astronauts and Wizards of the Otherland.
