Halloween Countdown Film #23... Poltergeist

 

Dr. Lesh...

Some people believe that when you die there is a wonderful light. As bright as the sun but it doesn't hurt to look into it. All the answers to all the questions you want to know are inside that light. And when you walk to it... you become a part of it forever. Now, some people die, but they don't know they're gone.

 

Poltergeist

 

 This ghost story had a fabulous cast! JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Beatrice Straight, Zelda Rubinstein, and Richard Lawson! It's classic 1980's Steven Spielberg shtick, not as much in the scares and thrills, but rather spotting references to his other films. Let's see, there's a nod to Jaws, ET, Close Encounters Of The First Kind, A Guy Named Joe, which of course, wasn't a Spielberg film but, Always, which was based on, A Guy Named Joe, was, and can be seen on the tv in the Freeling home. But as 1980's ghost stories go it's amazing, with some, jump off the screen frights, but there are a lot of predictable ones too. It was always disappointing that this genre of movie had to show a gross scene to give itself relevance, but that was the 80's! It's a good movie, with a strangely poignant story, and I am glad that I just have to watch it, several times a year!

 

Bonus! Here is an interesting read about spookiness on and off the set of, Poltergeist. Did You know there was a curse surrounding the film? Is it an urban legend, or was it real? 

 

The Poltergeist Curse...

 Inside The Mysterious Cast Deaths And Oddities On The Set

 

 

Lasters Of The Twilight

"Home-comer, hitcher, phantom, rider

White lady wants what's been denied her,

Gather grim knows what you fear most,

But keep away from the crossroads ghost.

Talk to the poltergeist, talk to the haunt,

Talk to the routewitch if it's what you want.

Reaper's in the parlor, seizer's in a host

But you'd best keep away from the crossroad's ghost."

~Seanne McGuire

The Girl In The Green Silk Gown

I used to be terrified of cemeteries. I never went to funerals. I didn't even attend my own father's funeral, because my mother insisted on an open casket, but the older I get, and closer to my own deep long sleep I get, I not only don't fear all things death, I can actually see the beauty in the hereafter! I love ghost stories, and I would think I would get the otherworldly chills, while photographing cemeteries, but no, I have never felt that spooky autumn giddiness, of believing a ghost is looking over my shoulder. I have been in the presence of something otherworldly once or twice, in my life, and let me tell you, it left a lasting impression.

 Alan and I have been together, more than once, when we were sure something unseen was nearby, and my friend Judith and I could feel a ghost, or spirit, or something anyway, sitting behind us, while we were on a ride in her car one night! One moment we were talking, and singing with the radio, the next moment we both stopped, turned, and looked over our shoulders into the back seat of the car. Then we looked at each other, and confirmed that we had both felt something felt like it was sitting in the seat behind us, but it was just a feeling, no specter actually appeared, but let me tell you, the feeling was quite frightening, and I never forgot how it felt!

Still, I don't fear that feeling as much as I once did! I would rather not be haunted, because that would mean that someone was perhaps lonely, or unhappy! I want everyone, alive or dead, to be able to have peace in their life, afterlife, soul, and mind! That's the ideal way to maneuver through your existence, right? In whatever plane of existence you happen to be in, one has a right to be happy, or at least content! Right? 

I think I have come to terms with the inevitability of my own death one day. I am okay with it. I don't want the adventure to begin tomorrow mind you, but I am okay with the future of my natural end, and walking about cemeteries while alive only makes it all the more understandable. So, I will continue grabbing my camera, and doing photos of cemeteries, because I have a real interest in the history of those who came before me!

Hey, perhaps one day someone with a camera, will see my monument and think to themselves, she really loved autumn, because if I have my way, my ghost will be caught on camera, leaning next to a really beautiful autumn leaf filled tree, with a plastic candy pumpkin in my withered ghostly hands, as I will be whispering... booooooooooo mutherfucker! Hopefully my orb or some willowy, misty, shape will appear on a national ghost hunting show, wouldn't that be awesome?

 I'd really like that!

So, I think I will continue to haunt cemeteries!

#36 Leaf Of The Day

October 26th, 2018

Cull Canyon, California

Photographed October 25th, 2018

Nikon

~Mood: Quiet

~Me

 

October Dust Jackets In February

"Two guys, a goat and a ghost: A love story based on true events that may or may not be false.

 Who doesn't love a good goat story?"

~Jarod Kintz

This Book Is Not FOR SALE

I went out the other night to do an errand, and happened upon this scene. It's the wall of a store I frequent, that also happens to be covered in a vine, which is bright colored with autumn leaves, when it is autumn, but when it's winter, takes on a dull, deep brown/green deathly color. The tree to the right is a Liquid Amber, but under the street lamp, it appears to have a rather ghostly look and presence. It's so pale that one would expect to see a ghost sitting in it, if your imagination is anything like mine. But really, I ask you, how many ghosts sit in trees? That's not very likely is it? No, probably not. But when I finished editing this photo, I thought maybe I would see what it would look like if a ghost were to sit on one of the pale branches. I mean, maybe that is a whole untapped area of ghost fiction. Tree sitting ghosts! Just imagine. You move into a dream home, which you purchase off the Internet, of course, and everything is fine, except for the fact that the Liquid Amber tree in the front yard is HAUNTED!

Here is how the dust jacket might look...

Now, if I could just figure out why the ghost is sitting in the tree!

1. Does the ghost have a better view of something?

2. Does the ghost long for October as much as I do?

3. Does the ghost miss the color of autumn leaves, 

when all the trees look so pale?

4. Is the ghost an actual haunting, or is she a residual haunting?

5. Is it really a ghost? Or is it just a bit of wispy fog that got stuck between some branches?

6. Does the tree sitting specter scream or moan?

7. Does the ghost ever venture forth into the house?

8. Does the ghost ever stare, with it's spooky dead eyes, into the windows of the Internet house?

 

 Am I really the ghost, because of my haunting

 of my favorite trees?

As with most ghost stories, there are more questions than answers. 

 

 One more, just for fun, for the sequel.

Care to share? If you were to write a ghost story,

 based on these two dust jackets, what would the story be?

 Why is there a ghost in the trees?

 Please feel free to share your thoughts on this.

Mood: Happy But Curious

~Me :)

 

A Photo A Day For 6 Months: Day 140~ A Face In The Crowd

"Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic."

~Frank Herbert

 

Do you see what I see? Do you see that little woman with the red curly hair? When I looked at this lifeless little dahlia, I saw a little old grandma with reddish/brown hair. When I first showed this photo to Alan, he said he saw a Raggedy Ann doll. Alan gets the creeps from any kind of Raggedy Ann or Raggedy Andy dolls, so the dahlia really gave him the creeps.

I don't get the wiggins from Raggedy Ann or any random little grandmas with red hair, so I am not put off by it, but at the same time it's not like it's not weird that it so closely resembles a doll of some sort. Sometimes you can put such things down to the mind simply filling in details that your eyes can't focus on. And that can be good or bad.

When I was a little girl, a dear friend of my mother's showed up one afternoon with a surprise gift for me. It was a painting by Thomas Lawrence called, "Pinkie." It was a painting of young Sarah Goodin Barrett Moultin. She posed for the painting when she was about 11 years old, but unfortunately died a year or so later. Had she lived, she would have been the aunt of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

The painting, and the story behind it makes for interesting reading. But long before I had heard of the details of Sarah's life and demise, I had to admit... I HATED THAT PAINTING WITH A GREAT PASSION! In fact, it scared the SHIT out of me. I was pleasant to the lady who gave it to me, but I would have nothing of it actually hanging in my room. KICKING AND SCREAMING as I recall. My mother finally gave in and put it my parents bedroom, but it didn't work out there either.

 One night, about two weeks or so after my mother hung the painting in their bedroom, my dad got up in the middle of the night, took the painting off the wall, and hung it in the spare bedroom where my brother stayed when he was commuting between San Francisco and Sacramento. It didn't work out well in that room. A few nights later. my brother, again in the middle of the night, got up and took the painting off the wall, and set it next to the sofa in the living room. No questions were asked. We all knew it was a spooky painting.

Everyone except my mother, who insisted we were all full of beans, and had watched one too many Creature Features movies. She took it upon herself to hang Pinkie in the living room, coincidentally on the wall opposite the large brass mirror. The mirror my dad could see from the desk in his office.

Once again, in the middle of the night, my dad got up, this time from his desk where he had been working, walked to the living room, took the painting off the wall, and turned it around and hung it backwards toward the wall it was hanging on. I just happened to be passing through the room when he did it, and felt a good bit of satisfaction at seeing others feeling uneasy. There is safety in numbers... right?

"Well, it's just that the eyes kinda follow you around" said dad. "Yep." Said I.

The next day the picture was moved to Mom's plant room, where it hung for about 20 years or so. About a month later another coincidence took place... mom stopped watering her plants before bed, and started watering them first thing after breakfast each day. We never talked about it, but I am pretty sure Pinkie had finally gotten to her to, but being the good natured, respectful daughter that I was I never said... I TOLD YOU SO!

:)

Is creepy in the eye of the beholder? Is one man's creepy another man's beautiful? Is creepy subjective? Had we watched too many episodes of Creature Features? Were the eyes in the picture following us around the room? Was it all just our imaginations? Was it all just the power of suggestion? Was it a haunted painting?

I'm thinking... ummm... yes! And we will leave it at that.

Now, tell me, do you see the face in the dahlia? If so, do you find it cute or spooky/creepy?


 

"In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So, in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality."

~Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

~Me :)

Today's link comes from JR.

JR
http://jrclinephotography.blogspot.com/2012/09/apadf6-137.html

A Photo A Day For 6 Months: Day 33~ Alcatraz Never Dies

"Alcatraz was never no good to nobody."


~Frank Weatherman, the last inmate to leave Alcatraz


I can't believe I have lived in the Bay Area my whole life, and never been out to Alcatraz. That is a tour Alan and I want to take sometime, just not sure when. Maybe we will do that during our staycation in October, maybe we will save that for next year... we'll see. If we did do a tour, I would love to try a spooky haunted tour. That sounds like it would be a lot of fun.

Anyway, I saw on ABC World News that there is a new theory that the three prisoners who are believed to have been the only ones to have escaped THE ROCK, may not have perished as the authorities originally thought. New evidence seems to indicate at least two of them may have actually made it out of the chilly waters of the bay alive. All of them would be in their 80's now. If true, wouldn't that be something?

After I watched the story, I couldn't resist working a little photoshop magic on the photo above, which was taken in May of 2011. In the daytime, Alcatraz doesn't seem so foreboding, but I have read that at night, you can hear all the ghosts of THE ROCK, whispering and moaning. Spooky goodness I say! ;) Here ghostie, ghostie, ghostie!

See the links below to learn more about Alacatraz, and its fascinating history.

 Enjoy my Alcatraz Series...













ABC NEWS


The History Channel


About.com Haunting Stories About Alcatraz


Alcatraz History


This is day 33 of my new personal challenge of A Photo A Day For 6 Months. If you love photography, please feel free to join me. Grab your camera, post your photo on the net, then comeback here with the direct link back to it. I will include your link in tomorrow's posting. No set theme to worry about, just whatever grabs your attention in the next 24 hours.


:) See ya tomorrow!