Halloween Issue
Halloween Issue
Want to learn the history of Halloween in a witch's own words? Via a Web page, copied from a newsgroup, copied from a BBS, perhaps this is not straight from the witch's mouth but it is an interesting FAQ, complete with source references, to the ancient history of Hallowtide. Another page here contains over 80 links to related and unrelated sites, but you're as likely as not to end up playing Web tag in a vicious circle of contentless linked pages. Stick with us. We're professionals. "http://aztec.lib.utk.edu/~michie/hallorig.html"
The USA CityLink Project, a collection of American cities on the Web, has specially constructed the virtual city of Booville for the Halloween season. The city metaphor effectively links you to a bevy of fright-night Net sites via headings such as "What to See", "What to Do", etc. The copy is amusing and the links useful, but Booville's economy must rely on the service industries: the site lacks original content. If you're looking for eerie entertainment, this is an effective and amusing introduction to the spooky stuff on the Net. "http://www.neosoft.com/citylink/boo/main.html"
THERE LIVED AN UNDEAD STUDENT, NAMED BOB.
This is an archive of a totally weird comic strip called "The After Life of Bob". This comes from Canada, where the long, cold winters must mean spending too much time inside in the dark. The weekly strip is published by The GateWay, a student newspaper at the University of Alberta, and, despite its amateur status, matches up with the best out there. Caution, though - downloading from this site may capture your soul, and will certainly capture your IP address in the logs (peek if you must). "http://web.cs.ualberta.ca/~davidw/ALoB/bob.cgi"
BOB BOUGHT A HALLOWEEN COSTUME FOR TRICK-OR-TREATING
Still searching for that hard-to-find body part? Just can't get a hold of that much-needed severed head? Not to worry: the Web can deliver body bits as well as data bits. The Halloween Mart and Tombstone Productions both offer vast selections of seasonal weirdness. Along with visceral props, both sites offer masks and costumes, some available for viewing, others left to your twisted imagination. The offerings run from high-end ensembles such as a $3,000 RoboCop costume to a gold lame Elvis outfit for just $35. You need to supply your own gut. Of course, real undead make their costumes from scratch. Halloween Mart: "http://www.accessnv.com/halloween/" Tombstone Productions: "http://empire.na.com/tomb/tombhp.html"
Every Halloween for 22 years, Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, Calif., has transformed into Knott's Scary Farm to host a huge party with literally hundreds of hideous monsters to scare you witless. You can have an unofficial backstage look at the shebang through the eyes Mike Strong, who played a vampire for three years. See steb by step how monsters are made or take a limited virtual tour of the setup. A complete tour is promised for next year. What else is new? "http://lucky.biomol.uci.edu/"
TO GET IN THE MOOD, BOB WATCHED SOME HORROR FLICKS
The Web's a great place to find others with the same weird obsessions you have. It's so comforting to know you're not alone. And no-one should be alone when watching any of the movies listed at Horror Haven. A self-proclaimed horror movie buff since childhood, Tammy Kearns has arranged a text listing of 20 old classics (Dracula, Psycho, Night of the Living Dead), 20 new classics (Alien, Halloween, The Shining, Rosemary's Baby), a Die Laughing set (The Brain That Wouldn't Die), the gorefest best (Hellraiser, Re-Animator, Scanners) and a category she calls Grim Remnants. A short storyline for each would've been nice, but having seen nearly all these flicks ourselves, we can say there's not a loser in the bunch. "http://www.magicnet.net/~tkearns/horror.html"
The glow of the VDT replaces the glow of the campfire for those gathered round the alt.folklore.ghost-stories newsgroup. Home to academics, psychics, the curious, and the spooked, the group offers tales of hags, spirits, and other denizens of the land of the not-quite-dead. The stories are true, or so claim some tellers. True or tall, the tales will make you think twice about ghosts in your machine. If bloodsuckers - or blood - are more your taste, spread those bat wings and flap over to alt.books.anne-rice, the electronic watering hole for vampire wannabes. It sports poetry, "speculation stories", and Anne Rice fang - er, fan news. Questions like "If you were made into a vampire, whose blood would you drink first?" have to make you stop and think. Or drink.
BOB SAID GOODBYE TO HIS MUMMY AND HEADED INTO THE STREETS.
Two days after Halloween, Mexicans celebrate the Day of the Dead. The Museo de las Momias (the Museum of the Mummies) is a site that nicely frames the spooky picture of Mexican death fascination. Dan Harrison describes in words and pictures his visit to the museum in Guanajuato, Mexico. The corpses there have been so well preserved by the "magical" soil that they've been exhumed and put on display. Good incentive to check out the real thing. "http://www.sirius.com/~dbh/momias.html"
HE HEARD A DISTANT CHORUS SINGING SONGS OF HOLIDAY CHEER.
Our editor spent four brutally interesting years living in Rice University's Wiess College, four Halloween evenings of which were spent pumpkin caroling around the campus. You too can experience the sublime - visit the Wiess College page, download the lyrics, get a group together, and go serenade the neighbors. The tunes are all familiar Christmas carols, and it's pretty obvious which lyrics follow which tune. There's also a description of the traditional route around the campus, but this is a waste of time unless you know the university. For some reason, people are really confused by this behavior. "http://riceinfo.rice.edu/projects/colleges/wiess/traditions/pumpkin.html"
BOB PASSED BY THE LOCAL CEMETERY
Dress in black and take a tour of the World Wide Cemetery, "a place where Internet users, their family and friends, can erect permanent monuments to our dead." If you have a dear departed who deserves to be immortalized in virtual reality, here's your chance. You can even leave flowers at the monument. After all, as the sweetly sincere home page owners point out, the WWW "is an ideal place to announce the loss of someone we cherish and to erect a permanent monument to their memory." Just hope the network doesn't crash. "http://www.io.org/cemetery/"
AND RAN INTO A DEAD PERSON, OF CORPSE.
If you're into the body beautiful, you'll love the Interactive Volume Browser. Sound boring? It consists of an all-too-realistic human corpse, including a hauntingly dead face, negotiable through a variety of views: up/down; left/right; zoom in/pull out. Not exactly the right site for kids, unless you want them to have nightmares, but it could enliven a dull party. Note that the data upon which this site is built is the same cryosectioned guy mentioned in Netsurfer Digest vol. 1, no. 33. "http://www.scp.caltech.edu/~mep/ivb.html"
THE STREETS WERE FRAUGHT WITH VAMPIRES,
Brad Middleton, alias Vlad III, has assembled Vampyres Only, an impressive and comprehensive collection of vampire resources. Among the pages of what is clearly a labor of love, you'll find lists of books and movies, FAQs, author interviews, shareware games, even gothic fonts. Dig deeper for vampire mailing lists and recipes for "vampiric drinks". If you have any energy left, visit the Pointe du Lac Gallery with its photos and art, or sit down for a disturbing read among the vampiric e-fiction. Before you leave, you may want to try the Vampire Vulnerability Test, just to see if you need to worry. "http://www.vampyre.wis.net/vampyre/index.html"
If you desire a more serious historical approach to the subject of witchcraft, look no further than Joan's Witch Directory. This site includes everything from the history of witch persecution to witches in art. There are plenty of interesting reference materials and suggestions as to why witches were singled out for elimination during the Middle Ages. "http://www.ucmb.ulb.ac.be/~joan/witches/intro.html"
The Zombie Death Dungeon features zombie pics, a dancing zombie MPEG, and some prose. The writing entertains and the images are, ummm, unflattering to the zombies. "http://www.gnli.com:80/zombie/index.htm"
AND SKELETONS PERFORMING IMPOSSIBLE ACTS.
The skeletons can be found in glorious red, white, and black at the Den of the Dead. This page has links to many of our other featured sites and a few more, including a handful of useful Halloween party hints. While not spectacularly designed, the inline images are worth a gander, especially those skeletons. A similar page is Trix's Halloween-O-Webbery, which like the Den of the Dead, features spooky stories. Dead: "http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~anschutz/dead.html" Trix: "http://www.primenet.com/~trix/hallo.htm"
THERE WAS A MAN NAMED FRANK N. FURTER
Frank N. Furter, of course, was the sweet transvestite from Transylvania played by Tim Curry in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Here's a page for that site with links to others of the ilk. "http://www.uta.fi/~cstivi/rocky.html"
AND STRANGE BEINGS PIERCED WITH METAL.
Erotic. Bizarre. Sublime. Downright weird. These adjectives can all be easily assigned to "The Ugly", a Web page chock full o' links to Web sites that may alternately offend and titillate netsurfers. This page is definitely not for the weak of disposition. It's replete with links to horror, sex, UFO, and body modification sites, the latter dealing with body piercing, tattooing, radical decapitation, and the like. It's the perfect site for a bit of macabre surfing on All Hallow's Eve, as long as three criteria are met: get the kids off the computer; don some fine leather goods; and put a sweat-guard on the mouse. "http://www.trident.nettuno.it/~ugly/"
ONE HOUSE'S DOOR STOOD AJAR, SO BOB PEERED IN.
Gint's Haunted House puts netsurfers in the endangered shoes of a private detective investigating an acrid smell permeating an old, abandoned house. The odor, unfortunately for our brave detective, is the palpable smell of death. This expedition resembles the old Infocom games that led players through mazes in which one wrong move resulted in a grisly death, usually by something like high explosives or tractors. The good thing about a Web game of this nature is that reincarnation is only a click of the back button away. In any event, this mystery is a welcome bit of diversion. Beware the knob of death, children, beware! "http://www.dash.com:80/netro/fun/hol/hlw.html"
ON THE WAY NEXT-DOOR, BOB HEARD A LOUD NOISE
This page is really great: everything you could ever want in a totally spooky experience. Best of all, it has some great scary noises. Our fave was the evil laugh (echo and everything!), worth every irretrievable instant of the over three minutes we had to wait for it to download. Choose between spooky pictures, QuickTime movies, sounds, stories, and anything else you could possibly want if you're into Halloween. Definitely worth a look. "http://www.globalone.net/users/joujou/scary.htm"
AND TURNED TO SEE A GIANT PUMPKIN OF MALICIOUS INTENT.
This is the home of giant pumpkins. We're talking 900-pounders, the kind Cinderella used, seriously large squash. Howard Dill, a Canadian farmer, developed the Atlantic Giant variety pumpkin and now offers seeds to hobbyists and competitive pumpkin growers via the Internet. There's also story here about mysterious lights and, if you just happen to have an ant problem, there's a recipe for their destruction via internal explosion you might be interested in. That's kinda frightening, especially if you're an ant. "http://www.ips.ca/ibp/neat_things/"
HE RAN INTO A NEARBY HAUNTED HOUSE
Though Dallas is scary enough on its own (keep those cards and letters coming), head eastward if you really want to have to change undies. In the little town of Forney, you'll find the Haunted Verdun Mansion, a 7,000-sq-ft antebellum home which just happens to be filled to the roof with werewolves and other monsters. There are some good photos of the special effects and the mansion itself, in case you can't make it to Texas. Make sure to check out the Wolf Studios home page for more about the creators. "http://www.webcom.com/~verdun/verdun.html"
WHICH LED HIM STRAIGHT INTO THE INFERNO.
If you're wandering weak and weary, here's a site that's not too dreary. Called the "Ninth Circle of Hell", it's stuffed with Dante Alighieri's "The Inferno" and a nice little gallery of images by Vallejo, Nagel, and some Japanese anime. Links teleport you to the opuses of Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker. If you've been waiting for the right moment to finally descend into the Inferno, your prayers have been answered. "http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~thomass/index.html"
THE SIGHTS HORRIFIED HIS EYES,
It's so cool and so detailed and so thoughtfully done. But, oh, it's so slow over our measly 14.4 kbps modems. Too bad everyone doesn't have their own fractional T1 line. The Nightmare Gallery contains 416 gothic/horror pics gleaned from alt.binaries.pictures.misc and arranged into a virtual walk-through gallery with art adorning the very lovely ray-traced walls. Interesting enough images, but like all museums, it takes too long to cover thoroughly. "http://thomas.balliol.ox.ac.uk/gallery2/index.html"
THE SOUNDS ASSAULTED HIS EARS,...
Phantasmagoria! is a Pennsylvania Halloween event with a Web presence of limited value with one exception - the Phantasmagoria Graveyard. This horror page offers scores of sound files of mood music, creepy effects, and movie and television dialogue and themes. There are also film clips, shareware, and pics, all of the pertinent genre though some lean to the humorous or satirical. The page's graphics are stunningly superb, and we advise hitting the "Back to Phantasmagoria!" button if only to check out the graphics used in the rest of the site. "http://mandrake.lib.lehigh.edu/"
AND THE EXPERIENCE NAUSEATED HIM TO THE POINT OF VOMITUS MAXIMUS.
The Vomitus Maximus Museum is an online collection of the works of San Francisco-born artist RS Connett. As you might guess, this site contains some pretty disturbing imagery brought forth from the depths of Connett's subconscious, and all the standard disclaimers about parental guidance and weak stomachs most definitely apply - in short, Vomitus Maximus Grossimus Outimus. Those brave hearts who make the journey will learn why this controversial artist has been met with reactions varying from revulsion to morbid fascination. Don't forget to pass by the Vomitus Gift Shoppe to pick up a severed head for the kidlets. "http://www.vomitus.com/vomitus/"
BOB ENTERED A STRANGE CABINET HE FOUND THERE
If your thoughts have turned to the horror genre, the Cabinet of Dr. Casey will fill all your dark longings for fright. Want to see a map featuring every known fictional reference to your home state in a horror movie or story? Look at the Horror Atlas. How about a historical timeline detailing every horror-related event from the 15th century on? The graphics and audio archives thoughtfully include brief text descriptions of the files. Also on hand are excerpts from recent horror novels, newsgroup links, and Tales from the Internet, where unpublished authors can weave their magic. "http://www.cat.pdx.edu/~caseyh/horror/index.html"
WHICH, A LA CS LEWIS, RESCUED HIM FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE WEB.
Although administered by a rude, arrogant webmistress, Dark Side of the Web is the best collection of links to various depressive and dank pages, ranging from "Cemeteries, Funeral Homes and Death" to 94 Gothic sites alone. The Halloween entries have something for everyone, including "Halloween Fun for Kids" with great recipes, games, stories, and decorating ideas for creating a non-virtual haunted house. This is the truly THE one-stop center for all your macabre needs. But be forewarned, my pretty - this site could keep you tied up 'til well past the witching hour. "http://www.cascade.net/darkweb.html"
BACK HOME, BOB DECIDED TO SEE HOW MUCH CANDY HE'D AMASSED
Oh boy, this is more than a little scary. Alphabetized candy bar wrappers. This Robert Batina guy must have a friendly dentist. If you have a wrapper that he lacks, then e-mail him; he's really keen to hear from you! To quote Robert, "I plan on doing this until I die. (seriously)". All in all, it's not a bad obsession, at least it has the perk of some chocolate thrown in, which is never a bad thing. It's not a pretty page but it sure makes you think, and get the munchies. Robert's must be the most popular house in the neighborhood come trick-or-treat, unless he gives out unwrapped candy bars. "http://www.infinet.com/~rbatina/other/candy.html"
BUT, SOMEHOW, THE PEZ SEEMED FOREBODING.
If you think PEZ is just a wholesome, harmless toy/candy product, think again. Visit here for photographic evidence (including two versions of the skull PEZ dispenser) and numerological analysis of the dark side of PEZ. While humorously annotated, even funnier are quotes from the four unfortunate PEZ defenders who e-mailed the author with protests. This is a small site, so hop along on the pointer to the larger world of either more normal or more naive PEZ afficionados. "http://redwood.northcoast.com/~shojo/PEZ/pez.html"
AT LAST BOB FELL ASLEEP, WORRIED ABOUT GHOSTS,
So is June Houston. Strange sounds surround and frighten her when she's alone. Her Ghostwatcher page employs several netcams in the search for ghosts under her bed and in her storage trunks. Lend June an eye or two for the cause. "http://www.users.interport.net/~fly/Houston/GhostWatcher/index.html"
AND HAD NIGHTMARES OF BANDWIDTH-SUCKING MONSTERS.
Here's a nice page. It had better be, for the time it takes to load. The Night Gallery features categories like "Stuff I Wrote" (scary), "The Rude Things in My Fridge" (scarier), and "Body Music" (scariest). Yes, the last comes complete with sound files contributed by a number of volunteers. We can't say enough glowingly good or ferociously bad things about this site, nor, possibly, about its maintainer, Kevin Greggain. "http://www.wbm.ca/users/kgreggai/index1.html"
Netsurfer Digest Home Page: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/index.html
Netsurfer Digest FTP Site: ftp://ftp.netsurf.com/pub/nsd/
Subscribe WWW form: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/subscribe.html
Subscribe E-mail: nsdigest-request@netsurf.com
Include one of the following commands in the BODY of the
message:
HTML Format version: subscribe nsdigest-html
Plain ASCII version: subscribe nsdigest-text
Submission of Newsworthy Items: pressrm@netsurf.com
Letters to the Editor: editor@netsurf.com
Advertiser and Sponsor inquiries to: sales@netsurf.com
Netsurfer Communications: http://www.netsurf.com/
General Information: info@netsurf.com
NETSURFER DIGEST © 1995 Netsurfer Communications, Inc.
All rights reserved.
NETSURFER DIGEST is a trademark of Netsurfer Communications, Inc.