Happy birthday to jinjifore! May you have a wonderful day and an excellent year to come.


Stolen from the wonderful sneezythesquid, here's ideal listening/viewing for your Halloween season: Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains."


And now, on with the show…

Links of the Day: I hope you enjoy these recommendations from those in the know:

* Revolution Science Fiction's "Geek Gift Guide to Halloween" (Those wacky RevSF writers have chosen a few areas where they can help you geekify your Halloween.)

* Serendipity's Hallowe'en Reading List (Here are suggestions of books for tiding you over this Samhain from a new online journal of magical realism.)


Literature of the Day: This is a dark and mournful poem that delivers the chills.

"All Soul’s Night" (1907)
By Dora Sigerson Shorter

O mother, mother, I swept the hearth, I set his chair
and the white board spread,
I prayed for his coming to our kind Lady when Death's
doors would let out the dead;

A strange wind rattled the window-pane, and down the
lane a dog howled on,
I called his name and the candle flame burnt dim, pressed
a hand the door-latch upon.

Deelish! Deelish! my woe forever that I could not sever
coward flesh from fear.
I called his name and the pale ghost came; but I was
afraid to meet my dear.


O mother, mother, in tears I checked the sad hours past
of the year that's o'er,
Till by God's grace I might see his face and hear the
sound of his voice once more;

The chair I set from the cold and wet, he took when he
came from unknown skies
Of the land of the dead, on my bent brown head I felt
the reproach of his saddened eyes;

I closed my lids on my heart's desire, crouched by the fire,
my voice was dumb.
At my clean-swept hearth he had no mirth, and at my
table he broke no crumb.

Deelish! Deelish! my woe forever that I could not sever
coward flesh from fear.
His chair put aside when the young cock cried, and I
was afraid to meet my dear.