Stardust!

I found this pamphlet the other day and it reminds me of a story I don't think I'd ever recounted before. Let me take you back to March 11, 2011, does this date ring a bell for anyone? For those living in Japan, it rang a lot of bells. That was the date of the mega-earthquake (and the accompanying tsunami and Nuclear mishaps, but those events aren't relevant to this tale, in fact I was ignorant of their occurrence.)

First a bit of background: I was teaching at a Day Care Centre at the time of the quake (14:46) and the kiddies I was "educating" were a bit of a rowdy bunch. I was writing something on the board and when I turned around, all the kids had disappeared (the scamps!) and I discovered them all hiding under the table. Then I discovered the reason for their burrowing, when the entire room began to rumble and shake back and forth. Those wee lads and lasses were way ahead of me in protecting themselves, must be that since they are closer to the ground, they felt the shock wave sooner. After ten minutes of wailing waifs, a co-worker and I decided to evacuate them to the ground floor.

Everyone was all right and since my evening class was definitely cancelled, I began my trek home. Fortunately, by a happy coincidence, I was just a stone's throw from home and returned in just fifteen minutes. Doubly fortunate, my apartment sustained minimal damage though dozens of my toys had fallen down including a Gamera that plummeted into my toilet.  ( You can read about that here.) It wasn't all smiles though for I had run out of kerosene that morning and had no way to heat my place. Also I didn't have any candles. Until I remembered my supply of Halloween candles. Is there anything that can't be made better by Halloween?

So I settled down, tucked under my blankets and began to read my book by candlelight. Every time I had to use the loo, I had to blow out my candles and use a flashlight because every half hour or so, there was an aftershock that shook my abode. The only other interruptions I suffered were the blaring of sirens several times an hour. I read Neil Gaiman's Stardust from beginning to end and loved every page of it.

Sorry for this little segue into my life, I just thought it was pertinent to the following pamphlet.

 

An amazing cast.

Behind the scenes.

In the middle of the pamphlet is an insert that included several photos from the film.

Since you can find a copy of the movie yourself, here is Neil Gaiman being typically charming while promoting the movie in Tokyo.

Here's today's Eko Eko Azarak postcard.

And since I got so long-winded above, I don't have time to enlighten you more about the chant. What I can do is freak you out with a snippet of the movie...

Whoa. I hope to watch the whole thing this weekend. Since we have a typhoon coming, I'll have plenty of time to do so.

Today's snack-related tidbit follows. Buy two sweets, get a free badge. Not a bad deal. Though 7/8 of the badges were pretty lame, this one isn't.

More spookiness tomorrow. In the interim be sure to click the Cryptkeeper badge to investigate other creepy bloggers. I'll give you a sneak preview, if you check out Deadpan Flook.

The Halloween Tree.

I remember reading The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury back when I was a teen but darned if I can recall how it ended. Now I've just watched the intro and a clip of the Hanna-Barbera adaptation and it has left me hungering for more. I need to find a copy, hopefully before the month's end.





Why do I bring this up now? Well, not only is it Day 2 of my Countdown to Halloween but I just happened lay my hands on my very own Halloween Tree last night! As a matter of fact I got two of them!

I popped into Mandai (Best...Store...Ever!) just to see what loot I could pick up and lo and behold within one of the UFO Catchers was a Halloween Tree. After several tries, I finally managed to land one and happily carried it around the store while I sought other cool items. I picked up a few goodies such as some Mystery Bags (to be showcased later) and with my purchase, I was given a voucher for a 2-tries-for-1-coin at the UFO Catcher machine of my choice. I went back to the machine and won a second tree, this one with ghosts!

The toughest part of assembling the trees was finding enough batteries to enclose.

I've figured out the first ornament with which to adorn my tree...

Since I don't have the aforementioned book, this is the nearest tome in tone that I own. I hope to read this on the weekend.

 I probably have a NBC Halloween Tree somewhere but I can't locate it right now. So for the nonce, here is a pumpkin bush guarded by Zero.

 Finally for my Titan entry, there isn't anything really tree-related so this little diorama of stickers on a wall is about the best I can do. I'm not even sure if I assembled it correctly, but who cares, it was on sale and came with a pack of Choco-flakes.

I'm going to link daily to another blog that I think you might enjoy and today's lucky winner is Erick at the Wonderful Wonderblog. Go there to see some Halloweeny cutouts.

Shoggoth's Old Peculiar.

I'd been working on another post of great amusement to one and all but then my scanner decided to malfunction. It'll have to wait until another day.

So instead, what was once going to be an addendum now becomes the lead. It's H.P Lovecraft's birthday today. Though I have no books of his available over here, I did recently read Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors. Among other very cool short stories, there is one in particular written about a traveller who comes across Wilf and Seth, a pair of Cthulhu enthusiasts who speak a lot like Pete and Dud. I highly recommend the collection to sate your taste for the macabre.