hopeful seals: the Cinderella stamp art of Nina Dzulkska
unrest: the harp jazz of Brandee Younger
sessho-seki: a volcanic rock on Mount Nasu said to contain a malevolent spirit has split open
heardle: a Name That Tune style game—via Kottke’s Quick Links
ten times incalculable: The Atlantic correspondent Ed Yong speaks to our collective numbing to the news
potemkin stairs: the Odessa Opera in 1942 and today
turnspit: eccentric, utilitarian canine breeds that have passed out of fashion but could be revived—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lots more to see there)
ball-and-chain: this leashless ankle weight system to control one’s toddler will only make baby invincible—via Super Punch
something—that if true, you couldn’t handle it: a close reading of the recently indicted QANon Shaman’s manifesto
on รฉcrit aussi ielle: the authoritative French language Petit Robert adds a third, gender-neutral personal pronoun—a concatenation of the masculine and feminine forms (see also)
the midnight special: eight hours of footage from David Bowie’s television programme the “The 1980 Floor Show,” an episode guest-curated by the artist
hocus-pocus: the hidden overhauls happening the faรงades of Russian construction sites (see also)
yes, this is dog: a video phone that allows apartment-bound dogs to call their humans
the motion picture that pits steel weapons against steel nerves: Joan Crawford in Herman Cohen’s 1967 Berserk! plus a medley of other horror films
phenaskistiscopic vinyl: animated record albums—see previously
ghostly footsteps (with chains): in 1977, BBC’s foley artists (previously) released a best-selling record of spooky sound-effects
cloaca maxima: Rome’s revered sewer-system—see also
auchan daily mascarpone cheese: a decade of Russian music videos
the high-handed enemy: director Denis Villeneuve storybooks the gom jabbar scene
kitchen witchery: a tarot deck to divine one’s dinner
in the stacks: museum curators uncover what may be the oldest depiction of a ghost on an ancient Mesopotamian tablet
1928 porter: a look at the 1965 short-lived sitcom (see also) My Mother the Car
ev: more outstandingly odd electric vehicles from the on-line market Alibaba—via Things Magazine
reasonable person: “a moron in a hurry” is codified in Anglophone legal statute—via the New Shelton wet/dry
graphics processing unit: glitch art in medical imaging—via Waxy
don’t go wasting your emotion: the ABBA classic, as performed by a vampire—via Everlasting Blรถrt
The Maximum Fun podcasting network (previously) has been hosting a block party this week to introduce the neighbours—that is, new programming adjacent to the shows that one already listens to discover new content and expand one’s listenership, helpfully recommending crossing-over points and places with easy egress for those unfamiliar with the programme’s content and approach. 
Already feeling over-subscribed, I am reluctant to add more shows but was always about Dead Pilots’ Society—see also here and here—whose premise is to unearth spec scripts for sit-coms and procedurals that were never produced and give them a proper table-read with a cast of professional actors and stand-ups. One stellar point of entry is episode twenty from 2017 that covers the bizarre pitch from writer Rob Schrab for Jetpackula performed with the talents of Patton Oswalt, Sujatat Day and Constance Wu about a has-been graphic novel illustrator whom befriends a vampire from the future, which was ultimately deemed too expensive to create. Check it out at the link above.
day-walker: monster lore invented by Hollywood—via Miss Cellania’s links
tastes like pencil-shavings and heartbreak: niche Chicago liquor Jeppson’s Malรถrt
modelleisenbahn: real-time model railroading with Hamburg’s transit system—via Maps Mania
hedge rider: an etymological celebration of wizards, witches, warlocks and more
๐: chanting, harmonised breathing and parasyphonic sounds
mundane outfits: revisiting a tradition of dressing as highly specific yet relatable, everyday, social faux pas—an unfancy dress ball held in Japan and Taiwan
the calls are coming from inside the building: a lampoon of the haunted house film trope
the boy on the bike: a trip down Golden Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset with a beloved bread advert directed by Ridley Scott with music by Dvoลรกk
the hauntening: various AIs try their hand at spookifying, exorcising Victorian mansions—previously
outbreak: a timelapse of COVID-19 cases in the United States over the past eighteen months
just the punctation: what text without words reveals to authors about their style—via Waxy
abecedarium: a 1968 Alphabet (previously) of the Dada movement hosted by Hans Richter (caution, some rapid, flashing images)
raลกรญnovo embankment: revitalised Prague riverfront features vaulted arches for cafes and gallery spaces
With the debut of the syndicated package of made-for-television monster movies after a few minor roles in a Western series—one being an undertaker—on this day in 1957 in the Philadelphia market, John Zacherle (*1918 - †2016) began a decades’ long career as a horror host, editing a pair of anthologies of ghost stories plus penning a few monster novelty songs. 
Often filling in for his colleague and fellow Philadelphian broadcaster Dick Clark when touring, Zacherle was the substitute MC for American Bandstand. As a promotional stunt to mark his move to New York, Zacherley staged a presidential campaign in 1960, running as a “cool ghoul” but failing to meet the threshold to get on the ballot in any state. Continuing the same format as Shock Theatre, the interstitial breaks became more and more elaborate with a cast of monstrous characters and branched out into a few motion picture parts as well as hosting a cartoon variety hour and adolescent dance show in New Jersey called Disc-O-Teen. Through the seventies and eighties, Zacherle was a Prog Rock disk-jockey and in an array of b-movies. His success and notoriety helped his niece Bonnie Zacherle develop and successfully pitch her 1982 toy line, My Little Pony—the horror.
cultured: beautiful Petri dish art (see also) from Dasha Plesen
rediffusion: the Thames Television archives—via Things magazine
fat bear bracket: follow the celebration of survival and success with Katmai’s nature preserve ursine residents—via Hyperalleric’s Required Reading
the thing on the fourble board: a 1948 episode of the radio programme Quiet, Please! is considered to be one of the scariest broadcasts ever
bisection: the spiralling figural sculpture of Isabel Miramontes
frustule: the rich diversity of diatoms illustrated in an 1890 volume
For this latest instalment of the annual tradition of using machine learning to generate Halloween and autumnal themed sketching—or decorating prompts—we really enjoyed some of the curated favourites from Janelle Shane (previously) and gamely humans take to these suggestions. In order of model dataset size—Moustaches creep creepily; the unseen graveyard stretches for miles; mist-sheep chew on tombstones. A slightly less experienced, exposed artificial intelligence recommends: the question mark from a box; half a cup of milk; a flappy spider; a flappy tea; Ghost traitors and A zombl. Much more, including submissions and unrelated prompts for animals (Bearllionaire) and landscapes (Library of Lava) at AI Weirdness at the link above.
The single released by session guitarist and song writer Ray Parker Jr as theme to the eponymous film (see previously) on this day in 1984 climbed to the top of the US charts and held that place for three weeks. In the UK, it reached the number two spot in mid-September, staying there for the same amount of time. The Oscar-nominated song lost to Stevie Wonder’s Best Original Song, the ballad for The Woman in Red “I Just Called to Say I Love You” (see also) and was the subject of a lawsuit—settled the following year out of court, Parker accused of having plagiarised the melody of Huey Lewis and the News’ “I Want a New Drug” by the band.
Marking the end of a nine-day festival honouring familial ancestors called Parentalia (dies parentales, ancestral days), as historian and poet Ovid records in his book on Fasti, Romans across the Empire were prohibited in worship of the gods and instead were to visit the tombs of their departed and lay wreaths and leave offers of violets, salt and wine-soaked bread. 
More elaborate votives were permitted but this was sufficient to appease the spirits and the practice was strictly enforced, lest Rome return to a time when Ferฤlia was neglected and restless ghosts haunted the streets. As with most Roman holidays, observance was mostly a domestic, private affair and what public rites were held are an obscured and confused accounting, the only surviving description involving a drunk woman holding seven black beans (see also) in her mouth and lighting incense over the grave of a mouse, and sewing shut the mouth of a fish—then proclaiming, “Hostiles linguas inimicaque uinximus ora,” I have gagged spiteful tongues and muzzled unfriendly mouths.
Garrotted and burned at the stake for witchcraft on this day in 1591 on the order of James VI and said to haunt the halls of Holyrood as a naked ghost, Agnes Sampson was a healer and midwife and one of the more notable defendants of the well documented North Berwick witch trails.
Adapted for television and first broadcast as a Christmas ghost story back in 1972, the eponymous play directed by Peter Sasdy and written by Thomas Nigel Kneale innovatively tempered horror with elements of scientific plausibility by a research and development team of an electronics firm that have occupied a recently renovated a reportedly haunted Victorian mansion as their new facility and begin collaborating on a new project in computer programming and finding a new format for recording digital media.
Once mysterious events begin happening including the death of one colleague, they conduct some research and interview locals to discover that an unsuccessful exorcism had taken place in the house in 1890. The chief researcher theorises that the apparition that frightened his colleague to death was not a ghost in the traditional sense but that the room, the exposed stone walls somehow psychically recorded that botched casting out spirits and tries to tease out the secret of triggering the playback mechanism and harness it for data storage, only to realise that successive tragedies record over one another. Since the broadcast, the hypothesis of residual hauntings and the “stone tape theory” have been adopted by parapsychological investigators.
