Bela Lugosi Slurps Again

The fortnight of seasonal tricks and treats quickly, but stealthily, approaches.
To aid your mayhem quest and spread the cheerful dread I offer this virtual haunted house tour through the cobwebby passages of Dum Luks.
Bela Lugosi fans look here for the tale direct and here for the flourishes and details of incipient verisimilitude which warm the cockles while chilling the spine.
Muse on all the likely comers.
When the hobgobblins and haints depart it will be timely to make our penitient orisions with this carefree ditty.
Yet one dry squib remains to delight as our guide turns on his peg leg to ask a penny for the guy.
As the children's radio show host said: That ought to keep the little bastards. Alas the mic was still on and so that was his last show. Fear not. This omnibus score card is neither final nor farewell.
--ml

Samhain Approaches

Once again the season compels notice of Samhain and the pinnacle of autumn. Here at Dum Luks we like to remember a tale of a haunted house, or retell a second hand story of Bela Lugosi, the fine actor whose talents were most richly rewarded by a bit of romantic tosh called Dracula, a tale, I admit, beloved by all but the most querulous and peevish killjoys. Yet hardly much of a stretch to one of Lugosi's towering abilities.

A click on Samhain among the tag cloud at right will present for your reading pleasure the entirety -- so far -- of Dum Luk's meditations on the season.
As always: for your enjoyment ...
Sweet crabs dance in your cider.
--ml

What the Samhain?

Hereabouts the wind blew in some cold and wet marking the seasonal change that concentrated the Celtic mind:  Samhain! Winter is coming.  Celebrations involved treats of hot cider and fresh apples. Baked goodies were welcome too.
For those not fortunate enough to have a well stocked larder, the event was yet another "oh, Shit!" moment in a long series of assaults on their human dignity. They viewed the aggressive opulence of the well to do with hope of generosity or malice at its denial.
One treat was always available to all who could manage a bit of fire in a shelter out of the wind, a good tale, the scarier the better so that everyone could claim the shivers came from hobgoblins, not the chill air.  "Ooooh," sez Gran tucked up in the old horse blanket, "Someone's just trod on m'grave!"
Follow the link in the title for Dum Luks' previous seasonal contributions. Both the joys and frights are observed -- can Bela Lugosi be far behind? No, sez I.
--ml

We Didn't Get Ours This Year

A Chicago Tribune Tradition Since The Turn of the Last Century.
--ml
tags: Feast of Holidays, Halloween, Injun Summer

Goblins'll Getcha

Orange-red sunset sky streaked with grey-black wisps from burning maple and oak leaves lower over the elms surrounding the large white house on the corner of South and Main streets in a small Midwestern town on a crisp October day about 1953. Rising some feet above street level the lawn levels at the sidewalk before continuing on to the evergreen shrubs around the porch that wraps around two sides of the house facing the street. A lumber yard owner built the house as a wedding present for his daughter at the turn of the twentieth century. From the roof of the porch it rises one story for the bedroom level before sloping up the the gabled third story of the attic, except for the one turreted tower which surveys the South and West over the tops of the elms. Broad steps in a short flight ascend from the yard to the porch. To the left is a screened enclosure for summer use, now vacant, the screens stored under the decking. A large plate glass window and large varnished door face the steps. The window shows the living room which runs almost the length of the house. The door leads into a vestibule which echoes voices and foot steps.
On most nights the house is well lit as it is now occupied by a family of six, who find it neither commodious nor snug, but just a pleasant fit. Or normal in that special way that everything one is used to is accepted as normal, no matter what other's may think. Tonight the house is dark and soon will loom over the street, its tower picked out by the moon or suddenly lost as the cumulus scud by.
"Damn, I wish the tower had a window," says Henry. "that's where the lantern should hang."
Instead, he and Leonard hung the lamp below the tower in Earle and Dorothy's bedroom window. That and the porch light by the door were the only illumination to greet the costumed youngsters now passing up and down the town.
They began planing a week ago and who knows how much earlier they had thought about it. Henry at sixteen was not so excited by simple Halloween canvassing. Leonard, at fourteen, was open to new horizons. Only I, at 9, still counted the swag as the important part of the festival. So they put their heads together with their friends to plot and concoct.
Down to the basement for wood and hammers to make noise making contraptions. up to the attic to find this or that. The house in an uproar. Dorothy called the friends hoodlum companions with that disapproving pride that parents reserve for their teenage children, especially the boisterous ones with healthy imaginations and good social nous.
They talked Dorothy into wearing her long black cape to greet the trick-or-treaters. She carried a lit candle and invited the hopefuls in. Beyond the vestibule was a hall with a double door to the living room, a single door to the dining room, more doors to a couple of closets and a staircase that climbed to a landing lit by a window onto the porch then up to a second landing and a final short run to the hall above. Though there were adequate electric lights, tonight all was dark save for Dorothy's candle and a lantern held aloft by Leonard in grease paint to turn his skin a sickly green. He affected a twisted frame and began a patter in a high creaky voice of nonsense about how happy he was to see them and weren't they nice and round, he did so like fat little birds to his dinner, and similar nonsense as he led them upstairs to tour the old place. Arrived in the square hall upstairs the intrepid faced five doors and a narrow hallway leading past more doors to a narrow dark corkscrew backstair to the kitchen. Behind each door was one or more of the hoodlum companions equipped with various noisemakers: duck calls, ratchets, creaking boards, and props such as dismasted heads, skeletal hands, and rattle-able sabers.
And they whispered.
They giggled.
They cackled.
They moaned.
They wailed.
They reached out a skeletal hand to a young shoulder. From behind. In the dark. "A bit for the poor, Sonny?"
And Leonard, patter at max, led them down the raucous, cacophonous, but most of all dark, hall through cobwebs made of fine yarn or thread, by the half mannequin floating at the end of a tiny hall, past the drip of water reminiscent of Europe's finer dungeons. Behind them doors opened and closed. Screams floated after any stragglers. Odd thumps that might have been headsman's axes sounded.
At last the group reached the back stair where Leonard, oh so sincerely, warned them to mind their step.
Arrived at the bottom, a dark door barred the way forward. On the other side of this was the kitchen with a vat of mulled cider on the hob and dozens of doughnuts from our quite good local bakeshop.
There was also a well lit door at the top of a short flight of steps to the back door and the street.
Most of the trick-or-treaters accepted that the trick was on them and fled, crying into the night. The hardiest recruited themselves heartily. But most of the treats survived.
That was Henry's plan: Lot's of doughnuts and cider for Leonard, Henry, and the hoodlum haints of the haunted house.

Perhaps this sounds a bit hokey today. But this was before Shock Theater's host, Marvin, taught all us fifties teens to shudder to Karloff, Chaney and Lugosi as TV ran and re-ran the great horror flics of the thirties. And those were all done without bluescreen, let alone computer graphics.

More about Lugosi here.

Happy Samhain, all
--ml
tags: Feast of Holidays, Bela Lugosi, Halloween, haunted house

Crabs Forestall Crabbiness

Some years ago we lived in a small house tucked under a headland with a deep channel on one side and a harbor bay on the other. The bluff on that side was too steep to build on so it was turned into a nicely wooded waterside park. Among the trees were two or three old crab apples which I visited every fall to start preparations for the holidays. This year I came across a nice display of crabs in the local grocery store.

Pickled Crabs

Wash a dozen or so crabs and remove the blossom end. Leave the stems on.
mix a sweet sour pickle of 1 cup of vinegar (cider or wine is best, thinks I.) with a cup to two cups (dependent on taste) of mixed brown and white sugar. Add a cinnamon stick, some whole cloves and a star anise.
Bring to a boil. After two minutes, slowly add the crabs so the syrup keeps boiling.
When the crabs are cooked (about five minutes) remove from heat and pack into jars. Seal if you mean to keep them longer than a week on the shelf. Else refrigerate until gone. Not long.

This is also time to look for the fresh glace fruits and this year's nuts to start your fruit cake. That post is coming soon.
--ml
tags: Feast of Holidays. crab apples

A Seasoned Seasonal Tale (Redux)

In honor of Samhain's approach, as a treat for all you ghosties and ghoulies and the occasional hob goblin: here is a reprise of a favorite tale that first appeared here last year.

In my stage struck youth I once appeared as -- literally -- a spear carrier in a semi professional summer repertory company. Amid much hard work there were occasional parties. Usually they followed the strike of one set and preceded the assembly of the next. At times this was from 2 am Sunday morning until the realization that the work call was for ten on Sunday morning drove us to our weary beds.
One of the directors was David Hooks. He told the seasoned seasonable tale more or less as follows:

When I was just starting as an actor I was engaged to play the Doctor in Dracula for a touring company. Dracula was, of course, Bela Lugosi.
In his native Hungary Lugossi had been the leading theatrical light of his generation. A fabulous actor capable of a much broader range than the Count. But he came to Hollywood to do Dracula and never had another role. He ended his career in his eighties taking a vaudeville send up of Dracula to London.

Continue reading

-- ml
Bela Lugosi, Halloween

Samhain Ends

No-vember
No sun--no moon!
No morn--no noon!
No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--
No sky--no earthly view--
No distance looking blue--
No road--no street--no "t'other side this way"--
No end to any Row--
No indications where the Crescents go--
No top to any steeple--
No recognitions of familiar people--
No courtesies for showing 'em--
No knowing 'em!
No traveling at all--no locomotion--
No inkling of the way--no notion--
"No go" by land or ocean--
No mail--no post--
No news from any foreign coast--
No Park, no Ring, no afternoon gentility--
No company--no nobility--
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member--
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds--
November!
-- Thomas Hood

Thanks, Roy.
--ml

A Seasoned Seasonal Tale

In my stage struck youth I once appeared as -- literally -- a spear carrier in a semi professional summer repertory company. Amid much hard work there were occasional parties. Usually they followed the strike of one set and preceded the assembly of the next. At times this was from 2 am Sunday morning until the realization that the work call was for ten on Sunday morning drove us to our weary beds.
One of the directors was David Hooks. He told the seasoned seasonable tale more or less as follows:

When I was just starting as an actor I was engaged to play the Doctor in Dracula for a touring company. Dracula was, of course, Bela Lugosi.
In his native Hungary Lugosi had been the leading theatrical light of his generation. A fabulous actor capable of a much broader range than the Count. But he came to Hollywood to do Dracula and never had another role. He ended his career in his eighties taking a vaudeville send up of Dracula to London.
In the tour Lugossi, who had perhaps six sides (pages) of dialog, was the star. And was paid as such.
As the Doctor, I was on stage for all but about three short scenes. I was the 'also appearing'. And I was paid commensurately.
Now Lugosi appeared early in the first act and promptly slurped some young lovely's blood. Then he exited. He was dressed in full evening attire, of course.
He did not enter again until the middle of the second act, some forty minutes later.
Every night he moved from the stage to the stage door at a steady -- even a stately -- pace looking neither right nor left but only straight ahead. Meanwhile his wife danced about him like a butterfly. She removed his opera hat. She received his gloves. She untied his cloak and folded it over her arm. She pulled the end of his tie and undid his collar stud. All the time Lugosi ignored the entire process -- eyes straight ahead. By now he was just about to collide with the door. But just in time the wife placed a cigar in his mouth. opened the door, and brought a lighted match to the cigar. A generous draw and Lugosi took a turn in the alley under a blue gray cloud.
When it was near time for his entrance the wife would beckon him back. As he approached the door she removed the butt and discarded it. She did up the stud and tied his tie. All the while he was oblivious, strolling with intent toward the stage. She settled his cloak about his shoulders and tied it. She handed him his gloves and settled his top hat on his steely locks. He passed from her fluffing just as his cue was uttered and stept on stage to speak his line.
But a page or two later he exited again. This time the interval between appearances was too short for the full treatment. Instead his ministering angel loosed his tie and stud while he removed himself to a comfortable roll of old curtains behind the cyclorama approximately center stage.
On stage during this lull the sweet young thing and the Doctor discover Dracula's coffin. The sweet young thing pipes: "But Doctor, What is in that coffin?"
Every night -- in a beautiful basso profundo loud enough for the actors to hear, but not the audience, Lugosi would deliver on a descending scale: "Bu-u-u-ul-l-l-lshit."

Happy Beltane, all.
--ml

UPDATE Woops! That's a treat-a-licious Samhain, all, of course. So much for my Druid status.
-- ml
tags: Bela Lugosi, Halloween, Dracula