Cider house ghouls

A storytelling cemetery walk in North Yarmouth advertises “cider, doughnuts and opening of the vault!” Can you say, yoinks! I can only guess what’s in the vault – the door of which will no doubt swing open with a chilling ‘creeeeeeee’ sound – but I’m going to go out on a limb and wager that there are some moldering bones in there. In essence, what’s being offered out there in the dark wilds of North Yarmouth is zesty cider, delicious doughnuts and dead people. Which you have to admit brings something new to the Halloween lineup.

Killer music

After seeing “Halloween” at the drive-in last weekend, I spent the remainder of the week humming the movie’s sinister music theme everywhere I went. Really annoyed the hell out of people, which is always fun. But as a soundtrack for my life, the “Halloween” theme really nails down my mood 50 percent of the time. The other 50 percent, it’s the Benny Hill theme.

Canada, world’s largest marijuana market

Come on, who’s surprised by this? I think it’s obvious that Canada just laid low for a couple hundred years until the time was right to rise up as a dope empire. Their flag is a giant leaf, for crying out loud, and it’s the country that produced Bob and Doug McKenzie. One coincidence I could buy, but that’s like TWO coincidences.

Don’t tread on me

So, after two weeks of exciting twists and turns with the Greene Craigslist caper, some conscience-addled soul came forward and offered to give back to George Stanley a pair of sneakers that had been taken from his property – give them back for 75 bucks, that is. What, you didn’t think something arising out of this sordid affair was going to be resolved that easily, did you? There seems to be some metaphysical law stating that anything involving George Stanley has to develop as though O. Henry was writing the script.

My knife must be dull or something

You people with your jack-o’-lanterns. Look at you, all artistic-like with your pumpkins carved into minutely detailed images of cats and bats and spiders so ornate, they look like they should be hanging in galleries. Every time you post these photos on Facebook, I heave a sad, defeated sigh because although I’ve disemboweled and carved up thousands of pumpkins over the years, not a one of them turned out ornate or artistic or any of that fancy business. Every single one of my jack-o’-lanterns ends up looking like something a drunk, hammer-wielding 4-year-old might create in the rage of a tantrum. My jack-o’-lanterns are not charmingly simple or pleasingly unique, they’re abominations – violations against autumnal gourds so great, surly teenagers won’t even deign to smash them in the street. It’s a great, perennial shame that haunts me every year around Halloween and I just don’t get it. Two triangle eyes, a triangle nose and a rictus mouth with bucked-teeth, what’s so hard about it? I don’t know, but I see 8-year-olds producing pumpkin art so brilliant, it looks like they used surgical lasers from space to create them. I can buy all the pattern books and special carving tools in the world and all of my Jack-o-lanterns still end up looking like something a giant, Tim Burton cat would vomit onto a rug. It’s very hurtful, is all I’m saying.

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