Happy Halloween

For your Halloween pleasure, one of my favorite opening paragraphs in fiction:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some to dream.  Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.  Within, walls continue upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. 

Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House is one of my favorite horror novels.  I reread it every few years; once, I did so while lying in bed running a fairly high fever, which I can only describe as alternately exhilirating and terrifying.

Just as Hill House is one of my favorite novels, Arthur Machen’s “The White People” is one of my favorite short horror stories–an enigmatic descent into a sinister, otherwordly realm through the pages of a young girl’s diary.

All these are the most secret secrets, and I am glad when I remember what they are, and how many wonderful languages I know, but there are some things that I call the secrets of the secrets of the secrets that I dare not think of unless I am quite alone, and then I shut my eyes, and put my hands over them and whisper the word, and the Alala comes.  I only do this at night in my room or in certain woods that I know, but I must not describe them, as they are secret woods.

Happy Halloween.  Watch out for those ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties.

nothing is ever finished

I’ve been playing around with this new blog for a little while, learning my way around wordpress, not knowing what kind of links and categories I want to have or what template to use, what’s going to go on the sidebar there and still not really being sure.  Now I’m impatient with fiddling and ready to launch.  So here I am opening shop with the paint not yet dry (stuff not even painted yet, maybe) and the sign’s not been hung and the door doesn’t open or shut right–throw your weight into it, there you go–and there are still lots of boxes sitting around and things on shelves in all the wrong order.  I’d invite you to take a seat but I haven’t unpacked the chairs.  And you might come in a day or a week or a month from now and find everything different from how it was before (but isn’t that always the way?) and come in after that and see it all back as it began.  So this is a work in progress.  Like everything.