Obscure book: "Gabby's Magic Brooms" take on U.S. car culture

Happy Halloween! Here's one final treat for spooky season. Gabby's Magic Brooms, written and illustrated by Marietta Caldwell Schumacher and published in 1968, was really difficult to track down. Fortunately, when I did find a copy it was very inexpensive, due to the fact that it's a library-bound edition in poor condition, with stains and multiple tears. 

That suits me just fine. This is a beautifully illustrated, fascinating and somewhat depressing (more on that in a bit) children's book, and I'm thrilled to be able to document it here. I'm almost certain it was the only published book by Schumacher, who lived from 1925 to 2012. It's a shame she didn't have more books published, though it seems she worked consistently as an artist and had numerous gallery showings.

This hardcover copy measures 7.5 inches by 10 inches, is 48 pages (almost every one illustrated), was published by Little, Brown and Company, and had an original price of $3.50. It is a stated first edition and was once in circulation in the King County Library System in Washington state, which is prseumably where it got all of its wear and tear.

The book's dedication reads "For the father of Shirin, David, Paul and John." That would be Marietta's husband, Paul John Fortuyn Schumacher (1924-1995) and those are their four children. Paul was the chief of archaeological investigations for the Western Service Center under the aegis of the National Park Service from 1956 until 1972.

Here's my summation of the plot of Gabby's Magic Brooms: A witch named Gabadale (her friends call her "Gabby") lives with a bunch of ghosts in a big old house in the middle of nowhere. One day, they learn that the house is standing in the way of a new eight-lane freeway and will be demolished. In a deal to save her home, Gabby uses magic to turn all cars into flying brooms. No cars, you see, means no need for freeways. It goes great at first. People love the freedom and convenience of traveling by broom instead of by car. But not everyone is happy. Schumacher writes: "Meanwhile, in a town named Detroit, men who make automobiles took notice." Alas, the witch has run afoul of automakers, road builders and, perhaps worst of all, "the oil men down in Texas." The supernatural is no match for Big Oil and the auto industry. So Gabby reverses the spell and turns all of the magic brooms into little red cars. Then she makes the only deal she can: She promises to never again use her magic to turn cars into brooms, if the builders promise never to bulldoze her home. The final illustration shows car-filled freeways winding all around Gabby's house. 

A bit dystopian, no?

I'd also note that it was published three years before The Lorax. 

In a July 1968 review for The Fresno Bee, Patricia Miles Martin wrote: "Gabby's ingenuity in saving her house makes a delightful story, in which one learns in this laugh-aloud book that even the least of us have inalienable rights. The is the author-artist's first book for children, and may we see many more."

The Oakland Tribune noted in August 1968: "This is the literary venture of Marietta Caldwell Schumacher, an artist and portrait painter. She views her book as emphasizing 'the precious right of the individual to maintain his identity in an increasingly complex society.'"

The only recent review I came across was by "Abigail." Here's an excerpt from her review on Goodreads that was posted in 2021: "While I'm not sure just how I feel about the resolution of the central dilemma here — the idea of living in a house surrounded on all sides by a busy freeway fills me with horror — I liked pretty much everything else, from Gabby's can-do attitude, to her creative solution to the problem. ... The depiction of Gabby herself, with her extremely tall hat (bent at the top), her ruffled dress with its poofs, and her buzzard-like companion, was the best part! She somehow managed to be both cute and just a bit spooky."

I'm going to close by posting numerous images of the book's pages (way more than I usually do) for posterity, as this is a very difficult book to track down and there's not much about it or Marietta Caldwell Schumacher on the internet.

The ghost photo that haunted Gen X

Ghost-nerd Gen Xers such as myself had some great ghost photos to scare ourselves with as kids. There was the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, the ghost faces floating in the water beside the SS Watertown, the ghost(s) ascending the Tulip Staircase and some others.

But for me, and a lot of others I reckon, the scariest ghost photo of them all was what's known as the Chinnery Backseat Ghost. And it was right there in our middle school library, with the apparition's unforgettable glowing eyes sure to give us nightmares. It was one of the photos inside The World of the Unknown: Ghosts, which was written by Christopher Maynard and published by Usborne in 1977. We had this book in the amazing C.E. McCall Middle School library in Montoursville. In later years, the book became extremely difficult to find on the used market, probably because no one ever let go of it. But Usborne finally issued a reprint edition in 2019, allowing many middle-aged folks to revisit cherished spooky memories of their youth. 

And one of those spooky memories is the photo that shows a person who should not, could not, be there. As the caption states: "This picture is one of the most puzzling ghost photographs ever taken. The woman in the back seat was supposed to be in her grave when the photograph was taken. The driver's wife took this picture of her husband sitting in the car. She claims there was nobody in the car except her husband. Yet the photograph clearly shows the figure of a woman — her mother — who had died a week before. Experts say that the film has not been altered in any way."

Of course, like every other paranormal or cryptozoological phenomenon in the 1970s and 1980s that brought me joy and wonder, this photograph has been pretty thoroughly debunked, with a double-exposure being more likely than deception through fakery. Just one example: Blake Smith penned an excellent piece for Skeptic in 2015, concluding "This particular image has been in 'top ghost photo' lists for years now, but I think we can now take down this exhibit in the gallery of ghosts with some confidence, and put it to rest."

An essay on the website Anomalies tries to keep a more open mind, asking, "But what if there is no explanation? After all, if the spirit of a dead person decided to impress its own image onto a frame of film, what would that look like? And would it be fair to expect such an attempt to look perfect on the one and only time that spirit tried it?"

Personally, I've come to the firm conclusion that ghosts don't exist. Or, at least, they don't exist in any way that's capable of making their presence known to living people through visual, auditory or physical means. That's a bummer, because I want to believe there are supernatural things out there that we can't fully comprehend. And ghosts and hauntings are a lot more appealing than much of the stuff going on in the (scary) real world right now. But, in good news, being a nonbeliever hasn't changed the pleasure I still get from reading ghost stories and looking at ghostly images that seem unexplainable.

Related links

• 1979 middle school book: "The Mysterious Ghosts of Flight 401"
• Book cover: "Haunted Britain"
• Who wants to join me in buying a crumbling, haunted British estate?
• Saturday's postcard: Ghost toddler
• 1928 headline and spooky article: "Radio 'Ghost' Balks Experts"

And that's just a sampling. Who knows what you'll find if you dust off the spooky corners of Papergreat's archive of 3,800-plus posts.

Well-loved library copy of "Gallery of Ghosts"

This is the well-worn, well-reinforced cover of the 1965 Grosset & Dunlap hardcover edition of Gallery of Ghosts, written and illustrated by James Reynolds (1891-1957). The book was originally published in 1949, with that first edition by Creative Age Press being fairly rare and pricey when found in the wild with its dust jacket.

This copy resided in the Central High School Library in Manchester, Tennessee, for many years and was checked out often. It features ghost stories from around the world, as retold by the author. In the introduction, Reynolds explains that he has chosen 19 tales from England, France, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Saxony, India, Norway, Hungary and the United States. "The appearances and manifestations of ghosts are as varied as the lives they lead while alive," Reynolds writes. "Choosing carefully from every phase of phenomena, I have selected that stories that seem to me to vibrate with action, color, and design, as does a cloak of motley. That classic ghost story is infinite in variety."

The nod to color and design is relevant, and Patterson was more than an author and illustrator. He worked as a set designer for Broadway productions in the early 20th century and also worked in costume design.

He got Lon Chaney Jr. (1906-1973) to pen the book's introduction. In it, Chaney discusses how he, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi worked to translate now-iconic monsters from the page to the movie screen. And he writes of his regret (as of 1949, anyway) that he hadn't had an opportunity to portray a ghost on film. "This book, unfolding the background and history, the motivation, the setting and the character of the ghost, is a complete guide for the actor," Chaney writes. "If one cannot see the real ghost, then reading the true ghost stories of James Reynolds is the next best thing."

In a 1949 review for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Helena Lefroy Caperton gushed:

"A reviewer of books learns the technique of skimming through a volume, getting the gist of the subject, but only enough of it to do honest justice to the author. In 'A Gallery of Ghosts,' by James Reynolds, this is wholly impossible, for one becomes more deeply absorbed at the turn of every page. Although it is often difficult to read continuously through a volume of short stories because the attention is apt to wander concentration to fail, this is impossible in this amazing and beautiful book because of its glowing, masterly writing, its hair-raising subjects, the fine sketches by the author, and even the admirable format of the book itself."

Review Norma C. Howard, writing for the Independent Tribune of Concord, North Carolina, was somewhat less effusive when reviewing the Grosset & Dunlap edition published in 1965:

"The stories delve deeply into the lore of the many countries from which they are taken, but fail to produce the promised spine-tingling and goose-pimples promised on the dust jacket. In fact, I believe they may be safely read alone at night without fear of disturbing one's sleep. ... James Reynolds was an art-illustrator before turning writer ... and has done a very commendable job of illustrating 'Gallery of Ghosts.' It is one of the most attractive books I've seen in quite a long time and makes me wonder if he should not have stayed with his first love after all."

I have to wonder if what readers found spooky changed enough 1949 and 1965 to account for part of the difference between Caperton's praise and Howard's shrug of the shoulders. Films certainly made a transition to more graphic and visceral scares during the 1960s. Was it the same for books? Were mere ghosts entering a down cycle compared to knife-wielding psychos and satanists?

Here are some of Reynolds' illustrations from the book, which I think have certainly retained their uncanny spookiness over the decades:

Danny's sweater in "The Shining" was a real thing

Many people count The Shining among their favorite horror films, and for some like me part of the joy in loving The Shining is obsessing over the many hyperspecific details, intentional or not, that Stanley Kubrick wove into his masterpiece interpretation of Stephen King's amazing novel.

As just one example, did you know there's an 800,000-word online guide by Eye Scream (Joseph "Joe" Daniel Girard) to all of the artwork that appears on screen during The Shining? The website is so labyrinthian that I suppose you could start either here ... or here. Or anywhere, and then circle round and round for more Kubrick analysis and connections. Don't go there expecting to spend only five minutes. You won't escape the hedge maze that easily. I especially like pondering the Alex Colville connections. (See also Idyllopus Press/Juli Kearns on that topic.)

Then there are the mind-bending analyses of mstrmnd's Physical Cosmologies of The Shining, which I mentioned way the heck back in June 2011. The links I posted then are now deader than Scatman Crothers' character at the end of the movie. But there's an Internet Archive link (bless those folks) that seems to have saved mstrmnd's musings for posterity. I may also still have the voluminous original printouts in an envelope somewhere. Can neither confirm nor deny.

All of which is a longwinded introduction to Danny Torrance's sweater.

At a key point in the film, Danny is shown wearing a blue sweater featuring an Apollo 11 rocket. That rocket carried the astronauts who first landed on the moon in 1969. Many suspect the sweater is Kubrick's sly nod to the ridiculous conspiracy theory, which emerged in the mid-1970s, that he assisted with (or even "directed") pre-recorded moon-landing footage shot in a movie studio. They believe we have never landed on the moon. It's not the only playful jab in The Shining from Kubrick toward the conspiracy loons, Screen Rant notes. 

Mostly, though, I just think the sweater is awesome. And it reminds me of how much I love the movie.

And it was a real thing, not something concocted solely for the film.

It's Lister N2163 Space Age and was published as a knitting pamphlet in 1970 by Lister & Co. in the United Kingdom. While there are a lot of knockoffs due to The Shining's popularity, Katherine Hajer wrote in 2021 about knitting an Apollo 11 sweater from the original specifications.

It's too hot for sweaters in Arizona, even in the winter. So when there was a Spook-O-Rama showing of The Shining last December in Tempe, I opted for a T-shirt version of Danny's outfit and tried to get the wide-collared underneath shirt correct, too. The hair was another matter, and I didn't even try.

Oliver gets into the Halloween spirit

I walked away from my computer for just a couple minutes and Oliver (son of Mamacita) managed to (1) step on the exact right keys to open a spooky illustration and then (2) lay down on the keyboard in a very photogenic way that highlighted himself and the skull he summoned. Full credit to Joan for snapping the photo when she spotted him.

Oliver knows how to get into the Halloween spirit! The illustration on the screen is "All Is Vanity," a minorly famous piece of artwork done by Charles Allan Gilbert in 1892. Here's the full illustration:

As Wikipedia notes: "The drawing employs a double image (or visual pun) in which the scene of a woman admiring herself in a mirror of her vanity table, when viewed from a distance, appears to be a human skull. The title is also a pun, as this type of dressing-table is also known as a vanity."

In the 1974 horror movie The House on Skull Mountain, director Ron Honthaner paid homage to the illustration with this creative shot: 

Michael Betancourt wrote a fascinating, in-depth analysis of the shot for Bright Lights Film Journal in 2013, delving into how the shot in the film is a reversal of the illustration and how that applies to the movie's racial subtext. The movie itself is not great, but Betancourt's piece is absolutely worth a read.

VHS tapes are improbably popular again, with horror leading the way

Late last November, Ashar and I went to a horror convention in Mesa called A Christmas to Dismember. It was very cool. There were minor genre celebrities signing autographs, you could get your picture taken with Krampus (some people even brought their dogs) and there was a whole hearse-and-coffin setup from Phantasm outside. 

I made one impulse purchase. There was a booth selling VHS tapes and I couldn't resist the box art on two old horror movies: 1946's Shock, starring Vincent Price, (which I'd never heard of!) and the 1941 horror comedy King of the Zombies (which I'd never seen).

Of course, I still couldn't watch them. We have a blu-ray player and a couple of streaming services, but haven't had a VCR connected to our television for at least 12 years, if not longer. Eventually I was able to track down DVD versions of both films, and I was not disappointed. Shock has an entertaining early villainous role for Price. And King of the Zombies, while a bit hokey and uneven, is an interesting entry in the corpus of zombie films and is at its best when Mantan Moreland and his Black co-stars (including Marguerite Whitten and Madame Sul-Te-Wan) are on the screen.

And now I have two nifty VHS boxes to showcase on a shelf, which, yes, is the exact opposite of my slow-moving downsizing goals. I still have no VCR and no plans to get a VCR, so what the hell am I doing with VHS tapes in 2025? I unloaded my videocassette tapes years and years ago, when they were taking up significant space and were already barreling toward being phased out.¹

So what's with the new boom in old tapes?

The VHS revival, spurred by collectors and a new generation of enthusiasts, began pretty quickly on the heels of the great VHS dumping of roughly 2000 to 2010, when DVD became the dominant format.

I hate to promote The Washington Post these days, but an article by Reis Thebault in December 2023 summed up the dynamics of the rise of the "tapeheads": 

"A swirl of societal forces has made the moment ripe for this unlikely rebirth: A booming nostalgia economy that was supercharged during the pandemic, fueling skyrocketing sales of all things retro; mounting fatigue with increasingly costly subscription services; and a growing disillusionment with the algorithms that mediate so much of modern life in favor of unexpected human connections."

There are numerous aspects to this fervor for tape, drawing people in from a wide array of directions. Some people truly like the "VHS aesthetic" of fuzz, glitches and less than perfect video presentation. Some filmmakers release their new movies on VHS. Websites such as Lunchmeat are thriving. Zines and VHS-themed events have helped build momentum.  

At our Bookmans Entertainment Exchange stores here in Arizona, used VHS tapes are taking up more prominent spaces at the front of stores. I took these snapshots at a Tucson Bookmans in early July.

The horror genre is very well-represented in those in-store displays. Horror has been a main driver for the VHS revival and is one of the hottest and most expensive markets. Some people seek out their favorite films; some chase the scarcest titles in their most limited releases; some collect solely for the box art; some relish boxes and tapes still covered with video rental store or library stickers, while others want pristine tapes that are still shrinkwrapped. And some collectors target gory straight-to-video releases that few people have ever heard of — and even fewer have seen.

Ashar, dipping his toe into the VHS marketplace this month, just acquired a tape of 1959's The House on Haunted Hill, one of his favorite films. (And one of my favorites, too.) It will be added to his shelf decorations.

For an article this month on Back Market, Thomas Hobbs interviewed Lunchmeat's Josh Schafer, who said: "A lot of horror movies, especially the more low budget fare, just feel better on VHS. Not everything has to be super hi-def. Sometimes it’s okay to blur the world a little bit, because if things look too real it takes you out of the cinematic world.”

Maybe I should collect all of my childhood horror favorites on VHS. Then set up an old-school television with a VHS player and chase that vibe of watching horror movies on dark nights as a kid in Clayton and Montoursville. It could be a lot of fun. But the true horror might end up being how much disposable income I spend chasing the past, when I could sit on the couch next to my cats and watch a big-screen, crystal-clear version of Suspiria, Kwaidan or, yes, even the original Night of the Living Dead. Nostalgia is fun, but there are only so many rabbit holes I can go down.

Footnote

1. I deeply regret, though, that I got rid of all my MTS3K and St. Elsewhere VHS tapes, plus some other stuff that had been taped off TV. If nothing else, there's a substantial market now for old tapes that include commercials, bumpers, news updates and other record-from-TV content. Add those tapes to the list of ephemera I wish I still had, if only because I could have made some nice coin from selling them now on eBay.

Halloween-themed cover of October 1972 Square Dancing magazine

Square Dancing (originally titled Sets in Order) was the official magazine of the Sets in Order American Square Dance Society. It was published from 1948 to 1985, for a total of 444 issues. It's a magazine that, by definition, leaned more into squareness than spookiness, but I appreciate that its publishers had some fun by putting a skeleton on the orange cover of this October 1972 issue.

Inside, however, there's only one more nod to the holiday: the page shown below with two Halloween-themed cartoons. The rest of the 78-page issue is filled with square dancing news and tips, plus a robust number of advertisements. It's quite impressive how much interest and money there used to be in this recreational pasttime; I even had square dancing lessons as part of my curriculum at C.E. McCall Middle School in central Pennsylvania in the early 1980s. 

Some of the tidbits inside this issue:

• A report that square dancers helped to raise relief funds for those affected by the June 1972 flood in Rapid City, South Dakota, and that efforts had just begun to raise relief funds for Pennsylvania victims of Hurricane Agnes.
• An article on the history of square dancing being depicted in movies.
• A long directory of square dancing youth groups across the nation, including one here in Phoenix, Arizona.
• An article on the business side of calling.
• Sewing suggestions for women's square dancing outfits.
• News of square dancing from such farflung locations as the Panama Canal Zone and Saudi Arabia (the Dhahran Hoedowners, who I think were also called the Arabian Hoedowners).
• Many advertisements for square dancing records, outfits, shoes and sound equipment.
• A list of upcoming conventions and events, including the 14th annual WASCA Spring Festival ("Stairway to the Stars") at the Sheraton Park Hotel &  Motor Inn. The event was slated for March 8-10, 1973.

Digital versions of Sets in Order/Square Dancing magazine are available to read at this link, a wonderful online resource.

Unwanted library discard that deserves another chance

This book — The Great McGoniggle's Gray Ghost — has a sad-looking exterior but is perfectly fine on the inside. It was super cheap and I feared it was headed for the dumpster. So I picked it up, will spiff it up a little, and hope I can weave some Bradbury-esque October magic and put it in the just-right Little Free Library for someone's future happy discovery.

It's not the spookiest children's book in the world, but it certainly has enough Halloweeny elements for this month's theme. Published a half-century ago in 1975, The Great McGoniggle's Gray Ghost was written by Scott Corbett (1913-2006) and was the first of four books featuring Mac McGoniggle. 

It was illustrated by Bill Ogden (listed as William Ogden on the copyright page), but I'm fairly certain that's not the Bill Ogden who was a famed surf artist. The illustrations in this book remind me a little of the early Choose Your Own Adventure books, which were illustrated by Don Hedin under the pseudonym Paul Granger.

The plot is described succinctly on the copyright page: "Two boys attempt to recover a balloon bearing a valuable prize certificate which has become attached to the eaves of a mansion inhabited by a disagreeable couple and a ferocious dog."

The two boys are a bit insufferable, too, so I suppose who the reader empathizes with might depend on their age and point of view.

That said, it seems like a great book for kids. Writing a review for Amazon in 2016, Carl Anderson states: "I recommend it. There's funny parts, spooky parts, and for the age group its intended, exciting parts."

Here are some other illustrations and images from this once well-loved library book that hopefully will have another chapter ahead...