Spooktober kickoff: "Spooks and Spirits and Shadowy Shapes"

October is here, which means a monthlong celebration of Halloween and a full month (hopefully) of terrified nail-biting over the Philadelphia Phillies' playoff fate. As I mentioned a few days ago, there's going to be a heavy emphasis on books this month, and we're kicking off with a ragged 1970s paperback edition of Spooks and Spirits and Shadowy Shapes, an anthology of ghost stories aimed at young readers and illustrated by Robert L. Doremus (1913-2010).

The book was first published in hardcover in 1949 by E.P. Dutton & Co. and received subsequent hardcover and paperback editions over the decades. Copies of hardcover editions are scarce and list online for $70 or more; perhaps they're just too beloved for families to part with them. Perhaps they got worn out from being read hundreds of times. A little of both?

I'm not sure if the paperback version is abridged and contains fewer stories than the original hardcovers. My Xerox Education Publication paperback has 127 pages and nine stories, with the table of contents listed at right. The stories are by Emma L. Brock, Elizabeth Yates, Aileen Fisher (2), Elizabeth Coatsworth, Ruth D. McCrea, Gertrude Crampton, Adele DeLeeuw and Mary R. Walsh. That's right — all women. Very cool! 

In an October 30, 1949, column for The Houston Chronicle headlined "Halloween Attitude Growing Dangerous," Evelyn S. Thompson complains: "The past few years has [sic] seen the development of an attitude toward Halloween that has produced devastating results. Our younger generation has come to look upon this day as a time when all restraint can be thrown aside and we have evidence of vandalism on every side. Property is abused and destroyed. Instead of wholesome fun that could be the keynote of this 'spooky' holiday, we find the police force augmented and property owners in distress, fearful of the destruction the pranksters may create."

In 1949! Apparently, youth pranks and vandalism around Halloween were especially bad in the United States (and elsewhere) until the holiday was "tamed" with the widespread introduction of trick-or-treating in the early 1950s.

And what did Thompson think of as "wholesome fun"? Books! She touts Spooks and Spirits and Shadowy Shapes as "an excellent collection of modern stories" for ages 8 to 12. "They are easy reading for the average youngster in graces [sic] four to six, and are breath-taking, but each has a plausible explanation," Thompson wrote.

So in the end, perhaps no actual spooks or spirits. Boo! 

Writing an Amazon review of the book in 2015, Marilyn Schneider states: "I have been looking for this treasure from my childhood 'forever'. I got it from the little neighborhood library as a child and the last time I tried to get it for my grand kids I was informed it was long out of print. It's a book of good old scary stories that are decent and wholesome from a long gone generation of good clean fun."

Meanwhile, illustrator Doremus had a long and varied career. According to his Legacy.com obituary, he shifted his focus to children's books after serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. It states: "His credits include a great number of children's readers and histories, textbooks, posters, film strips, coloring books, activity books, and career education packages for elementary schools. People across America growing up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s may remember him for his work in text books or the more than 100 children's books as well as activity books based on their favorite television shows such as 'Get Smart,' 'Convoy,' and 'Bonanza.' His most memorable and favorite commercial work was the picture book based on the Walt Disney movie 'Old Yeller.' The subject matter has ranged from scientific material to a whimsical cement mixer named 'Little Max;' from the life of Harry S. Truman, to 'Star Trek' and Dr. Spock."

Here are some illustrations from Spooks and Spirits and Shadowy Shapes. While the second and third ones might have been fine for kids in the 1940s and 1950s, they're a big NOPE today. Happy Spooktober!

Beautiful but quite common 1881 poetry book: "Farm Festivals"

It's rare to come across a book that's 144 years old, is incredibly common and isn't the Bible. But that's the case with this gorgeous hardcover book, Farm Festivals. It's a book of poems penned by Will Carleton (1845-1912) that was published in 1881 by Harper & Brothers of New York. 

Carleton, a Midwesterner, wrote sentimental poems about farm life and rural America, appealing to readers’ nostalgia for a simpler lifestyle as industrialization spread. His collections were very popular and went through numerous printings.

An article in The Kansas City Times on December 19, 1912, reporting Carleton's death states:

"Will Carleton's name is a household word in America and not unknown in many English homes. He was essentially a 'people's poet,' and it was a certain homeliness of theme and simplicity of treatment that sent his poems straight to the hearts of the people. Much of his verse was of a timely nature and probably no American poet, unless it be James Whitcomb Riley, was more popular with the school children."

This popularity means Carleton's books are not hard to find in the 21st century and, unless there is something unique about an individual volume, the books do not sell for very much. A quick glance finds copies of Farm Festivals selling on AbeBooks for $3, $5 and $6. 

If you'd like, I'll send you my copy of the book, free of charge. Just shoot me an email at chrisottopa (at) gmail.com, and help me with my decluttering. If you'd like, you can make a modest donation to your local food bank or library in lieu of sending me anything. First come, first served.

Here are some peeks inside the book, which appears to have multiple uncredited illustrators:

One movie after another*

*or, like a thousand times before, like the castle in its corner, in a medieval game, I foresee terrible trouble, and I stay here just the same

In my movie-viewing this year, I've seen more than 40 movies, spanning 1917 to 2025, that represent first-time watches for me. I'll post the full list of my favorite first watches in early January. But I'm certain that two movies that will reside in my top five are 1982's Missing by Costa-Gavras and this month's One Battle After Another by Paul Thomas Anderson.

For me, they're in dialogue with each other. Missing is the best film I've seen thus far this year; the one that resonated with me the most and that was scarier than any of the horror movies that Ashar and I watch. I watched it early in the year, a few weeks after the inauguration, as it became clear that the public roundups, "disappearings" and domestic military deployments promised in 2024 were to become our reality of 2025. Missing's long first act, especially, is gut-wrenching, capturing the visceral terror of a regime that vanishes people simply for what they say, write or believe. Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek absolutely deserved their Oscar nominations.

One Battle After Another is about resisting oppressive regimes, and the immediate and generational consequences of brutal, violent activism carried out by fallible humans confronting monsters.

It's a comedy. 

And a drama. And a thriller. And a satire. There's not really one label for the film, which is par for the course for Anderson. While the obvious comparison within PTA's oeuvre is Inherent Vice, as both are Thomas Pynchon adaptations, sort of, the movie I found One Battle After Another to most be in conversation with is Magnolia. They are both interested in family clashes, especially between generations, and how they are resolved. On what we can and cannot forgive. There are similarities of form, too. One Battle After Another's long, tense middle act in Baktan Cross, and its score by Jonny Greenwood, reminds me of the sprawling "Stanley/Frank/Linda's Breakdown" section of Magnolia scored by Jon Brion (who should have been nominated for an Oscar).

I won't get into more specific details or spoilers of One Battle After Another. I think you should see the film. In a theater. On as big of a screen as possible. Avoid clips and spoilers, if you haven't already seen them. Let the movie unfold and surprise you. Let it marinate afterward.

Then, you might want to check out some thoughtful reviews and essays. Some that I found insightful include Ty Burr in The Washington Post (gift link), Robert Daniels on Substack, Aisha Harris for NPR, Ellen E. Jones for The Guardian, Kristen Lopez for The Film Maven, Walter Chaw for Film Freak Center, and Malindy Hetfeld on Medium. Seeking out and considering a diversity of views is important with this movie, which, just like its presumptive heroes, shouldn't be considered faultless. 

Finally, a great movie should spur you to seek out other films. PTA himself suggested these films as sharing themes with One Battle After Another:

• Running on Empty (1988, Sidney Lumet; also one of my grandmother's favorites)
• Midnight Run (1988, Martin Brest)
• The French Connection (1971, William Friedkin)
• The Battle of Algiers (1966, Gillo Pontecorvo) 
• The Searchers (1956, John Ford)

And here are some more, based on some great BlueSky user suggestions and my own brainstorming:

• The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973, Ivan Dixon)
• Missing (1982, Costa-Gavras)
• Z (1968, Costa-Gavras)
• Uptight (1968, Jules Dassin)
• El Mar La Mar (2017, Joshua Bonnetta & J.P. Sniadecki)
• Black Panthers (1968, Agnès Varda)
• The Fifth Horseman Is Fear (1965, Zbyněk Brynych)
• Black Wax (1983, Robert Mugge)
• The Golden Dream (2013, Diego Quemada-Díez)
  

Hours after watching One Battle After Another, this headline popped up on my phone. We are living in one hell of a moment.

From the readers: Memories of Hurr's in Montoursville

(This photo is NOT from the Hurr's on Arch Street in Montoursville. It's the Hurr's on Washington Boulevard in Williamsport, as posted on the East End Gang From Williamsport Pennsylvania Facebook page. It's the photo that most reminds of the cozy interior of the Arch Street Hurr's, of which I can find no photos online.) 

Commenting in the 2018 Papergreat post about the Hurr's Dairy Store on Arch Street in Montoursville (just a stone's throw from our house on Spruce Street), Susan Hooton (Derr) writes (lightly edited): 

"I worked at the Hurr’s Store on N. Arch Street in Montoursville from 1972 to 1976. I lived with my parents in a house between the high school and the Hurr’s store. I would come home from school, change into the mint green uniform, watch the soap opera 'General Hospital,' which I still watch today, and run up the sidewalk to work. June Scott was the manager then and was the kindest person. I remember dime night ice cream cones. The first night of the event I was working alone. I sold out of ice cream. My work area had so much melted, slippery ice cream I could slide on it. Customers would come in with huge mixing bowls and tell me just fill it up.

"I have so many good memories from that time. When I got off at 11:00 p.m., all the neighbors from both sides of the street would watch that I got home OK. I did not know this until a few years later. I was scared because Arch Street was lined with trees from which anyone could jump out at me. Gary Williams did own the building (a double house) at that time. He told me if anyone comes in to try and hurt you or rob you just knock on the wall. Very nice idea but probably not possible. Luckily I never had any problems.

"Hurr’s store also had peanut butter ripple ice cream that I have not been able to find in all (lots) of places I have lived since then.

"Now I am a 69-year-old widow living in Phoenix, Arizona. 🔥🥵☀️

"I would love to chat with anyone who might remember anything from that time. My last name then was Derr."

Thanks for taking the time to share these memories, Susan! This is the most specific remembrance I've come across regarding the Arch Street location. There's a good chance I was in the store at some point when you were working from 1972 to 1976, as we lived right around the corner in the mid 1970s. I hadn't remembered the mint-green uniforms, so that's a neat detail. Peanut butter ripple remains one of my favorite types of ice cream and I agree that a quality version of that ice cream is difficult to find. And what a coincidence that we were both in Montoursville in the mid 1970s and now we're in Arizona: you in Phoenix and me down here in Florence.

Spooktober is almost here

October is less than a week away and I'll once again being doing spooky- and Halloween-themed posts throughout the month. I got myself organized in advance so that I don't have to fly by the seat of my pants (or the seat of my broomstick) this time around. The above teaser image show many of the items I'll be writing about.

This Spooktober (or Mild Fear 2025, or the latest installment of what I called Halloween Countdown way back in 2011) will be heavy on books, which is of course quite appropriate for Papergreat. So be sure to check back throughout October for lots of fun stuff that might be spooky, but isn't nearly as scary as the real world these days.

Saboteur (1942, Alfred Hitchcock)

(Apologies to Norman Lloyd)

(P.S.: Spice is 110% fine. She's standing on a shelf.)

Book cover: "The Footsteps at the Lock"

Here's a reissue of an old detective novel on this surreal day in Arizona.¹

• Title: The Footsteps at the Lock 
• Author: Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (1888-1957). He was an Anglican priest in the Church of England, who later resigned from that post to convert to Catholicism — an event that created a lot of buzz. On the side, he wrote detective novels, as one does.
• Cover design: Paul E. Kennedy
• Publisher: Dover Publications, New York
• Publication note on copyright page: "This Dover edition, first published in 1983, is an unabridged republication of the work as originally published by Methuen &  Co. Ltd., London, 1928. (The map that originally appeared on the endpapers has been placed after the dedication.)" That map appears at the bottom of this post, too.
• Series: This is one of five novels by Knox that feature insurance investigator Miles Bredon.
• Dedication: To David in memory of the Uncas
• Pages: 248
• Format: Paperback
• Price: $6.95
• Back cover excerpt: "Monsignor Knox is well known in mystery circles as one of the fathers of Holmesian scholarship. This lighthearted narrative reveals him as not only a scholar of the mystery genre but an able practitioner as well."
• First sentence: "It is an undeniable but mystifying fact of natural ethics that a man has the right to dispose of his own property at death."
• Random excerpt from middle #1: "One very old gentleman had to be convinced, with great difficulty, that iw as the hare, not the hounds, which worked by electricity; he was positive of the contrary — it was notorious."²
• Random excerpt from middle #2: "You do not shock the refined ears of a lady who dates from the Crimea by describing too faithfully the habits of a young ne'er-do-weel."
• Random excerpt from middle #3: "Millington Bridge is not among those one-way-traffic concerns in which our thrifty forefathers delighted; there is room to pass a lorry on it; but, by a kind of false analogy, it was a sharp angle over each of its jutting piers in which the pedestrian may take refuge from the dangers and the mud-splashings of the road."
• Rating on Goodreads: 3.66 stars (out of 5)
• Goodreads review excerpt: In 2012, Abbey wrote: "Layers within layers, puzzles tied to other puzzles, abound in this finely crafted, albeit slow and extremely old-fashioned tale. ... I’d always wanted to see what Knox’s writing was like, and now I have. While I enjoyed this one I won’t go far out of my way to read more of his books, as the excellent initial premise, the convoluted plotting and good pacing eventually became overwhelmed by the formulaic nature of the 'thrills'."
• Rating on Amazon: 4 stars (out of 5)
• Amazon review excerpt: In 2015, Bracton wrote: "Close attention to the map at the beginning of the book is helpful (I made a rough schematic to keep next to me as I read). Of course, the real entertainment value of the story is in the puzzle and seeing how Bredon and Leyland sort it out. And the writing is beyond superb. Not only are there evocative descriptions of the upper Thames and surrounding countryside, but there are marvelous turns of phrase: in referring to a character's addiction to morphine, a doctor says 'When I saw him, he'd obviously more or less reached the line of perpetual snow.' But it's not all plot and clever writing; there's a very insightful (but not intrusive) discussion between two of the characters on a question of ethics. This is simply a very good book, and when you've read it, you'll be looking for Father Knox's other mystery novels."

Footnotes 

1. Taking place today in the Phoenix metroplex, mere miles apart: (a) the president and most of the U.S. presidential line of succession are attending a memorial service at State Farm Stadium in Glendale; (b) Ashar is working as a volunteer at the Gathering of the Ghouls fan convention at Rawhide Event Center in Chandler; and (c) and the Phillies are playing the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix. 

2. According to Wikipedia, the transition from using live hares to mechanical lures in British greyhound racing occurred in 1926, which was two years before this book was first published.

A bit about spoons & alchymy from Alice Morse Earle

Customs and Fashions of Old New England was first published in 1893 and written by Alice Morse Earle (1851-1911), who was previously featured on Papergreat 13 years ago, in a post about her book Home Life in Colonial Days.

My copy of Customs and Fashions of Old New England is the 1909 reissue by Charles Scribner's Sons. It was once the property of Laura E. Bayless, per the cursive signature on the first page. That's possibly this Laura E. Bayless, but there's little way to know for sure. 

I've had a bookmark sticking out of this book for years, because I keep meaning to share this passage about spoons. So, without further ado, here it is:

"The greater number number of spoons owned by colonists were of pewter or of alchymy — or alcamyne, ocamy, ocany, orkanie, alcamy, or occonie — a metal composed of pan-brass and arsenicum. The reference in inventories, enrolments, and wills, to spoons of these materials are so frequent, so ever-present, as to make citation superfluous. An evil reputation of poisonous unhealthfulness hung around the vari-spelled alchymy (perhaps it is only a gross libel of succeeding generations); but, harmful of harmless, alchymy, no matter how spelt, disappears from use before Revolutionary times. Wooden spoons also are named. Silver spoons were not very plentiful. John Oxenbridge bequeathed thirteen spoons in 1673, and 'one sweetmeat spoon,' and '1 childs spoon which was mine in my infancy.' Other pap-spoons, and candle-spoons are named in wills; marrow-spoons, also, long and slender of bowl. The value of a dozen silver spoons was given in 1869 as £5 13s. 6d. In succeeding years each genteel family owned silver spoons, frequently in large number; while one Boston physician, Dr. Cutter, had, 1761, half a dozen gold teaspoons."

There’s a surprising amount packed into that little passage for spoon historians, etymologists, early American social historians, food historians and even archaeometallurgists to chew on. And it’s just one paragraph out of a 387-page treasure trove that we can thank Alice Morse Earle for compiling. If you ever come across a copy of Customs and Fashions of Old New England in your favorite used books store, I highly recommend it. (The full text of the book is also available via Project Gutenberg.)