Book Review - DRAWN TO THE DARK: EXPLORATIONS IN SCARE TOURISM AROUND THE WORLD by Chris Kullstroem

One of the most effective ways to combat a post-Halloween hangover, I have found, is to have some spooky stuff lined up for at least the first week or two of November. That way you'll ensure an easier transition for yourself from the scariest time of year to the merriest. For my part, I've filled the past week with activities ranging from seeing John Carpenter play live to watching Wicked Lit performed in a cemetery under a full moon to finally finishing the book I've been reading for most of October, Chris Kullstroem's Drawn to the Dark: Explorations in Scare Tourism Around the World. If you need any more evidence that this book is ideal holiday season reading for the creepily-inclined, look no further than the leering Austrian Krampuses on the hell-red cover.

Before I started this book, I expected a somewhat scholarly examination of how various cultures celebrate the macabre in all of its many forms. I thought it would be meticulously researched, painstakingly annotated, and maybe even a little dry, in the way that non-fiction books can sometimes be. Turns out I was all wrong about this book in both tone and content. Instead, Drawn to the Dark reads more like a first-person travelogue, as author Chris Kullstroem sells off her possessions and travels around the world via connections made on the Couchsurfing website, all in the name of seeking what's spooky at home and abroad.

While some of the locations she visits were what I was expecting, such as a jaunt to Mexico for the Day of the Dead or a trip to Transylvania to unravel the myth behind the Dracula legend, many others were totally unexpected, including the Hungarian Busójárás  festival, a mountaintop concert in Germany to honor Walpurgisnacht, and the "Ghostbus Tour" she takes in Ireland. Even the more standard chapters took unexpected turns: Her stay in Oaxaca for Dia de los Muertos ends in a trip to a haunt situated in an old auto junkyard, while the Krampus chapter surprised me simply because I had no idea authentic Austrian Krampus laufs were so brutal (hot tip - if you find yourself in Salzburg during the holiday season, consider investing in shin guards).

Brief descriptions of each event are provided before Kullstroem dives headfirst into celebrating with the locals, but you won't find a definitive history of any particular festival or tradition here. Rather, this book is about one American haunt enthusiast's experience of chasing spookiness all over the globe. Her Couchsurfing hosts, who tend to participate in the haunts, tours, and festivals with her, range from enthusiastic to reluctant, and it's always fun to read their perceptions of their own country's more macabre traditions. For her part, Kullstroem seems to be an incredibly good sport with an unwavering appetite for adventure, and her openness toward new experiences, from performing in haunts to hunting down zombies in a simulated battle to weathering blows from whip-wielding Krampuses, may even inspire you to step out of your own creepy comfort zone.

In her chapter on Transylvania, Kullstroem does a masterful job of balancing the lurid tale of Dracula - and the area's own Drac-centric tourist industry - with the fact that Vlad Tepes, brutal though his methods were, is regarded by many as a folk hero who protected his people from invasion by any means necessary. She visits historical sites and haunts alike, taking them both in stride and enjoying them for what they have to offer, concluding:

There was room for both, I supposed: The reality and the spectacle. One could always lead to appreciating the other - regardless of which we had been originally drawn to.

This lack of distinction between highbrow and lowbrow, between culture and kitsch, is the true crux of the book in my opinion, and what truly sets Drawn to the Dark apart from more academic tomes. Whether you're learning in a museum, paying your respects in a mausoleum, or screaming your head off in a maze, all of these experiences are facets of the same fascination with death, life, and the mysteries of mortality. All have value for those of us who delight in the darkness.

So if you need to recapture that Halloween feeling even as winter is setting in, or you're looking for a great holiday gift for that spooky someone, check out Drawn to the Dark for a unique travel diary that will delight any haunt fan.

Disclosure: I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book for review.

Book Review - SEASON OF THE WITCH: HOW THE OCCULT SAVED ROCK & ROLL by Peter Bebergal

"If you make enough noise, no matter your instrument, you can keep the old gods alive forever."  - Season of the Witch (p. 207)

If you know me, you know that I love music. I've played in bands for years, and I've been an obsessive fan of various musicians at least since seventh grade, when I discovered Nirvana and Pearl Jam. So when I heard about Peter Bebergal's Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll (released last year - on my birthday, no less!), I knew I had to read it. An examination of how music, magick and mysticism intersect and play off of one another, and how musicians have used the occult as everything from a marketing tool to a genuine attempt to channel the divine,  Season of the Witch is like the textbook for the most interesting class you never took in college.

In a Q&A, Bebergal is asked about the intended audience for the book, and he replies that, beyond the usual suspects (rock fans, scholars of religion, students of pop culture esoterica), "if you ever 'threw horns' at a rock concert, this book is for you." So, in other words, this book is for me. There was a period of time ('96-'99?) when throwing the horns was just my default pose whenever someone pointed a camera at me. I still occasionally throw horns as a way to, oh, greet a friend, or wave a fellow motorist through a four-way stop sign. You know, the usual.

You see, dear reader, weird occult rock music is in my blood. My dad introduced me to Black Sabbath. My mom initiated me into the cult of Stevie Nicks. Flirting with the devil via riffs, drum solos and vaguely sinister cover art is part of my DNA.

Season of the Witch starts at the beginning, demonstrating how rock music has been conflated with - if not Satan, exactly - then certainly with divine and mystical forces since its inception. From Robert Johnson allegedly selling his soul to the devil to the psychedelic shamanism of early Pink Floyd to Jimmy Page's Crowley fixation, it's all there. But Bebergal doesn't just stick to the hits - he goes for the deep cuts, introducing readers to occult-inspired bands that are a little less well-known than Sabbath and Zeppelin, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Take Coven, for instance. In addition to featuring this super sick cover art on their 1969 album Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls, "Coven is also credited with being the first band to 'throw horns'" (p. 116). Now there's a cultural contribution that can't be denied! I also learned about Mort Garson, who was one of the first musicians to record popular music using Moog synthesizers. His 1970 album Black Mass, released under the name Lucifer, is a total retro-futuristic trip. This book even gave me a healthy appreciation of prog, previously one of my most maligned musical genres!

Witchy TV shows on Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel. Witchy clothes at Urban Outfitters and Forever 21. Hell, even Jay-Z and Beyonce are probably members of the Illuminati, right? (See page 211 for more info.) We are definitely in the midst of a serious occult revival, which means this book couldn't be more timely or intriguing. 

For anyone who has ever pondered an inscrutable lyric, for anyone who has ever felt unsettled by a strange and disturbing music video, for anyone who has ever wondered - even for a second - when this bullshit "Paul McCartney" will finally admit that Paul died decades ago...this is your new favorite book. Get ready to remember why you started loving rock & roll in the first place.

Disclosure: I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book for review.

Book Review - VAMPIRA: DARK GODDESS OF HORROR by W. Scott Poole

Happy new year! It's 2015 - how the fuck did that happen?! Well, in any case, the holidays are officially over. In fact, according to the LA Bureau of Sanitation, they ended today, because today was the official day for Angelenos to drop off their Christmas trees for recycling. Christmas is a merely a memory and we're already four days into a brand new year. Did you make any resolutions? Do your resolutions include, say, reading more books? Or increasing the scope of your horror knowledge? Perhaps you're just a fan of macabre babes? Nice, me too! Oh, and I've got a book recommendation for you - W. Scott Poole's sociological examination of the original horror hostess, Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror.

As a lifelong Elvira fan and child of the '80s/early '90s, I didn't know a whole lot about Vampira growing up. Honestly, I'm not even sure when I first heard of her. Was it when Tim Burton's Ed Wood came out? Did I see her glamorously ghastly visage peering out at me from the shelves of some goth clothing store in north Orange County? I'm not sure. But I can tell you exactly when I became deeply interested in Vampira, and that's when my friend Lindsay, who had written a very good article on horror hosts and learned a lot in the process, gifted me a DVD of an intriguing little documentary called Vampira and Me a couple of years ago. Vampira, also known as Maila Nurmi in the daylight, led a fascinating life - and it's remarkable how a woman who was only a television personality for a couple of years in the '50s, who has only a combined few minutes of surviving film and TV footage to her name, has managed to impact popular culture in every ensuing decade. Simply put, Vampira is the shit. So when I heard that there was a new book about her, I was eager to learn as much as possible.

W. Scott Poole makes it clear in his book's introduction that this is NOT a standard biography of the OG goth girl, mostly because Maila Nurmi remains an enigmatic figure about whom little is known. Instead, it's an examination of what Maila Nurmi's creation meant to the counterculture, to the '50s, to entertainment and to the world at large. Of course, there are still lots of fascinating biographical details to be had, from a look at Nurmi's controversial friendship with James Dean to her dalliance with a young Elvis Presley. (Incidentally, Cassandra Peterson - a.k.a. Elvira - was a Vegas showgirl in her youth and claims to have lost her virginity to Elvis, so the man clearly had a type.)

You can also expect to find lots of juicy and evocative details like the following:

I'm sorry, is Vampira actually sucking strawberry milkshake off of a rosary in this scenario?! All hail the queen, dudes.

There were a few early passages in the book that I have to admit I found a bit dry, such as Poole's look at what it must have been like for young Nurmi to grow up in the Finnish American community and the impact her parents' religious views may have had on her as a performer. The story of how the character of Vampira came to be, however - she was Nurmi's take on Charles Addams' gothic housewife (later named Morticia for the Addams Family TV series), a costume created for a Halloween party - and the ways in which the character shaped the rest of her life was truly engaging.

I may not look like Vampira (I mean, I wish!), but the whole glamour ghoul schtick is something that is truly near and dear to my heart. Plus, there's nothing I cherish more than witty one-liners and deadpan delivery - and Vampira certainly puts the dead in deadpan, so you could definitely say that I owed a lot to this woman on a personal level, even before I knew who she was. If you're looking for a book to kick off 2015, pick up Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror - a look at the original "spooky little girl."

Disclosure: I was provided with a complimentary electronic copy of this book for review.

Book Review - HALLOWEEN NATION by Lesley Pratt Bannatyne

One of the most intriguing things about Halloween - at least in the grand scope of holidays - is the fact that there is no one way to going about celebrating it. Whereas everyone who celebrates Christmas has more or less the same plan for December 25th - big meal, gift exchange, tree with ornaments, etc. - October 31st can mean anything to any number of different people. You could go trick-or-treating, host a party, stay in and watch scary movies, attend a rite or ceremony, try to communicate with the dead, visit a haunted house, see a play, go to a concert, hit up a bar...the possibilities are limitless. Even the tone of the holiday is optional; whether your Halloween is sexy, gruesome, whimsical, terrifying or beautiful is entirely up to you. How you celebrate Halloween depends on the age in which you were born, the region in which you live, the kind of movies you watch, the genre of music you prefer to listen to, your childhood experiences with the holiday and, often, the nature of your most profound hopes and fears.

Another curious facet of Halloween is precisely how American the holiday really is; despite its reputation as a night for mainstream-taunting iconoclasm, the truth is that loving Halloween is practically patriotic. While Halloween (or some variation thereof) is celebrated in several other countries, it seems unlikely that any other place on earth has quite so many people who love the holiday quite so much. If you've ever wondered how the collective American psyche has shaped our modern celebration of Halloween, then Lesley Pratt Bannatyne's book Halloween Nation: Behind the Scenes of America's Fright Night is for you.

A 200-page examination of why we love Halloween peppered liberally with color photographs and illustrations, Halloween Nation attempts to answer that question without resorting to dense prose or subscribing to any one theory. Similar in tone to the works of Mary Roach (whose books Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife are cited as resources), Bannatyne makes the kind of sociological examination demanded by the subject matter fun and cheeky rather than heavy-handed and academic.

She begins by probing the origins of the modern Halloween celebration, albeit briefly, since this book is about Halloween now, not Halloween hundreds (or even thousands) of years ago. Then she dives right into the slimy guts of the subject matter, speculating about the enduring appeal of the holiday's most iconic symbols (ghosts, witches, pumpkins, zombies) and taking an entire chapter to deconstruct the etymology of the jack o' lantern. Ghost hunters, witches, zombie walk organizers and farmers that specialize in growing gargantuan pumpkins are all consulted for their Halloween expertise.

Next, Bannatyne looks at large-scale Halloween celebrations from inception to execution, including the Village Halloween Parade in NYC and HAuNTcon (the haunted attraction industry trade show), and finishes up by examining Halloween-year-round subcultures like goth and metal, as well as a look at how "trick-or-treat" (particularly the "trick" aspect) has grown and changed in recent years.

In the course of the book, Bannatyne visits people from all over the country with many different connections to Halloween, from professed mediums and Spiritualists in the town of Lily Dale, NY to horror burlesque performers to sophisticated pranksters at MIT. While the book never gets particularly in-depth about any one subject - personally, I could read an entire book about haunted houses, theme parks and yard haunts - it provides a fascinating overview and may introduce you to Halloween traditions you didn't even know existed. (I am now extremely sad to have missed out on the Los Angeles Cacophony Society's haunted houses...sigh.) A glimpse of how our favorite day as we know it could only have happened here (in America) and now (in the twenty-first century), Bannatyne's Halloween Nation is a worthy addition to any Halloween fan's library.

For more information, visit the author's website.

Disclosure: I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book for review.