Welcome to a night of terror - and no, I don't mean this:
BREAKING: President Joe Biden bites a baby during the White House Halloween celebration tonight pic.twitter.com/PVi37KF6Bn
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 30, 2024
A vampiric figure from the undead (and, in fairness, Biden has seemed ever more un-dead since he quit having to pretend to be president) who only preys on children is what Hollywood would call high concept. But, on this All-Hallows Eve, you may prefer to take a break from the horrors all around and focus on more traditional frights - such as that Count in Transylvania, rather than the count in Pennsylvania, which will only begin to terrorise the land after sundown on Tuesday.
So we have many spooky delights for you: ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night - and no, I don't mean Joe Biden trying to get off a stage. First up, a couple of tales from the crypt. On the one hand, the work of Lord Byron's doctor, eight decades before Bram Stoker, born on a rainy night on Lake Geneva:
The Vampyre
On the other hand, there's a classic from Edgar Allan Poe:
The Masque of the Red Death
And, for those who find Ontario far more terrifying than mediaeval Europe, we also have an Algernon Blackwood classic:
The Wendigo
For those who like their horror on the big screen, there's Rick McGinnis on The Uninvited, and, for those who incline to bewitching audio, Steyn's Song of the Week tells the story of "Witchcraft", and Mark Steyn on the Town includes the spooky Sinatra.
Finally, in memory of my beloved groovy feline Marvin, a black cat to cross your path. A long time ago now, after one of our Sunday Poems, Mark Steyn Club Founding Member Robert Meador wrote with a request:
Kipling is a treasure. I see I am not the first to recommend his Just So Stories, but I'm sure I speak for Marvin and other felines everywhere: you should do a recording of 'The Cat That Walked By Himself'.
Well, I've always loved that particular tale. A lot of the Just So Stories are delightful and whimsical, but "The Cat That Walked By Himself" is also profound. So I took up Robert's suggestion and am pleased to reprise it here as a Halloween bonus for Steyn Club members. It's a tale of domestication - from the days when "the Tame animals were wild":
The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild—as wild as wild could be—and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.
Of course the Man was wild too. He was dreadfully wild. He didn't even begin to be tame till he met the Woman, and she told him that she did not like living in his wild ways. She picked out a nice dry Cave, instead of a heap of wet leaves, to lie down in; and she strewed clean sand on the floor; and she lit a nice fire of wood at the back of the Cave; and she hung a dried wild-horse skin, tail-down, across the opening of the Cave; and she said, 'Wipe you feet, dear, when you come in, and now we'll keep house.'
To hear "The Cat That Walked By Himself", prefaced by my own enthusiastic intro, please click here and log-in.
On the other hand, it's not Kipling, but at this time of year we always get a lot of requests for this - with apologies to Tweety and Sylvester ...and Sting:
That's a special appearance right at the end by David Porter-Thomas from the English National Opera as the basso profondo puddy tat. That's how nutty this track is: The best singer on it gets one line, and I get the rest. (It's from Feline Groovy, needless to say.)
We launched The Mark Steyn Club over seven years ago, and I'm immensely heartened by all those SteynOnline supporters across the globe - from Fargo to Fiji, Vancouver to Vanuatu, Surrey to the Solomon Islands - who've signed up to be a part of it. In Tales for Our Time I revisit some classic fiction I've mentioned in books and columns over the years - old stories that nevertheless speak to our own age. We have close to seventy of them now. To hear all these and our imminent November serial, all you need to do is join the Club - either for a full year or a see-how-it-goes experimental quarter. Or, if you have a friend who likes audio fiction, don't forget our gift membership.
Our regular service of exhaustive coverage of who's up a point up in Pennsylvania returns tomorrow.