Post-Halloween Pick-me-up

As of this morning the 282 posts on Sexy Witch have been viewed 2,480,606 times. My busiest day was Halloween this year with 7,123 visits. I always get a spike in traffic around Halloween, which means that after Halloween there is a catastrophic—almost panic-inducing—fall in traffic. Check out the graph:

So, I’ve been thinking, what do I post in this traffic-vacuum? Something from the top-shelf to lure you (plural) back. Perhaps it would it be a waste to post something that good when hardly anybody is paying any attention. Then again, perhaps I should reward those faithful few who do visit, visitors who are like your closest friends who stay around after the party to help clean up.

Then there is the question of what to post. Are we over Halloween for a while? Also, I’ve kept it all nice and family-friendly for a while. Isn’t it time for something a little more outré? Something that says I am an adult and I am not afraid of a bit of skin. How about Jana D. as a post-Halloween pick-me-up?

For full size images, and the rest of the gallery, go here.

31 Days of Halloween-Day 31–Halloween in Melbourne, no. 8

Last night was the most enjoyable and successful Halloween I have had since I started celebrating the event.

As I have said in some of my previous posts, Halloween is only really starting to take off in Australia. In Melbourne, it has to slot into an already busy calendar. It follows the fumble-ball and Rugby League Grand Finals, and it is only a few days before the Melbourne Cup. The Cup is actually the culmination of weeks of Horse Racing—which starts immediately following the finals—known locally as the Spring Racing Carnival.

It is also the time of the HSC and VCE exams. These are the exams that all Year 12 (6th Form) students do before leaving School (as Seniors). Many will go to University, and will get places based on their exam results. Which means that they are really unlikely to go Trick or Treating.

But for younger kids it is all good. And I reckon that they are all just hoping that the adults and older teens would just forget about the football, horses and exams, put up some streamers, stock up on lollies and let them have some fun! And last night they did.

I had four groups come to the door, which will not impress anyone in America, but that is four more than two of the last four years and three more than the other. And all of them were wearing costumes, which was great, because none bothered in previous years. They took a while to get started and I had almost given up on them before the first arrived after 7PM.

“Scream” masks were big this year; there was also a few witches, a Darth Maul (who can’t have been more than six), a Frankenstein and others with “scary” face paint.

The biggest group was about a dozen girls (from about five to twelve) who could be heard squealing and laughing from about four doors away. When they come running up to the door they set off a sound-activated wailing and shaking skeleton I had set up, which sent them into another paroxysm of screaming and laughing. After everyone had grabbed as many boiled lollies, Zachary JuJu Pumpkins, Candy Corn etc etc as they could, the leader launched into a breathless account of all the other places they had visited (which was quite a few!).

The boys seemed to favour smaller groups. One little one with a JOL-bucket full of lollies said—when I asked him how he was going to fit any more lollies in—that he was going to go home and empty the bucket before heading out again. They certainly cleaned me out!

By the time I turned off the lights at 9PM the doorstep and porch were littered with half-a-dozen different types of Zachary treat that had been accidently dropped and trodden underfoot.

Next year I will have to be better prepared. I might make up little bags so the loose lollies don’t get dropped and so I can share them out a little more evenly. And I had better save a monster bag of sweets in reserve in case I run out!

Anyway, I hope everyone had fun last night/has fun tonight.

And I hope you have enjoyed my posts in the last month. It has been exhausting and, at times, difficult, but it has helped me post a stack of material (more than half a year’s worth of posts!) which has cleared a little of my backlog. And it has got me thinking that perhaps I should do some sort of posts more frequently. I’ll think about this when I am not so exhausted!

And remember, Always blow on the pie!

31 Days of Halloween-Day 30–broomstick rationing?

Witches—If all the witches were as pretty as Ellen Drew, the broom-stick industry would have to be rationed, but at any rate the Paramount star is getting ready for Hallowe’en. Miss Drew is currently before the cameras in Paramount’s “The Remarkable Andrew,” in which she is co-starred with Brian Donlevy and William Holden.

Ellen Drew was twenty-six in 1941, when this photo was taken. The snipe’s joke about rationing the “broom-stick industry” is a reminder that this pretty, fun photo was taken in the midst of war. Still, it looks like the rationing began here, since “Miss Drew” is without a broomstick!

31 Days of Halloween-Day 29–Scared?

Scared? Lovely Virginia Welles makes a Hallowe’en witch more charming than frightening as she attempts to typify the spirit of the holiday. Virginia Welles will be seen in Paramount’s “Calcutta“

Calcutta was filmed in 1945 (see here), but not released until 23 April 1947; the credit line of the press photo is dated “10-5-45″ which apparently means 5 October 1945. (Why the month comes before the day in the US is an utter mystery to me: it is like saying “ten miles, four inches and six feet” or “six ton, two ounces and ten pounds.” In fact it is worse, because not only is the sequence illogical, it is then put in a numerical form that is bound to confuse people, since 10-5-45 means 10 May 1945 in one part of the world and 5 October 1945 in another. “5-Oct-1945″ or “Oct-5-45″ would both avoid confusion but why be sensible about these things when national pride is at stake? Grrr.)

BTW: Imdb does not list Virginia Welles in the Cast list of Calcutta; and there are practically no details in their entry on her here beyond an improbable date of birth “25 June 1925″ ). Likewise, Wikipedia does not have an entry on her, but they do mention that Orson Welles “married actress and socialite Virginia Nicholson” in 1934 (when she was nine according to indb’s date of birth!); she got a divorce early in December 1939, and in the spring of 1940 she married Charles Lederer, at San Simeon; by 1949 Lederer was married to Anne Shirley; what became of Virginia Nicholson/Welles/Lederer is unclear. (A stray Imdb entry for Virginia Nicholson does not add anything; but the Notable Names Database (NNDB) gives a date of birth of ca. 1916.) It amazes me that so beautiful an actress, who married two such famous men, could disappear so convincingly.

[UPDATE 29 Oct 09: Yes, it seems that Virginia Nicholson changed her name to Virginia Welles and that, after her divorce from Welles either continued to go by "Virginia Welles" or "Virginia Nicholson Welles," not Virginia Lederer, even though her first performance listed on Imdb is 1945, after her marriage Lederer. The reason seems fairly obvious, she had a child by Welles; the child carried Welles's name, so she continued to use Welles (rather than Nicholson or Lederer).

As for the possibility that two people have been conflated, it is possible, but both the imdb and the NNDB entries give the place of birth as Wausau, WI which had a population under 20,000 at the time. It seems improbable that there were two actors from this little town, more likely one (or both) of the dates are simply wrong. After all, neither offers a date of death, neither state when she divorced Lederer; in fact, the details are so vague that it really isn't possible to say more than I have.

I urge anyone who disagrees with me, who knows more, or who can be bothered reading a few biographies of Welles or Lederer, to construct a Wikipedia entry for her. We can all make our contributions to that page (it is easier than getting Imdb corrected) and by doing so, we will bring forth the light of knowledge and push back the darkness of ignorance. Or something.]

31 Days of Halloween-Day 28–Hallowe’en

This postcard was posted 10.30AM 23 October 1912 at Stoughton, MA to Mr & Mrs Chas. W. Welch in “Town”(!?) with this message:

The Ghosts of Chicataubut
will meet in the
Shacles of the old Barn
Thursday, October 31st.
at 8 o’clock.

Printed in Saxony and published by Raphael Tuck & Sons, “Art Publishers to their Majesties the King and Queen,” in their ‘Hallowe’en’ Post Card Series No. 183.

And, why yes Oberon, it is another red-headed witch; and yes, she is wearing red! What can I say: I like red!

31 Days of Halloween-Day 27–Happy and Joyful

Halloween.
A Happy and Joyful Time! Shakespeare

This “Handembossed Post Card” was printed in Germany but published by H. L. Woehler, New York. It was posted 3PM 12 October 1912 at Natick, MA and sent to Jennie M. Phillips in Lynn, MA.

31 Days of Halloween-Day 26–A Joyful Halloween

May the Witch, Which Here is Seen,
Bring you a Bird of a Hallowe’en.

BTW: a bird, according to the OED (bird, noun 4b) is “a first-rate animal or thing. U.S. slang.” Note also, the play on words “Witch, Which” that was messed up in the postcard—by the same publisher—that I posted yesterday. (I am sorry Bill, but I do not think that “It is the Hallowe’en which will tell it to you” makes much sense. What does “the” in “the Hallowe’en” refer to? I think it should read, as here, “the Hallowe’en Witch, Which will tell it to you.”)