What happens when you die

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Halloween Body Art

The body paint tutorials by Lex at MadeYewLook on YouTube are fantastic. Some of them are downright creepy and hauntingly fun. She has videos for everything from zombie bites, pop-culture horror characters, Monster High Dolls, and some really wickedly awesome ideas if you’re looking for some last-minute costume ideas.

While I was transfixed watching almost all her videos in a little over a week, my favorites were her Pumpkin King and Cheshire Cat from the video game Alice. Wonderful creations!

Here is her 2013 body paint tutorial playlist:

These are her 2014 body paint tutorials:

Happy haunting!

H.P. Lovecraft & E.A. Poe- Free Online

One of my new co-workers suggested that I read H.P. Lovecraft. The reason I was given was that as someone who loves horror, I just might enjoy it. Fancy that just 24 hours after this conversation, I read this article with links to ebooks and PDF files that are downloadable to read the works of this master of the macabre!

Here’s the article I found:
http://www.openculture.com/2014/10/h-p-lovecrafts-classic-horror-stories-free-online.html

Also, one of my favorite masters of macabre literature is Edgar A. Poe. His writings are also available online for free. You can find them at this link as well:
http://www.openculture.com/2014/10/download-the-complete-works-of-edgar-allan-poe-macabre-stories-as-free-ebooks-audio-books.html

Enjoy!

*Cascading Curses* James Dean: Destined to Die Young

When one unfortunate event begins a series of tragic coincidences it has the tendency to evolve into a curse. The more coincidences that are involved, the more likely people are to believe otherworldly factors have come into play– the circumstances are just too unwieldy to be anything but the result of a curse!

A series of tragic events that link back to the death of a young up-and-coming actor have managed to achieve a level of curse that only a series of coincidence of this magnitude can afford.

James Byron Dean lived life in the fast lane, so it comes as no surprise that this “Rebel Without a Cause” spent his last moments of life behind the wheel of a car.

French Quarter shop owner sees dead people

I noticed this story on the website for our local newspaper and thought it would be cool to share. My problem with photographic evidence – other than the obvious of being very easily manipulated on a computer – is this….

… if you hold a lighted magnifying glass close enough to some of her photos and stare really, really hard, you could make out man-in-the-moon features.

If ghost photography is really possible, I don’t want to have to stare really really hard at anything to see what should be plainly obvious. I have seen photos people have taken of a residential street and then digitally zoomed in on one house with a bay window in front and claimed to see a ghost in the window. It’s convenient for people to overlook the fact that when most photos are enlarged, they are also distorted. Especially the details.

Cynthia Badinger knows you may not believe that she’s able to photograph ghosts. She said that if someone told her they could photograph ghosts, she’d be skeptical too. But Badinger has proof, hundreds of snapshots of apparitions mostly seen in the sky and on balconies in the lower French Quarter. She showed them to me as we stood in her crowded French Quarter art shop. We were kept company by her scruffy little dogs, several concrete courtyard cherubs and a statue of Napoleon, who had an incredulous look on his face.

Badinger said that the translucent orbs that pop up on her Canon digital camera screen are spirits. You can see faces in the orbs, she said. Sure enough, she showed me that if you hold a lighted magnifying glass close enough to some of her photos and stare really, really hard, you could make out man-in-the-moon features. Sometimes you can make out dogs and animals. It’s like looking at clouds. She has a chilling photo of an orb with a mysterious teeny tiny face that appeared in a Gentilly Boulevard church window. She thinks that maybe it’s the ghost of a priest.

The ephemeral blue soldier silhouette hovering on the balcony above the coffee shop across the street from her shop at 940 Royal St. is her ghost photo masterpiece. If you try, you can make out crossed cartridge belts, a beard and maybe mutton chop sideburns.

If you try.

Considering Badinger’s buoyant attitude and all the spirit orbs floating all over the place in her photos, it’s irresistible to describe her as bubbly. She talks a mile a minute in one of those great old-time New Orleans accents and shuffles through her photos like a card dealer at Harrah’s. Here’s the photo of the orb behind the curtains. Here’s the orb on New Year’s Eve. Here’s the orb over St. Louis Cathedral and the orb near the old Ursuline convent.

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