—The Daily Collegian Friday, Oct. 30, 1987
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Cobwebs
and tombstones promote stores
Halloween window design sparks creativity
By MARCY SMITH
Collegian Staff Writer
Chester the skeleton sits poised at the piano.
ready to play ghostly tunes accompanied by
Mr. Big on the saxaphone, while two high-fashion
monsters gather at the bar to share Miller Lite and
stale pretzels.
On the piano bench beside Chester is a basket
where a baby and a rat lie snuggled in a blanket.
This is the window scene of New World, 118
S. Pugh St.
Kim Filkins, owner of the vintage and contempo
rary clothing store, said New World has been
creating Halloween scenes for 14 years.
"I love doing them," Filkins said.
Filkins said the display brings people into the
store, where they rent and buy costumes.
"If you have a good window, it brings people
inside," Filkins said.
The scene's backdrop has windows, with Jason
the deadly character from Friday the 13th. peek
ing inside.
"We always do off-the-wall windows," she said.
The only difference between this window and
last year's, Filkins said, is i;lc brand of beer.
Spell book stews on Pattee shelf
By SEAN WEAVER
Collegian Staff Writer
Pattee Library contains a book, written in Duriac and
read from right to left, that allegedly possesses the
formula for evil spells.
Seances. black masses, and human sacrifices are only a
few of the evils the Necronomicon la name meaning
"death chronicle" can teach its readers.
The book is believed to have been written in Damascus
in the eighth century by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred.
"The Necronomicon magic is nothing to fool with and it
may expose you to psychological forces with which you
cannot cope. Remember. if you tinker with the incanta
tion, you were warned." according to Fate Magazine.
Since its original printing, the Al Azif meaning the
nocturnal sound of howling demons has been translated
numerous times and today is printed in four versions. The
title, Necrornonicon. was given to the book by philosopher
Theodorus Philetas and translated into Greek in 950 A.D.
The Necronornicon, w ith its history and reputation, is
believed and its eerie contents practiced.
The Duriac language. in which the book was written.
was probably the creation of horror fiction writer
H. P. Lovecraft 11890-19:37). said Charles Mann. head of
special collections of university libraries. The 800-page
book is actually• only 16 pages repeated in the falsified
Duriac language.
Loveeraft said this about his work in 1930: "No weird
Filkins said the Miller Lite company ap
proached her and her husband last year and
offered to provide the neon light and the beer
bottles for promotion.
Other local stores also are showing their holiday
spirit by displaying similar ghostly scenes in their
windows.
On East Beaver Avenue is a littering of
tombstones surrounded with dirt, moss and
leaves, with a man rising from his grave, gingerly
petting a rat perched on the man's stomach.
Beside this, in another window, a witch can be
found perched on a dead tree limb with a gathering
of grotesquely faced pumpkins underneath.
Steve Artz, the owner of Tinderbox Gifts, 137
E. Beaver Ave.. said he and his staff set up the
cemetery scenes.
"We have all this creative talent running
around, we might as well use it," Artz said.
Artz said the tombstones were made by three
employees. the dirt and moss gathered by another
two. and the dead daisies and tree stumps by a few
others.
Last year, Tinderbox Gifts had a bedroom scene
with ants craving over a man lying in bed, Artz
said.
story can truly produce terror unless it is devised with all
the care and verisimilitude of an actual hoax. -
Lovecraft was the author of many science fiction
novels. essays, and poetry. One of his best and most
convincing works was called History of the Necronomi
con.
"Lovecraft prepared an imaginary bibliography of a
hook which appeared in a collection of his stories,Beyond
the Wall of Sleep in 1942, - Mann said.
Lovecratt wrote the bibliography in such a manner as
to promote an actual practicing occult.
"Others went along with the intentional hoax and
provided versions of the work in pseudo-scripts and as
collections of spells and incantations in the manners of
Aleister Crowley, - Mann said.
Crowley, an early twentieth-century occultist, took
Lovecraft's mythical book and modeled a religon after it.
The Beast 666, as Crowley was called, believed himself to
be the reincarnation of a god.
In 1904 he claimed to recieve a message out of space
that contained the formula for a New World Order.
Crowley used the Necronomicon as a tool to utilize his
new order.
"Lovecraft created this book. It is fiction: non exis
tant." said Dr. Robert F. Lima Jr professor of spanish
and comparative literature.
In the time period that Lovecraft wrote his fiction,
people were infatuated with occults and devil worshiping,
Lima said. Crawley was just one of the true believers of
the book.
Witches and women define spirituality
By KIRSTEN LEE SWARTZ
Collegian Staff Writer
The label - Witch" conjures up
images of wrinkled haughty faces,
black cloaks and cauldrons. Cackling
ugly women with warts who chase
little girls like Dorothy on brooms
ticks is the traditionally depicted
myth.
On Halloween, masks with long
green noses and pointy dark hats fill
the costume shops and tales of evil
and bubbling brews are whispered in
the night.
But witches are not exclusively
residents of dime store windows; and
their appearances are often far dif
ferent than the expected.
In Happy Valley, witches are not
uncommon. and one is teaching Uni
versity students.
Jo C. Searles, an assistant profes
sor of English at the Altoona campus,
visited the Center for Women Stu
dents lounge Wednesday. And she
was not wearing black or a tall hat.
Her shoulder length hair was grey
ing: she wore an aqua sweater and
around her neck was an American
Halloween Stories scare State
By MAUREEN QUINN
Collegian Staff Writer
An accused murderer who pro
claimed his innocence until his death
was buried in a cemetery in nearby
Millheim just before the turn of the
century. Shortly after his burial,
gravekeepers noticed a lump in the
shape of a dagger growing out of the
side of the man's granite tombstone,
and a rust-colored liquid some said
it looked like blood oozed out of the
dagger.
Gravekeepers continually cleaned
the "blood" from the gravestone, but
it returned time after time.
"I don't know where ideas come from," Artz
said. "You eat some strange food before going to
bed and you get some strange dreams."
Fright Gallery, also known as Douglas Albert
Gallery, located on McAllister Alley. displays a
miniature Dracula that rises from his coffin to
greet unsuspecting passers-by.
Daniel Pry. an employee of the gallery, said not
much time is spent on the window.
"We spend much more time in the store
said
The gallery turns into a costume store during the
weeks prior to Halloween.
The owner, Douglas Albert, decides the scene
and characters to be placed in the window over
looking the brick path between East College Ave
nue and Calder Way.
Many other stores downtown created similar
display windows, advertising Halloween products
or just the holiday spirit.
Cindy Houser, manager of Your Fathers Mus
tache Family Hairstyling, 322 E. College Ave..
decorated the store's front window with spi
derwebs.
The Student Book Store. 330 E. College Ave
also created a display of stuffed pumpkins.
Indian "spirit of the household - neck
lace.
About 70 eager community mem
bers squeezed into the lounge eating
the apples and nuts Searles passed
around in a little black cauldron.
"People are interested in witches,•'
Searles said after the workshop titled
"The Work of a Common Witch:
Sweeping Through The Ages.'•
"There's a whiff of the unknown,"
she said. "People are always fas
cinated by that."
Searles said. "Witches are empow
ering women who give off a sense of
their own worth and beauty and joy."
She said a witch was an untamed,
angry and joyous female.
During the Middle Ages, Searles
said nine million witches were burned
at the stake.
In her book Gyn/ecology, noted
feminist author Mary Daly writes
that women accused of witchcraft
were those who rejected patriarchy.
"The witchcraze focused predomi
nantly upon women who had rejected
marriage ( spinsters) and women who
had survived it ( widows )." Daly says
in her book.
Stone masons filed the dagger
shape from the granite several times,
yet this too came back. By this time,
all the people from Millheim and
surrounding towns knew of the eerie
occurrence and filed past the grave to
see it for themselves. This publicity
so upset the accused murderer's fam
ily that they had the dagger shape cut
from the stone one last time and
covered the area with a steel plate.
To this day the dagger has not reap
peared.
Joan Long, cook at Delta Chi frater
nity, 424 E. Fairmount Ave., said this
story is the most famous supernatu
ral occurrence in the area. Long's
Jason for a day?
Only on Halloween
By VALERIE DU PONT
Collegian Staff Writer
State College will be filled this
weekend with Jim and Tammy
Bakker and horror movie charac
ters Jason and Freddie as Hallow
een party goers take to the streets.
Local store owners agree those
are among this year's most popu
lar costumes.
At New World, on the corner of
Calder Way and South Pugh
Street. some other popular char
acters include the Saint Pauli Girl.
Star Trek crew members, flap
pers, cans of beer and Top Gun
pilots, said owner Gary Filkins.
"It's hard to believe but sheiks
and gangsters are still popular.-
said Filkins. whose store rents out
160 different costumes.
Freddie and Jim and Tammy
Bakker masks also are among the
A vampire emerges from his coffin in the window of the Fright Gallery in
McAllister Alley.
Susan Pappalardo (senior-general
arts and sciences) said. "A lot of
times the people burnt as witches
were just unattached from men . .
or were healing women."
Pappalardo said the healing wom
en were often killed because they
were a threat to men in the medical
profession.
"Patriarchy just couldn't deal with
them," she said.
"The inquisition is going on today.
just in a different manner," Pappa
lardo said. "Witches aren't being
burnt at the stake but Amen in
general are treated in the same way
. . . raped . . . and used as property."
• According to Margo Adler's Draw
ing Down the Moon, American
witches today do not recognize au
thoritarian hierarchy nor accept the
concept of "absolute evil" and the
devil as defined by the Chrisitan
tradition.
"We acknowledge a depth of power
far greater than that apparent to the
average person," Adler writes. "We
recognize that our intelligence gives
us a unique responsibility toward our
grandmother lived near Millheim and
observed this case of the bloody dag
ger.
An uncommon occurrence? No.
said Bill Ellis, assistant professor of
English at the University's Hazleton
campus.
"If you go up to people on the street
and ask them what the strangest
thing that ever happened to them
was, one out of every four will have
something really bizarre to tell you,"
said Ellis, who teaches folklore
classes.
A sociological study by the Re
v. Andrew Greeley showed that 25
percent of the U.S. population believe
top sellers at the Fright Gallery,
owner Douglas Albert said. God
desses have been popular. too, but
Douglas said no costume in partic
ular seems to be the most popular.
Freddie Kruger from Night
mare on Elm Street and Jason
from Friday the 13th have also
been popular at Tinderbox Gifts.
said owner Steve Arntz. He said
people come into his store. which
sells accessories, because they
need the finishing touches for their
costumes.
Albert said many people come
into his store looking for more
serious costumes.
personally like the Boone}
costumes. - Albert said.
Lance Mountain senior-fi
nance) tried on a black and
orange. long-haired wig and said
he is going as Jon Bon JONI
Please see COSTUME, Page 8.
Colleigan Photo I Dave Leighton
environment. We seek to live in har
mony with Nature.-
Witches practice rites that attune
them to the rhythms of life by the
Phases of the Moon and the Seasonal
Quarters and Cross Quarters. Adler
writes.
"Most (witches) are goddesses or
nature oriented," Pappalardo said.
"It's mystical." she said. - But
power comes from people or some
thing here ( on earth). Things aren't
explained away as an act of God. It
makes a lot more sense."
Jean Guertler, a witch "out of the
broom closet," as she puts it, said
being a witch means spiritually con
necting with and being aware of ev
erything around her.
The word wicca, from which witch
is derived, means flexibility, Guertl
er said. During the witch hunts they
were looking for heretics. Heresy,
Guertler pointed out is derived from
the word choice.
"People are always so busy doing
what they call surviving, they miss
lots of things going on around them,"
Guertler said. "Everything is sa
cred."
College
they have seen a ghost or have had
contact with the dead, Ellis said.
Many supernatural instances are
said to occur when older houses are
renovated and the unhappy ghost of
its former owner, angry that his
home is being changed, is awakened,
he said.
A close friend of Ellis' was sanding
the dining room floor of an old Ohio
inn he was renovating when he heard
footsteps walking by a nearby buffet
table. No one was visible, yet he felt
the boards move under his hands. The
footsteps then left the room and re
treated up the stairs of the inn.
Please see SUPER,
10A
•
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