Happy Halloween!

Random* quote of the day:


"The mind of man, child or adult, abhors a vacuum. Darkness is blank, and must be peopled, must be filled with terrible things that symbolize its fearful power.

—Diane Purkiss, At the Bottom of the Garden


(A splendid academic book, and very readable, if any of you are doing research on the dark side of fairy.) Just sayin'.


( Illustrated reversion. )

*Thanks to the wonderful power of synchronicity, all I had to do to "randomly" come up with a suitably spooky quote was swap Thursday's quote with Wednesday's. I love it when a plan comes together.

I told you so: a semi-Halloween story

In my apparent research into ghost hunting for my next novel, I came across a book called Ghost Hunter's Guide to Los Angeles by Jeff Dwyer. It's part of a series, each set in a different city, and basically gives a brief overview of ghost hunting techniques and equipment followed by a long list of "haunted" locations.

Imagine my peaked interested when Playa Vista was listed, the rampant development taking place where the Ballona wetlands once peacefully coexisted with the undeveloped runway of Hughes Aircraft. Hughes refused to develop this land—the last piece of prime, undeveloped land on the Westside of Los Angeles—so at his death the money men were wetting themselves in anticipation of the plunder. It was a massively controversial development from the start, as many wanted to protect the wetlands and the openness of the area, but the LA Board of Supervisors caved, as they always cave when massive amounts of money are involved. The Playa Vista development was bulldozed through the approval pipeline.

Imagine everyone's chagrin when the excavations of this property uncovered human remains: what was left of a massive Gabrielino-Tongva Indian village that used to occupy the site. The developers were required by law to call in archaeologists, and tried to pass it off as a few paltry bones which they flung into a storage shed, treating them with great disrespect. It turns out that this was actually a major archaeological site and nearly 400 bodies have been recovered so far. You can read about the whole sordid story here. (Long story short: the Indians got shafted yet again.) You can see pictures of the development and surrounding lands at doisneau's LJ here.

I remarked in this blog at the time that I really would not want to be part of that development or live in those units. Disturbed Indian grave sites are just asking for trouble. Mr. Dwyer states that, "Disturbance of these graves may be linked to strange mists that have been seen in the area. Small blue clouds float a foot off the ground and rise to a height of about four or five feet. At times they are stationary but sometime (sic) they move, slowly, against the wind." Those pesky orbs have also been sighted and "there are reports of electrical and mechanical problems" at the construction site. "It is anticipated that occupants of several new homes and offices in this development will experience paranormal activity..."

( In which PJ undercuts the Halloween spirit somewhat. )