For Your Halloween Delectation

Yeah, I know, technically Halloween was last night (and I saw some of the best costumes ever outside my favorite coffee shop), but I think that because it fell on a Friday this year, legally it lasts all weekend.

(Loreena McKennitt's All Souls Night) The best Halloween song you've probably never heard. There's quite a number of versions at YouTube, but the most of the ones I looked at were static pictures. Meh. This one cuts off at the end (ouch), but you get the idea. Using LOTR as the source of video kind of clashed for me at first, but I think it works- certainly the imagery fits, and the timing is great. McKennitt's "thing" is Celtic-themed music, using a large dose of middle-eastern instrumentation. The lyrics to All Souls Night combine both Celtic and Japanese imagery to create a mood and a mental picture that captures Halloween for me in a way nothing else ever has. If you click through to see the lyrics, there's a clip from (I think) the liner notes to The Visitor (the album on which the song first was issued) where McKennit expands on this wonderful fusion of Celtic and Japanese traditions of appeasing the spirits of the departed.

APOD, which I've mentioned and scited at least a couple of times has had a couple of terrific Halloween-oriented nebulae the last two days, but they're a loooong way away, so no worries.
A witch, caught in profile, staring intently at a blue star (From here)When I was young "Space Ghost" was sort of a cheesy super-hero type cartoon. This space ghost is spooky. Incidentally, if you click through, the description of this picture links to a previous post called "the witch's broom." You can also embigger both of these pictures by clicking through on the links, then clicking on the picture.

A few days ago, National Geographic had an article about the evolution of a blood-sucking moth. Apparently, there are some differences in wing coloration from the fruit-eating version, but the moth has learned? adapted? evolved? to use mouthparts designed to pierce fruit skin and consume its juice to pierce mammal skin and consume their ...um... juice. Very interesting. There is a video embedded at the link above, and below is a portrait taken at supper time.
Finally, I don't really associate tigers with Halloween, but they're big and scary, right? And they're cats, even if this one's mostly not black. And I just like the picture and the caption. The group Tangerine Dream (one of the earliest electronica groups) did an album, Tyger, on which they put a bunch of William Blake's poetry to music; Tyger is an old favorite. London is also outstanding on that album. From here.
Happy Halloween!

Followup: OOH! OOH! Looky what I found!