![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Over Halloween weekend, I went on my first ghost walk and visited my first haunted house.
The ghost walk was at the Corvallis Whiteside Theatre, and perhaps "walk" is too big a word. It was fairly short and low key, and all within the theatre; they called it a ghost tour, which may be more apt. Caveats aside, the Whiteside is a remarkable place. It was built in the 1920s and it has a long and—let us say, a vibrant history including two fires and a beautiful organist who murdered her husband and killed herself. It's also an impressive historical building in the simple physical sense—Corvallis residents already know, but the rest of you will have to trust me that from within, the place is a palace. It shut down in 2002, but over the last few years a group of citizens have been working to repair and reopen the theatre as an arts venue. With a dead organist and dedicated, deceased owners and managers, some would say that there's been spiritual activity around the place—whether you agree with that or not, the history is fascinating and I appreciated the chance to be inside the theatre again and to find out what's being done to renovate it. There's enough there for an enjoyable history lesson and a fairly satisfying ghost tour. Devon and I quite liked it.
And part of me wants to volunteer with the group that's working to reopen the place. I was just starting to fall in love with the theatre when it closed down, and I think it has the potential to be so much more than it was back then. It was designed for acoustics and stage space as well as film. It was designed to provide entire evenings of variety entertainment. It could be something like that again, and that would be glorious.
The haunted house was the Nightmare Factory in Salem. We went just yesterday, and the day before Halloween was a combination of long lines (between two and four hours) and heavy rain, and so if I had known it would have been that much cold and wet and waiting for a fifteen minute walk ... I may have reconsidered. But as a chance to go through my first haunted house, it was worth it. They did a beautiful job with the build and aesthetic—it was about what you would expect, a school gone wrong, everything from corpses dancing at the prom to a haunted cafeteria. The live actors certainly were dedicated, and some of them were wonderful—my favorite was a contortionist, there were little touches down to a girl crying in the corner of the prom dance floor, and the cherry on top was the man with a chainsaw who chased down groups just as they made it out of the building and should have been in the clear. But for all that I liked the creative aspects, a haunted house turned out to be, for me, not a particularly successful venture.
I have a finely toned startle response, but as a result I also tend to be hyper-aware—particularly when I expect to be startled. Devon and I were at the head of the group, and we could see most of the live actors coming. That combination made things somewhat predictable: hey look, person in a dark corner, wonder if they'll jump up and yell real loud, oh look they did. I was startled a few times, but it was purely a physiological response.
And because I startle easily, I have a bit of a grudge against startle scares. I think they're cheap. They capitalize on those physiological responses and on their own they're nothing more than that. That isn't to say that there's no place for startle scares, but I believe that they must be infrequent to remain effective in provoking a response, and to be frightening—truly frightening in the sense of getting under your skin, into your mind, and clinging there—they need to work in tandem with other elements. Like atmosphere—and the haunted house had plenty, but it was a bit like Bettlejuice: grotesque so as it becomes humorous without losing its darkness, which can be fun but isn't my personal favorite. Like ideas—because a very brilliant idea can be everything. Like impact, too, because those ideas need to be supported: an idea in an emotional and intellectual vacuum is interesting but insubstantial; an idea that changes people is an idea that means something, that has weight, that sticks with you.
All of that is more than a haunted house could provide, I figure. There's no time or depth, it's a bit grotesque-gone-humorous by design, and all of that's fine. But it also means that even a good haunted house—and a reckon this was one—won't give me quite what I'm looking for. I think one that was a little more original (the haunted school thing felt a bit overdone) may impress me more. I did enjoy myself at this one, but mostly as a novelty experience: the creativity of the build, the experiencing of knowing what these haunted house things actually are from inside.
The real joy of Halloween has just been to experience it. I am intentionally distanced and reserved, I am a hermit in a cave of safety, and most of the time I love that—but it means that most special events pass me by. I don't get out on a day to day basis, and that puts me out of the habit of getting out at all—even for holiday and seasonal events. And I tend to regret that, because ideally I sequester myself so that when I want to engage, I have the resources and desire to do so. I don't like watching events just pass me by—not events like these.
This year, I had cider with my family and I drank so many pumpkin concoctions from Starbucks, I went out with Devon to enjoy the city at its most beautiful, and I even went to hear about ghosts and see my first haunted house. It's nothing special, but it was special to me.
Just like last year (because the picture is as popular now as it was then):
Happy Halloween
The ghost walk was at the Corvallis Whiteside Theatre, and perhaps "walk" is too big a word. It was fairly short and low key, and all within the theatre; they called it a ghost tour, which may be more apt. Caveats aside, the Whiteside is a remarkable place. It was built in the 1920s and it has a long and—let us say, a vibrant history including two fires and a beautiful organist who murdered her husband and killed herself. It's also an impressive historical building in the simple physical sense—Corvallis residents already know, but the rest of you will have to trust me that from within, the place is a palace. It shut down in 2002, but over the last few years a group of citizens have been working to repair and reopen the theatre as an arts venue. With a dead organist and dedicated, deceased owners and managers, some would say that there's been spiritual activity around the place—whether you agree with that or not, the history is fascinating and I appreciated the chance to be inside the theatre again and to find out what's being done to renovate it. There's enough there for an enjoyable history lesson and a fairly satisfying ghost tour. Devon and I quite liked it.
And part of me wants to volunteer with the group that's working to reopen the place. I was just starting to fall in love with the theatre when it closed down, and I think it has the potential to be so much more than it was back then. It was designed for acoustics and stage space as well as film. It was designed to provide entire evenings of variety entertainment. It could be something like that again, and that would be glorious.
The haunted house was the Nightmare Factory in Salem. We went just yesterday, and the day before Halloween was a combination of long lines (between two and four hours) and heavy rain, and so if I had known it would have been that much cold and wet and waiting for a fifteen minute walk ... I may have reconsidered. But as a chance to go through my first haunted house, it was worth it. They did a beautiful job with the build and aesthetic—it was about what you would expect, a school gone wrong, everything from corpses dancing at the prom to a haunted cafeteria. The live actors certainly were dedicated, and some of them were wonderful—my favorite was a contortionist, there were little touches down to a girl crying in the corner of the prom dance floor, and the cherry on top was the man with a chainsaw who chased down groups just as they made it out of the building and should have been in the clear. But for all that I liked the creative aspects, a haunted house turned out to be, for me, not a particularly successful venture.
I have a finely toned startle response, but as a result I also tend to be hyper-aware—particularly when I expect to be startled. Devon and I were at the head of the group, and we could see most of the live actors coming. That combination made things somewhat predictable: hey look, person in a dark corner, wonder if they'll jump up and yell real loud, oh look they did. I was startled a few times, but it was purely a physiological response.
And because I startle easily, I have a bit of a grudge against startle scares. I think they're cheap. They capitalize on those physiological responses and on their own they're nothing more than that. That isn't to say that there's no place for startle scares, but I believe that they must be infrequent to remain effective in provoking a response, and to be frightening—truly frightening in the sense of getting under your skin, into your mind, and clinging there—they need to work in tandem with other elements. Like atmosphere—and the haunted house had plenty, but it was a bit like Bettlejuice: grotesque so as it becomes humorous without losing its darkness, which can be fun but isn't my personal favorite. Like ideas—because a very brilliant idea can be everything. Like impact, too, because those ideas need to be supported: an idea in an emotional and intellectual vacuum is interesting but insubstantial; an idea that changes people is an idea that means something, that has weight, that sticks with you.
All of that is more than a haunted house could provide, I figure. There's no time or depth, it's a bit grotesque-gone-humorous by design, and all of that's fine. But it also means that even a good haunted house—and a reckon this was one—won't give me quite what I'm looking for. I think one that was a little more original (the haunted school thing felt a bit overdone) may impress me more. I did enjoy myself at this one, but mostly as a novelty experience: the creativity of the build, the experiencing of knowing what these haunted house things actually are from inside.
The real joy of Halloween has just been to experience it. I am intentionally distanced and reserved, I am a hermit in a cave of safety, and most of the time I love that—but it means that most special events pass me by. I don't get out on a day to day basis, and that puts me out of the habit of getting out at all—even for holiday and seasonal events. And I tend to regret that, because ideally I sequester myself so that when I want to engage, I have the resources and desire to do so. I don't like watching events just pass me by—not events like these.
This year, I had cider with my family and I drank so many pumpkin concoctions from Starbucks, I went out with Devon to enjoy the city at its most beautiful, and I even went to hear about ghosts and see my first haunted house. It's nothing special, but it was special to me.
Just like last year (because the picture is as popular now as it was then):
Happy Halloween
