It's a reliable sign of autumn in the modern world. As soon as school starts, a Halloween store will suddenly appear somewhere in town. It stays open for a couple of months, and then closes early in November. It will be back next year, but not necessarily in the same place. How do they manage to do that?

All of this would be impossible without the existence of vacant retail properties in need of tenants, even if those tenants only plan on being there for a few weeks. What’s bad for retail is good for Halloween pop-ups, at least to a point. These companies need vacant spaces to fill, but they also need nearby stores to draw in consumers.

Strip-mall vacancies rose to 11.1 percent during the recession, according to CityLab — not great for retailers but a huge opportunity for Halloween pop-ups. “During the crash, I would get calls before this Halloween to ask if I wanted space for next Halloween,” the anonymous Halloween express agent told the website.

Once the economy started to improve, there were fewer empty storefronts to select from, but this year, Halloween pop-up stores have plenty of Toy R Us space to lease. Next year, maybe Sears. Meanwhile, Halloween store companies will be working on inventory, staffing, and holiday trends in addition to locations for next year. Read about the Halloween pop-up store business model at Vox.

(Image credit: Flickr user Daniel Oines)

Why do we get a thrill out of horror films? And what's the deal with poisoned trick-or-treat candy? Those are a couple of the subjects in the Halloween edition of the Mental Floss show Scatterbrained. You'll also hear about a scientist who did research on trick-or-treaters, the inspirations for Stephen King novels, and a 1992 British TV hoax that terrified the audience.

The closest thing you'd ever find to a modern day version of P.T. Barnum's museum was the Freakatorium in Manhattan. The Freakatorium was founded by sword swallower, fire-eater, and illusionist Johnny Fox. Sadly, the Freakatorium closed in 2005, a victim of gentrification, and Fox died last December. Next month, Fox's extensive collection of Freakatorium exhibits will go up for auction in Chicago. Gabe Fajuri of Potter and Potter Auctionsm knew Fox from the magic community. He tells us about some of the Freakatorium articles that will be available.

Collectors of so-called oddities will have the most fun pawing through the catalog of Fox’s collection. Take, for example, “Fluffy,” the mummified cat, which, according to the auction catalog, “traveled in sideshows for many years after being discovered during the demolition of an old building in New York.” Or, a vintage shrunken head: The one displayed at the Freakatorium as the genuine article was more likely an early 20th-century facsimile made in South America of various leathers and human hair. Perhaps you prefer a wax head instead? Fox owned the disembodied wax heads of Mao Zedong, Julius Caesar, Stephen F. Austin, and Sir Walter Raleigh, all made in the ’60s by the Gems of London, which specialized in such figures for exhibition. Another highlight is a bezoar stone removed from the intestinal tract of Wexy, a royal war horse that died at Waterloo in 1815; bezoars were thought to be useful antidotes to poison. And then there’s a Victorian-era embalming table, an antique chastity belt, a dish of glass eyes, and so much more.

Fajuri believes the breadth of the collection will appeal to everyone, from educational institutions to “weirdos.” “There’s some interesting material here that is suitable for a library, and then there’s, you know, conjoined fetal pigs in a jar,” he says. “That’s just something somebody wants to post on Facebook and say, ‘Look what I got!’”

If you are interested in rare oddities, ephemera, and memorabilia from the circus and sideshow era, you may want to attend the auction. At the very least, you'll want to see a gallery of Freakatorium items and read about the erstwhile museum at Collectors Weekly. 

It seems to me that the pattern is 3.40 per 3 wings, with a 0.55 wing at each 25. The first two are 1.15, the third is 1.10. This pattern holds up to 75, where they add 5c for some reason, then subtract that 5c at 80. Subtract 5c at 125, add 5c at 150, add 5c again at 200. Shrug.

— SpooklopsDragon (@CyclopsDragon) October 23, 2018

Danny's Wok in Philadelphia sells chicken wings. You can order as many as you want, within limits (you can't order just one). If you want to do the math, it appears that wings are $1.15 each, or close to it, with a slight discount on the third wing, but that only works up to a point. Twitter math nerds are working diligently to discern the exact pattern.

That's a lot of WANGS, LOL!!!!!!

— Andrew Denniston (@Dru8806) October 24, 2018

You can see possible formulas, charts, graphs, and more math geekery surrounding the price of Danny's wings in the Twitter thread or the short version at Buzzfeed.

You've heard Florida described as "America's retirement home," so you've also probably heard that Florida is "the place Americans go to die." But the state is not all old people. Surely you are familiar with Florida Man, the superhero whose name begins so many weird national headlines. And now that we've established that Florida is a strange place, is it so odd to think that the state is haunted? The specific spots include the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp.   

Florida is weird, so perhaps it’s no surprise the psychic capital of the world is right here, in Cassadaga. The historic community of spiritualists was founded in the late 1800s by medium George P. Colby (because a Native American spirit told him to), and is now a 57-acre camp made up of just 55 homes. It’s been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1991, and attracts believers from far and wide for spiritual healings, drum circles, group meditations, and more. Whatever you do, if you visit the town cemetery, don’t sit in the Devil’s Chair -- it’s said to be haunted by Satan himself. Leave a beer there, and some say he’ll even drink it, leaving you weirded out AND thirsty.

Read about the ten most haunted places in Florida, some of which you can visit, if you dare.

(Image credit: Jason Hoffman/Thrillist)

Halloween decorations come in all flavors, and aren't necessarily related to the classic monsters of horror films and folklore. Star Wars fan William Plessinger built a 17-foot-tall AT-AT for Halloween last year. This year, the improved version again graces his front yard in Columbus, Ohio. See more pictures of it at Facebook, and see a news report about the AT-AT at Laughing Squid. Plessinger did the interview dressed as a stormtrooper, more or less.

Comedian David Lopez imagined the movie Halloween as if it happened in his house. Michael Meyers is no match for... well, just watch it. Bonus comedy if you are bilingual. This year, he produced the sequel.



There are other videos where Lopez (Juan) encounters Chucky, Pennywise, and Jigsaw. -via Metafilter

The life cycle of the conopid fly reads like a horror movie script. The fly attacks a bumblebee, the bee is knocked to the ground, but then assumes the fight is over and flies off. Only now the bee is carrying a fly egg that was forcibly inserted into her abdomen during the attack.

The egg’s new home is the bee’s fat stores. What was meant to be a source of energy for the bee becomes a source of nutrition for the fly larva. After devouring the fat stores, the growing larva continues to hollow out the bee’s body. It consumes internal tissues as if clearing furniture from someone’s apartment. The bee’s body is both the fly’s food and its home.

This micro-nightmare remains private for around 10 days, until the bee succumbs to its fate. It lands on the ground and digs itself into the soil. In a zombie-like motion, it uses its little bee legs to tunnel into its own grave, and die.

What appears to be torture and doom for the individual bumblebee is the normal survival scheme for conopid flies. How much damage could these flies do to the bees that pollinate our crops? Rosemary Malfi conducted a study to determine just that -and the results may surprise you. Read about the parasitic conopid fly at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: André Karwath)

Chris Cultrera saw this wind dancer crying out for the proper soundtrack. Not only does the rhythm work well, but the lyrics are perfect, too! -via Digg

There have been very few shipwrecks found that were part of the global slave trade. In 2008, the Slave Wrecks Project began the search for more of the sunken ships. One in particular was the São José Paquete d’Africa, which foundered in 1794 off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa. Marine archaeologist Jaco Boshoff studied documents and discovered that a misidentified shipwreck discovered in the early 1980s was actually the São José.  

An archival document found in the Arquivo Historico Ultramarino archive in Lisbon, Portugal, by Dr Lubkemann states that the São José left Lisbon on 27 April 1794 for Mozambique via Cape Town with 1,400 iron ballast bars in its cargo. According to Boshoff, the members of the Slave Wrecks Project think the bulk of the bars were used to pay for slaves from Mozambique, but some were left on board to offset the weight of the human ‘cargo’ on the ship.

On 3 December 1794, Captain Manuel Joao Perreira sailed from Mozambique for Brazil’s Maranhão state. Perreira was planning a stop in Cape Town to take on provisions before crossing the Atlantic, where he intended to sell the 512 slaves. However, the ship ran into trouble off the Cape Peninsula and foundered. More than 200 slaves died, while the survivors were sold into slavery in Cape Town.

The ship with its shackles and iron bars was hidden on the ocean floor for more than 200 years. Boshoff and his team have been studying and documenting the shipwreck for the past few years, and have brought some evidence to the surface. Artifacts from the São José will go on display in December at Cape Town’s Slave Lodge history museum. Read the story of the São José and its discovery in a gallery of text, images, and video at BBC Travel. -via Digg

(Image credit: SkyPixels)

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so it's fairly impossible to define. That doesn't mean we haven't tried. An easier question would be how did we come to value beauty as much as we have -and not just in people, but in everything around us. Kurzgesagt tries to answer that question. -via Boing Boing

Hellen Die of Eat the Dead (formerly the Necro NomNomNomicon) celebrates the 25th anniversary of the movie Hocus Pocus with a recipe.

In one scene in the film, Winifred Sanderson is working on whipping up a batch of her famous potion, with Mary and Sarah Sanderson helping her out. One of the critical ingredients is a dead man’s toe.  Mary drops one in, but not before Sarah helps herself to a few to snack on.

After trying a few, Die decided to make hers out of chocolate instead. On a stick. There's something rather appealing about a recipe that starts with "wash your feet," even if you don't plan to make these treats yourself. All the instructions for Chocolate Dead Man's Toes are at Eat the Dead. There's also a roundup of posts from elsewhere about the movie Hocus Pocus.

The number one movie at the box-office right now is Halloween, with the same characters as the 1978 movie of the same name. That original Halloween was a groundbreaking horror film that spawned sequel after sequel after sequel, so now they are just recycling the movie titles. But try to remember back when you first saw Halloween -the original- for the first time. You were probably so frightened that you didn't have the time or the energy to critique the film. Screen Junkies has the time, and they did it for us. Spoiler alert: If you only saw the first movie, you made the right choice.

If you are of a certain age, you remember watching Apollo 11 land on the moon. Everyone in the world with access to TV was watching at the same time. Almost 50 years on, you might enjoy an explanation of how that happened. From the perspective of 2018, it seems like a miracle that we sent men to walk on the moon and brought them back to earth with less computer power than the average iPhone, when we now can't even hitch a ride to the space station.

Akron, Ohio, was a booming city in the mid-20th century. They built a highway through the middle of town called the Innerbelt to ease commuter traffic. But more than 50 years later, the road was barely used, and was closed in 2015. What to do with the city space now? Residents wanted it turned into a green space. Designer Hunter Franks went to work to make the Innerbelt National Forest a reality.

At first, the city insisted that he plant trees in pots, so his “Innerbelt National Forest” would be easier to remove. In time, he was allowed to plant them in the ground, while also putting in a stage, a children’s play area, a mulch trail and other amenities. The park, which opened in August, was an immediate hit. Although it was originally seen as temporary, talk soon started up about extending its life, or even making it permanent. “Some or all or most of it may end up staying,” says Jason Segedy, Akron’s planning director.

Residents, posting pictures of the park on Instagram, keep comparing it to an old Joni Mitchell song, noting that it’s the reverse of her 1970 lyric about paving paradise to put up a parking lot. The fact that a disused freeway can become a pop-up forest makes it easy to envision turning practically any area into green space, Franks says.

Read more about the Innerbelt National Forest project at Governing. -via Metafilter