As I was finishing a project last October, I came across an exquisite 3,200-year-old necklace with skulls that looked as ready as ever for new life in a modern Halloween celebration. (I wish I owned a replica!) This October, I zipped to deep space in NASA's Galaxy of Horrors and zig-zagged the grounds of a cemetery to complete a search that's lasted years.

I walked a mile and a half, sometimes through ornate outdoor plazas overlooking Spanish-style tiled roofs. But the California sunshine comprised too small a portion of the afternoon. Mostly I wandered floors and floors of mausoleum halls that held neatly-stacked remains. Imagine stone filing cabinets 20 feet high, then multiply.

I've never breathed such stale air. Give me the speckled shade of a rural Midwest cemetery any day.

In 19th-century America, cemeteries were expansive, green spaces needed by urban residents living in the grime of industrial cities. Today, cemeteries still share a Venn diagram with land conservation. Others offer canvases for cheeky creativity.

They're infrequent, but you can find carved recipes for spritz cookies, blueberry pie, and fudge as tombstone treats.

That last link will transport you to Find A Grave, a crowd-sourced community of, yes, graves. Specifically, gravestones, which hold a bunch of useful information for all kinds of research, even when the records don't add any pages to your dessert cookbook. I joined as a contributor in 2016 while working on a big project that took me to many cemeteries. Why keep those archival finds locked in my photos app?

The end of that effort brought me to the dry, leaden halls of a mausoleum in LA. More to come in a few months...

Until then, you absolutely must watch Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West, visit Sesame Street in 1976. (Bonus: Hamilton chats with Mister Rogers, too.) What a world, what a world. 

"No time for the martyr of our fair town / Who wasn't a witch because she could drown."
 

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This newsletter was written on the traditional lands of the Piscataway and Nacotchtank.