Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Wednesday Weird: The Dybbuk Box

A dybbuk box is a wine cabinet that's purportedly haunted by a dybbuk, a malevolent spirit from Jewish folklore, capable of haunting and possessing a person.

A particular dybbuk box became famous (there's a book written about it, and it inspired the 2012 movie The Possession) when it was listed on ebay with a frightening backstory.





In September 2001 an antique buyer hit up a Portland auction, where the belongings of a 103 year old woman were being sold. The woman's granddaughter told the antique dealer that her grandmother had been Jewish and the only member of her family who had survived a concentration camp. When she emigrated to the US she only brought three things with her, one of which was her wine cabinet.




The granddaughter told the dealer that her grandmother always kept the box hidden and said that it should never be opened because it contained a dybbuk. She requested that the box be buried with her, but that went against Jewish tradition, so her family didn't comply.

The antique dealer bought the cabinet. Inside he found some old pennies, a lock of hair, a goblet and a candleholder.




He placed it in his workshop in the basement. Almost immediately strange things started to happen, including lights flickers, light bulbs shattering, strange smells (like cat urine) coming from nowhere, and terrible sounds emerging from the basement.

Because the dealer was either dumb as fuck, or smart(?) he gave the box to his mother, who shortly after had a stroke. At the hospital she spelled out a message: H-A-T-E-G-I-F-T.
He tried to gift it a few more times, but it was always returned to him because the recipients either didn't like it, or felt it was ominous.

The dealer began to sleep poorly and have nightmares. He would also catch glimpses of shadow people darting around. Once, when he was doing research about the box online, he fell asleep at his desk. When he woke, he felt breathing on the back of his neck. He turned and saw a large shadow flying away from him down the hall.

That's when he decided to list the cabinet on ebay.

It migrated to different owners before Jason Haxton, author of the book about the box and curator of a medical museum in Missouri, purchased the box. He resealed the box and stored it at a secret location, which he will not reveal.

So there you go! I haven't seen the movie, but I remember the previews and it looked pretty good. Thoughts? Theories?

Monday, July 28, 2014

In Which I Deal With The "To Be Read" Pile

So my little local library closed.

I actually don't use it that often. I do most of my library visits on Sundays (Sunday is my day o' errands) and the White Bear Lake library was closed on Sundays, so instead I'd hit the bigger one the next town over.

So yes, the WBL library closed down a few weeks ago. But for good reasons! They're rebuilding it, zazzing it up, making it awesome. Yay!

But because that will take some time, they sold everything in the old library. Everything.
Books. Movies. Book shelves. Chairs. Tables. Desks.

Library carts.

As soon as we realized they would have library carts, Twin and I were all up over that.

We both had huge stacks of books "to be read" on our end tables. If we could snag a library cart, we could move our piles onto that!

So off we went!

They had different sizes at different prices, so we snagged a mid size one.





Three shelves meant one shelf for my TBR pile, one for Twin's and one for books that either need to be shelved or sold or lent out.

It wasn't much to look at. So we decided to spruce it up with some spray paint.


Yvie says, stop dealing with that cart and start throwing the Frisby
 
 

Tula says, if I won't throw that toy for her, she's going to nap in the yard.



So there we go! Now our end tables are cleaner and our piles better organized. Will it help? Who knows. But at least it looks nice.
 
 

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

In Which I'm At My Residency

As the title says, I'm off for my second residency for my MFA.





I'm super excited and I know it will be so much fun, but that means no blogging until I'm back, probably the week of the 21st, or maybe even the 28th.

Have a great few weeks and I'll catch you on the flip side!

Friday, July 4, 2014

In Which I'm Away

It's the 4th of July today, which means no real blog post today or Monday because I am at the cabin, swimming and grilling and playing games.

I hope you have a great weekend!

 

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Insecure Writer's Support Group

First Wednesday of the month which means it's another edition of Insecure Writer's Support Group



So besides having to see a CPA this week, I have another new thing happening soon, and that's getting my edit letter for ALL THAT REMAINS.

Of course I wrote this post on Sunday, so there's a chance I already have the edit letter. Either way, you're reading this in the future! (How's it going? Have you bowed down to our robot overlords yet?)

In general I'm feeling pretty fine about all this. There's really not a point to worry about anything, at least certainly not before I've seen her notes.

But when I do have small moments of fear it's all because I've never done this before and I really have no idea what to expect.

I'm sure it will all be fine. And even if I do freak out a bit (I won't) all I have to remember is to just take a day or two to gather myself and get down to work.

So, yeah. The good news is, of course, that edit notes means one step closer for ATR to reach publication which is so awesome that 99% of the time it still doesn't feel real. And I'm not sure that will ever change.

Anyway, there you have it. Fears and junk.

How are things with you?
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