Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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j This Week in USC History f Oct- 22, 1986 - a $16.3 million federal grant was promised to USC to supplement USC's new engineering center, the John E. Swearingen Engineering Center. - ■* I THI ffMtlT *f BAM>#W**W Costumes could be hard to find , near Halloween by Heather Hardison The Gamecock Last minute shopping is not just for Christmas anymore. Many people are waiting until the last minute to find the perfect Hal loween costume. “There’s always a mad rush at the very end,’’said Randy Zalkin, employee at the Army Navy store. It seems like each year people wait later and lat er tc pick out their Jf. costumes. “Halloween is less than a week away and I still have no clue what I want to be,” said Jim my Maier, resident of Lexington. It is not ex actly clear why \ eople wait until day of Halloween to start deciding what they want to be. Some peo ple take weeks to figure out ideas, while some are just too lazy to go ( look. Waiting until Halloween is not always the best option. Putting off searching for a cos tume can result in no costume at all. “When customers wait un til the very end they are not al ways left with the best choices. They basically have to get just whatever is left,” Miranda Senn of Cromers said. Most of the cus tomers who do put off the costume search are left with remnants of costumes or things that are just not worth their money. They have to search through piles and piles of stuff to find what they are looking for. Wigs and makeup are two of the items that you can pretty much find at any time. “We sell a lot of wigs to customers who wait until the end,”Za lkin said. Wigs and makeup seem to be the easiest things to work with. With just those two essentials, you can be whatever you want to be. Costumes seepages ! Frankenstein’s Lab in the State Museum by James Battle The Gamecock If you go to the State Museum, trav el to the third floor, pass the giant sltark that used to be the highlight of your elementary school field trips, and look between the tractor show and the tex tile exhibit, you’ll find Frankenstein’s Laboratory. Most likely you’ve already heard the groaning of someone trying to pass Thanksgiving dinner and the heartbeats of a 10-year-old on Ritalin. Peeking around the corner, you’ll find Frankenstein’s experiment chained to a bed surrounded by old electrical equipment. Wearing his usual charcoal suit and dusty combat boots, Frankenstein’s Mon ster doesn’t look so good. Curly yellow wires are bolted to is chest, and stainless steel hoses protrude from his neck. Plastic rats scurry over test tubes, and what looks like the Monster’s brain sits on a shelf next to agerbil swimming in formaldehyde. Around his bed, glass orbs conduct electrical confusion, and from the ceil ing lightening strikes, foretelling that soon the Monster will rise and choke everyone in the museum. Strangely enough, these antique ma chines, now used to bring life to dead people’s body parts, are real scientific devices on loan from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Universi ty of South Carolina. What you would call the copper swirly thing that makes fumiy noises is actually a Waits and Bartlett medical electrostatic generator. This equipment would have been ""l used during the mid-1800s and probably handled by students that had never dealt with electricity. It’s hard to imagine how many hung-over freshmen got electro cuted. Yet, during this time, electricity was the focus of scientific study hnd was be lieved by some to be the spark of life. Early in 1752, Benjamin Franklin, using his kite experiment, proved light ening and electrical sparks were the same. Then Friedrich Anton Mesmer, an Austrian physician, “mesmerized” pa tients with “electrical hypnosis”, as pleas ant as that sounds, and believed elec tricity was the bridge between the body and soul. But the discovery that must have caused the most uproar is Luigi Galvani’s in 1791 that found dead frog legs could be made to twitch by zapping them with an electrostatic machine. As crude as these experiments seem, Mary Shelley’s words, “What if man played God and used his technology to create life?” seem strangely pertinent in a world where scientists can toy with ge netic material to create pigs and sheep. Even now, Dr. Frankenstein might be in the basement of the Physical Sci ence Building sewing together kneecaps and looking at DNA strands of old football players. Flowever, until then, you can give Frankie a high five and check out his lab oratory at the State Museum until Nov. 12. The spotlight desk can be reached at gamecockspotlight@hotmail.com. Special to The Gamecock Above is a scene from Cayce West Columbia’s “Hall of Horrors.” There are several haunted hous es where the community can go to get a good scare. Haunted houses give ‘good scare’ by Marguerite Higgins The Gamecock Bone-chilling screams, chain saw massacres and fake blood can help any cynic get into the Halloween spirit. And Columbia’s no slouch in the haunted and scary attractions for thrill-seekers. Just a sample of some popular 20 minute attractions in the Co lumbia area are the Cayce West Co lumbia Hall of Horrors and the Dark Knight’s Terror Trail. Hall of Horrors: Located on 12 Street across from tfie Cayce City Hall, the Hall of Hor rors is the redone version of the Haunted House originally put on at Broad River Road. Coordinator Paul Hunter says the move has been a catalyst in changing the format of the event. “We used to be at this creepy house on Broad River, but when it got too dangerous for us to operate there, we moved to Cayce,” Hunter said. Hunter said the group in charge of the attraction includes three USC fraternities, Kal Kappa Epsilon, Sig ma Nu and Delta Epsilon, who send 12 members for each night and in terested members of the communi ty Rather than barricade the crowds from the horror shows, Hunter said the guides bring audiences right into the middle of the action. “It becomes more intense for people because they realize they aren’t safe from what’s going on,” Hunter said. The scenes for the stories inside the many halls are all original, Hunter said. “We try to veer away from do ing a Freddy or Jason plot because we want to build up the suspense and give people a good scare.” Thp approach has been success ful so far, with an estimated 300 to 400 people each night. To accom modate for the long lines, which Hunter said get increasingly larger as Halloween draws nearer, the event has a movie for people.to watch. “Each year, we do a short produc tion about what people can expect Haunted seepages City ballet presents Shelley’s Frankenstein this weekend by Kamille Bostick The Gamecock The Columbia City Ballet will bring Frankenstein to the Koger Cen ter today and tomorrow, in what promises to be an entertaining adap tation. Under the artistic direction of William Starrett, who designed the bal let and has also created nine other orig inal ballets for the company, the pro duction will use special effects and lighting to tell the tale originally penned by Mary Shelley in her Gothic novel by the same name. It is in Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s obsession with recreating life, an in terest that stems from his mother’s death from complications of childbirth after having his brother, William, on which the plot centers. The doctor devotes his time and energies to bring life back to lifeless forms of matter. Blinded by the scientific merit it will Frankenstein see page a Special to The Gamecock ■ The Columbia City Ballet is presenting “Frankenstein” at the Koger Center on Friday and Saturday. tm vm mmm tm The bat is associated with vampires, the walking dead, because of a variety of bat that drinks the blood of animals. Also, bats are nocturnal, making them mys terious. Bats were also seen to fly around Halloween bonfires, eating the insects drawn by the light. Both witches and vampires were said to be able to shape-shift into bats. IWMAT Cats have always had mystical as sociations. The Egyptian deity Bast ap peared in the form of a cat. Cats were associated with many benevolent god desses. Then, during the Inquisition, the cat was branded as evil and said to be demonic. Later, during the Burning Times, cats were branded as “familiars,” or spirits, of witches and were burned along with their masters. What then, my friends, could be worse than a cat the color of midnight, the coldr of evil? ww* The broom, is, of course, associat ed with witches. But how did this start? In ancient pagan communities, many women were “wise ones,” or witches. They practiced folk magic, knew herbal medicine and understood the cycles of the earth. They were simple women, and the tools of their craft were house hold ones: a broom, a cooking vessel (cauldron), herbs and plants. When the witches were persecuted, the symbols associated with them (cats, cauldrons, brooms, etc.) became symbolic of “evil.” Our modern “Trick or Treat” evolved from the tradition of leaving of ferings of food for the spirits of the dead on All Hallows’ Eve. The practice of go ing house to house, performing for food or money, dates back to early Celtic times, though it followed to early Amer ica as well. Our modem ‘Trick or Treat” night was instituted to counteract Mis chief Night vandalism. In the late '60's and early '70's, reports of poisoned can dy and razor blades in apples scared many parents and kept children away from the festivities. However, none of the claims were ever proven, and not one death or serious injury in the last 30 years can be attributed to doctored treats. The Jack-O-Lantern, or carved pumpkin, is an American twist on an an cient Celtic tradition of carrying hol lowed vegetables as candle holders and lanterns. There is no solid evidence that the Celts used them to ward off evil. wrrum Costumes and masks have played two roles during the Halloween season. It is supposed that ancient people wore costumes to better commune with the spirits that roamed the night. An other theory is that masks were worn to frighten away evil spirits. Whatever the ancient truth, the wearing of disguises and costumes has been firmly rooted in our modem American traditions. <mn The modem image of the ghost repre sents the ancient spirits, the ancestors who are thought to be able to walk among us, perhaps even contact us per sonally, on All Hallows’ Eve. Some cul tures leave offerings of food and drink for the spirits of their dead relatives. mmm Graves, graveyards and coffins are associated with death and our dead an cestors. Ancient and modem traditions claim the veil between the worlds of the living and the deceased is the thinnest on Halloween, allowing passage either way.