I got busy last night minding the open thread, and at the same time, I was assembling a small table, and also a bike stand for my nephew. I am not great at spatial puzzles, so I admit that the bike stand, in particular, got taken back apart a time or two. It had variously-curved parts, with bolt holes that were not aligned with the x or y axis and were thus not rotationally symmetric. The last of those instances didn’t come up until page 5, so it’s a good thing I never tighten all the bolts until all the parts are together.

The table was pretty straightforward, blessedly. I’ve never been so enthusiastic about rectangles before.

So, I didn’t develop a very coherent theme for this pre-Samhain/Halloween diary. I imagine you won’t mind. I’ve been saving a few videos that are a little odd and don’t fit together with one another or with anything else, and that seems about right.

First of all, here’s 10 hours of mildly spooky owl calls for Halloween ambiance.

In keeping with that, here is a visit to “one of the largest owl cafes in Japan”. Raise your hand if you didn’t know there were ANY owl cafes, in Japan or anywhere else. ✋  (There is further information on the YouTube page — please note that they’re closed on Tuesdays.)   [8:02]

Moving from owls to the outdoors in general: a trail designer with the US Geological Survey discusses the goals designers try to achieve, and what they must consider. I can’t say it ever occurred to me before that there was so much that goes into making trails.   [5:22]

More from the USGS: here is how one goes about collecting lava from an erupting volcano.   [1:33]

Time to cool off! A “Viennetta” is an elaborately-ruffled ice cream loaf made by Unilever. It was sold initially in the UK in the 1980s, and then in the US under the Breyers brand. It was discontinued here in the 90s, but has returned as of last year as a Good Humor-brand product. It’s been produced continuously in the UK, meanwhile, and elsewhere in the world.

It’s extruded onto trays on a moving conveyor belt, with extrusion at varying speeds producing the different ruffles of the various layers, interleaved with chocolate syrup. It’s kind of hypnotic to watch. (Warning: background music is 1972’s Popcorn by Hot Butter.)   [3:37]

Gunhild Carling is a Swedish jazz musician and composer (and tap dancer!) Apparently, she most frequently plays trombone but also plays nearly everything else. Here, she trolls the audience in New York’s Central Park by threatening to play swing on bagpipes. And then, after dancing with the bagpipes for half the piece… she does, and she kills it.   [3:32]

Also in the “unusual theatrical performances” folder: An account of the elaborate  production, “Operation Fortitude”, designed to convince Hitler that Normandy wasn’t the main location from which the Allies would invade France. It’s pretty amazing.   [12:24]

The SciShow folks recount how people throughout history have used eclipses to learn more about the bodies involved in the eclipse.   [5:57]

NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day has a YouTube channel where it posts the APOD entries it embeds as videos. This one appeared in 2018; it’s a time-lapse animation from several of spacecraft Juno’s cameras over a four-hour flight past Jupiter. The beautiful swirling clouds are accompanied by Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. More details at the APOD page.   [1:06]

The Garden of Earthly Delights is a painting from around 1499 by the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch. It seems there’s considerable scholarly discussion of the meaning of its weird-ass imagery. (You can see a higher-resolution image here, or, if you go to the painting’s Wikimedia Commons page, they offer a “zoom viewer” to help you look at the super-high-resolution version.) Anyway, I mean “weird-ass imagery” literally — way down in the detail of the right-hand panel, there’s a figure whose naked bottom half is protruding from under a gigantic lute, and his butt has some music written on it. Naturally, it’s been transcribed and an arrangement produced. All parts are played here by Mark Clifton, 3 parts on Weissenborn guitar and bass part on Dobro.   [1:32]

We need an appropriate snack, so Glen brings us a pumpkin2 spice cake (that is, a pumpkin pumpkin-spice cake) with a brown butter frosting that is his entire reason for making the cake. Frosting recipe is here, since it was originally with another cake. Both printed recipes appear on the YouTube page.   [9:45, plus a similar amount of time if you go watch the frosting one]

Last minute addition! This very afternoon, Chef John posted some “ghost cheesecake brownies”. So come on, how am I gonna omit them?   [11:07]

Further update: this one’s for nomandates.   [1:07]

Dr. Steven Davis of University College Dublin tells us about excavations at a very ancient site, Tlachtga, in County Meath, Ireland. It’s thought the site may be the origin point of many Samhain traditions, particularly the central bonfire from which everyone re-starts their household fires that night. More information on the video’s page.   [4:51]

From this spring in Halifax: Robert Plant with his band Saving Grace, featuring singer Suzi Dian. The frame for this performance is Season of the Witch, but it goes off into Spooky and then several other things that follow (willingly or not) the same chord progression. Band personnel: Oli Jefferson, Tony Kelsey and Matt Worley. Good for Plant for recognizing Dian’s talent and giving her most of the spotlight.    [17:37]

And finally, eight hours of rainy Halloween night with a cozy (if spooky) fire. Trick or treat!