It’s been a pretty wild week; by “wild,” I mean that I’ve spent most of my time during the day working, only to stay up too late playing Heroes of Hammerwatch ($11.99 on Steam), a grinding rogue-like, with my brother and friends.  Talk about burning the candles at both ends.  I also just finished grading a massive stack of quizzes—just in time for a massive stack of tests to rise in their place.

Grading papers is a bit like the mythical hydra in that regard—lop off a few heads, and dozens take their places.  It is easily my least favorite part of the teaching profession.

Regardless, the wild week is going to end on a spooktacular note:  tonight I’m dusting off the keyboard and, for the first time in a few months, playing one of my legendary (and legendarily poorly-attended) coffee shop concerts.

Last year I decided that I wanted to observe October and Halloween properly.  The month always seems to blow by—can you believe we’re already a third of the way through it?!—and with Christmas’s festive tentacles encroaching ever-earlier into the calendar year, it seems as though poor Halloween is getting short shrift.

As such, I decided to do a little Halloween show.  Autumn is a great time for live music, regardless—the days are getting shorter and chillier, and people are looking for more cozy, indoor entertainment.  Coffee shops are whipping out their pumpkin spice [insert product here], and there’s a whimsical magic in the air.  I can see why the ancients thought it was a time of attenuated, blurred lines between the natural and the supernatural worlds.

In keeping with that tradition, I’ll be playing a little gig at The Purple Fish Coffee Company in Darlington, South Carolina tonight from 7-9 PM, which I’ve dubbed “TJC’s Halloween Spooktacular.”  The Purple Fish is run as part of a local church, and they inconceivably do half-off specials on Friday nights.

I won’t have time for my elaborate pre-show rituals for this gig, but I will be packing up the van for a weekend of festival-going (more details in next weekend’s SubscribeStar Saturday post).  I’ll also have a student-drummer sitting in on some tunes, and my buddy John will be joining in on vocals and twelve-string guitar.  Scary!

Happy Twenty Days from Halloween!

–TPP