🧪 This book could poison you (literally) | Bulletin #139

This week: the Jack-O'-Lantern's origin 🎃 and win a Wes signed book 📕

October 22, 2025

Stanley Hotel 📍 Estes Park, Colorado, USA 📸 Marjorie Becker

Though The Shining wasn’t filmed at the Stanley Hotel, Stephen King’s stay there in 1974 inspired the Overlook Hotel that haunts his story. And what’s more, the Colorado landmark’s own legends may be even creepier than the film! From children who like to play with guests on the fourth floor, a dead hotel worker who tells guests to “get out” if they’re staying past curfew, or even just the sounds of partygoers coming back to their rooms in the hallways. All we know is: don’t stay in Room 217.

THIS WEEK IN AWA AWESOMENESS

📚 Wes Signed Merch
👻 Happy Halloween
🧪 Poisonous books?
🎃 Legend of the Jack O’ Lantern

WIN A WES SIGNED BOOK

To mark the one-year anniversary of Accidentally Wes Anderson: Adventures, we’re hiding one Wes Anderson–signed copy of the beautiful book behind today’s secret link. While you’re searching, take a peek at the second installment of our AWA book series - you might just be walking away with it!

In Case You Missed It

As the air cools and the days shorten, a certain strangeness creeps in - the kind found not only in ghost stories, but in the curious corners of history as well! From a haunted seaside hotel to the enduring art of Día de los Muertos, these four tales remind us that beauty and mystery often share the same frame:

🛎️ A pink hotel haunting
🩻 The origins of costumed skeletons
🧈 Parish paid in butter?
💀 The details of Dia de los Muertos

Winterthur Museum📍 Winterthur, Delaware, USA 📸 Marjorie Becker

POISONOUS PAGES

In the mid-1800s, a cheap new binding trick took the literary world by storm. But the emerald-green pages it produced hid a lethal secret. These “Paris Green” volumes became literal killers in waiting, their beautiful covers masking deadly chemistry...

📍 Stowe, Vermont, USA 📸 Jamie Edwards

THE LEGEND OF THE JACK-O’-LANTERN

Long before pumpkins lit front porches, one cunning trickster sealed his fate with a deal gone wrong. Known as Stingy Jack, this Irish rogue outwitted the Devil himself - twice - only to find no home in Heaven or Hell. Condemned to wander with a single ember glowing inside a carved turnip, his story would spark one of Halloween’s most enduring symbols: the Jack-o’-Lantern…

3 BILLION

Americans spend around $3 billion on Halloween candy each year, purchasing roughly 600 million pounds - or 300,000 tons - of tasty treats! For scale, that’s about the weight of 40 million pumpkins. We promise this stat is true, not a trick about treats -- so if you share it with others, no one can call you a sucker!

Boo! Did we scare you? Darn, really thought we could get you here. Well, if didn’t fall for our tricks, here’s our promised treat - a Wes signed book if you find the secret link! Good luck!