Spooky

REMEMBERING HER DAYS AS A young girl--"No one would have accused me of being a happy child"--Leslie Abramson has an enduring memory of her favorite means of escape. After school, at the corner luncheonette, she'd buy button candies and chocolate marshmallow twists (two for a nickel) and spend hours at the comic-book racks, reading. Mad magazine was good for a giggle. But it was the spooky stuff, the horror comics like "Tales From the Crypt," that she really loved. And hated, too.

The first smile came from the mechanic at the Jiffy Lube at the bottom of the hill. You know you're on to something good when you can make a tired guy light up, even if it's just for a second, at the end of a long workweek. By the time the weekend was over, we'd amassed way too many smiles to count and moved on to peace signs. (My favorites: from the surfer who looked like a bleached-blond Jesus and the panhandler who carried a sign saying, "I won't lie. I need beer. ") I'd like to think it was because we gals were so fetching, but I must admit it was probably - OK, certainly - the thing we were riding in: a spring-pea-green vintage VW camper with a paint job so shiny you could imagine that it was 1979 and that we'd just driven it off the showroom floor.

Between coming up with exactly the right costume and carving out an appropriately scary jack-o'-lantern, Halloween can strike fear in the heart of many a frazzled parent. Here to smooth the way to a beautifully creepy holiday, and get kids involved, is a selection of books that can be purchased at bookstores or borrowed from your local library. HORRORGAMI Spooky Paper Folding for Children By Steve and Megumi Biddle Barron's Educational Series: 32pp., $7.

The spooky secrets of bats, pumpkins, skeletons and caves will be revealed in Halloween science workshops offered by the California Museum of Science and Industry Saturday and Sunday. Children 5 to 13 can create a life-sized movable skeleton, examine specimens of insects, worms, snakes, lizards and toads, or learn about the principles of cave formation in an educational alternative to traditional Halloween fare. Students enroll by age level in the sessions, which will be held from 9 a.m.

If high ratings for the ridiculous NBC miniseries "Revelations" are a bellwether, Hollywood's next big thing may be spooky spirituality. Either that or the feel-good "Kingdom of Heaven"-type religious plot that, like some blunt instrument, seeks to bludgeon audiences into accepting an awesomely righteous (read Emmy or Oscar-inducing) social theme.

Frank Macchia and Tracy London did not come to Los Angeles intending to scare people. But the Burbank couple have been doing just that. And collecting accolades for their efforts. They produce "Little Evil Things," an audio CD series of original short horror stories set to original music, which won Publishers Weekly's 1997 Listen Up Award. Music industry trade magazine Billboard called the series "a perfect marriage of words and music that sets an effective, creepy atmosphere."

It doesn't seem right to serve an ordinary dinner on Halloween when you can have some fun. Here's a meal that brings the goblin spirit to the table. For this soup, use a small ghost-shaped cookie cutter or a pair of scissors to cut "ghosts" from bread. Toast them with cheese, and use the cheese-ghost toasts to garnish the soup. Serve this with Pumpkin Patch Salad, a bed of greens and little orange cherry tomatoes with a scattering of crunchy pumpkin seeds.

As fewer and fewer kids go trick-or-treating, growing numbers of parents are pooling their resources to put on Halloween parties in their homes. If you're the host this year and you're in a quandary over what to serve your hungry "ghosts," this selection of ideas may inspire you. And don't let the weird names scare you--these dishes taste great. Create the right mood by setting a black-draped table with low-lit candles, carved pumpkins and fake cotton cobwebs.

While the rest of the college football world frets over such fluffy matters as a playoff system, drug tests and the Boz, folks here are preoccupied with a real stomach-churning issue--capital punishment. Southern Methodist University, the most flagrant sinner in college sports, is being fitted for a noose. The institution that gave football Doak Walker, Don Meredith and Eric Dickerson is facing the athletic equivalent of the death penalty, a two-year suspension from football competition.

In a neighborhood where homes on a mere half-acre lot can easily go for $750,000, there is a hint of exaggerated grandeur at the 4 1/2-acre Pasadena estate on South Oakland Avenue that belonged to Dovie Beams De Villagran. The lawn in the backyard is so large that children used to play full-field soccer on it; dozens of statues of bare-chested nymphs cover the estate; a pond complete with a small waterfall is affectionately referred to by neighbors as "the lake."