Witches

Sometimes inspiration comes in the unlikeliest places. While vacationing in Puerto Vallarta in fall 2008, USC professor Deborah Harkness, a historian of science, was consumed with the upcoming bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth, but the rest of the world, including the airport in the Mexican resort city, was gripped by a madness spread by vampires: The last of Stephenie Meyer's four "Twilight" novels had just been published. "To walk through the airport was to be hit with vampires, witches, ghosts and demons at every angle in the bookstores," says Harkness, a good-humored and enthusiastic woman of 46, over a cappuccino in Pasadena.

When Rob Zombie was growing up in Massachusetts, not too far from the notorious town of Salem, his elementary school would take field trips there to see reenactments of the witch trials. So perhaps it's no surprise that the musician and filmmaker has now made “The Lords of Salem,” which premiered Monday night in the Midnight Madness slot at the Toronto International Film Festival. Though as a filmmaker Zombie went from such grungy projects as "House of 1,000 Corpses" and “The Devil's Rejects” to slicker, more commercial work like his two “Halloween” movies, this is his darkest, most unnerving film yet. “My world exists sort of in that cult world,” Zombie said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.

ABC has decided not to order any additional episodes of its new Wednesday night drama "The Witches of Eastwick," which is about as close as a network gets to saying they're canceling a show these days. Although much of ABC's Wednesday night has been a pleasant surprise with "The Middle," "Modern Family" and "Cougar Town" getting full-season pickups, "The Witches of Eastwick" has been pulling in Jay Leno-like numbers at 10 p.m., often averaging fewer than 5 million viewers. The show, which stars Rebecca Romijn and Lindsay Price, is based on the John Updike book.

Police arrested a self-proclaimed "witch finder" Friday who is accused of killing 15 people by making them drink a poisonous herbal mixture. Munyeme Siamuchanga, 30, admitted giving the mixture to people he suspected of being witches to test their innocence, said police spokesman Francis Musonda.

Seminole County commissioners in Florida did not mind that a local nightclub was serving up eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog. What they did object to was the fact that the three witches in the club's version of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" were played by naked dancers.

Your article (Oct. 25), "Parents Win Suit to Control Reading," was of special interest to me since it listed as one of the "objectionable selections" by the Tennessee parents Shakespeare's "Macbeth" for its "presentations of witchcraft and magic." Each year, my students study this play and, as a result, gain new insights into the workings of the human conscience and its struggle with good and evil. They see a good and honored man, "worthy Macbeth," being led step by step to his doom because he is blinded by his own excessive ambition--his hamartia or tragic flaw.

"The role he was born to play" was a flaming ad line in the dear old days of movie hype. And watching Jack Nicholson snort, wheeze, leer, letch, purr, growl, pout, pitch fits and masticate his way through "The Witches of Eastwick"--the devil come to present-day Rhode Island--it's enough to make you believe in acting predestination. Under Australian director George Miller ("Mad Max"), "The Witches of Eastwick" (citywide) begins so promisingly.

Chinese witches in the southern province of Guangdong are smashing their spirit altars and flocking to government-organized agriculture classes, a Canton newspaper reported Wednesday. The Canton Evening News said that women in nearby Hua county, some of whom had failed as farmers, have turned to witchcraft, setting up "spirit altars where they cheat people of their money."

Summer is icumen in Lhude sing cuccu --The Cuckoo Song (Anonymous) June was different. There is nothing preternatural about July, nothing mystical. Hit the beach, catch the rays, have the coven over for a Coke. August promises more of the same. But June was different, right up to the last days. James Johnson is packing for vacation. "Mostly A's, I think," the slender Pomona College freshman says. "Maybe a couple of Bs. Pretty good year." Into the suitcase go T-shirts, socks, pants.