First Frost

October 23 - November 6

In this chilly (and chilling!) episode, Kit and Alexis journey through the eerie, melancholy season of Halloween and the Day of the Dead; will they escape alive, or will they meet their grim deaths as predicted in their calaveras literarias?! In Hiro’s Corner, a closer look at the seasonal concept of “Winter’s Neighbor,” or departing autumn.

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First Frost Spotify Companion Playlist

Poems Featured in this Podcast

Ulalume by Edgar Allan Poe

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere—
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir—
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll—
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole—
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere—
Our memories were treacherous and sere,—
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)—
We noted not the dim lake of Auber
(Though once we had journeyed down here)—
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,

Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn—
As the star-dials hinted of morn—
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn—
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said: "She is warmer than Dian;
She rolls through an ether of sighs—
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies—
To the Lethean peace of the skies—
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes—
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said: "Sadly this star I mistrust—
Her pallor I strangely mistrust:
Ah, hasten! —ah, let us not linger!
Ah, fly! —let us fly! -for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust—
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust—
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom—
And conquered her scruples and gloom:
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb—
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said—"What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied—"Ulalume—Ulalume—
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

****

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, by Emily Dickinson

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading - treading - till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum -
Kept beating - beating - till I thought
My mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down -
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing - then -

***

Over one thicket
a custom-made shroud...
evening mist

— Kobayashi Issa

***

That shape's watching me
watching him...
thin mist

— Kobayashi Issa

***

In the thicket
the old deer calls
for honor's sake

— Kobayashi Issa

***

When I hear the voice
of the stag crying for his mate
stepping through the fallen leaves
deep in the mountains—this is the time
that autumn is saddest.

— Sarumaru

***

The mist and all, by Dixie Willson

I like the fall,
The mist and all.
I like the night owl's
Lonely call --
And wailing sound
Of wind around.

I like the gray
November day,
And bare, dead boughs
That coldly sway
Against my pane.
I like the rain.

I like to sit
And laugh at it --
And tend
My cozy fire a bit.
I like the fall --
The mist and all.

***

Garden Under Lightning (Ghost-Story), By Leonora Speyer

Out of the storm that muffles shining night
Flash roses ghastly-sweet,
And lilies far too pale.
There is a pang of livid light,
A terror of familiarity,
I see a dripping swirl of leaves and petals
That I once tended happily,
Borders of flattened, frightened little things,
And writhing paths I surely walked in that other life-
Day?

My specter-garden beckons to me,
Gibbers horribly —
And vanishes!

***

The Night Will Never Stay, by Eleanor Farjeon

The night will never stay,
The night will still go by,
Though with a million stars
You pin it to the sky;
Though you bind it with the blowing wind
And buckle it with the moon,
The night will slip away
Like sorrow or a tune.

***

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came—
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.
The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.
Then, in the rustic hollow,
At hide-and-seek they played,
The party closed at sundown,
And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
In jolly "hands around."

— George Cooper

***

From “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (excerpt)

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

***

Shadows, by Amos Russel Wells

Gloomy the earth on the shadowless days,
Sad and monotonous, ghostly with haze,
Gloomy the sky by the clouds overrun,
Days without shadow are days without sun.

Bright is the earth where the dark shadows lie,
Cast by the beams of a glittering sky.
Praise for the shadows when earth days are done;
For the darker the shadows, the brighter the sun.

***

Hallowe’en Exercise, by Jane A. Stewart

When the twilight comes down on all Hallowe'en
Then we fly on the wings of the night
Over land, through the streets, in each home we are seen,
And are known everywhere by our light!
For our eyes are like stars and our noses aglow,
With the candles that make us so bright
And our mouths are so jagged none can but know
We are Jack-o’-Lanterns all right!

***

A black cat, I’ve heard it said,
Can charm all ill away,
And keep the house wherein she dwells
From fever’s deadly sway.

— Traditional Welsh folklore rhyme

***

Spirits of the Dead, by Edgar Allan Poe

Thy soul shall find itself alone
'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.
Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness — for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee; be still.
The night, though clear, shall frown,
And the stars shall not look down
From their high thrones in the Heaven
With light like hope to mortals given,
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever.
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,
Now are visions ne'er to vanish;
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more, like dew-drop from the grass.
The breeze, the breath of God, is still,
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token.
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!

***

Last Week in October, by Thomas Hardy

The trees are undressing, and fling in many places—
On the gray road, the roof, the window-sill—
Their radiant robes and ribbons and yellow laces;
A leaf each second so is flung at will,
Here, there, another and another, still and still.

A spider's web has caught one while downcoming,
That stays there dangling when the rest pass on;
Like a suspended criminal hangs he, mumming
In golden garb, while one yet green, high yon,
Trembles, as fearing such a fate for himself anon.

Seasonal Recipes

Soul Cakes (England)

The Seasons in Art

October Gold, John Atkinson Grimshaw

Musicians & Music Featured this Episode

Cellist Valeriya Sholokhova is an active soloist and chamber musician based in New York City. Valeriya has appeared on concert stages at notable venues such as Carnegie Hall, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Alice Tully Hall, and Saturday Night Live. She has toured internationally across Europe, performing in Denmark, Austria, Croatia, Poland, the Baltic States, Sweden, Germany, and Ukraine. Recently, Valeriya performed as cello chair in the highly-acclaimed production of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish. Learn more on her website.

James Nyoraku 如楽 Schlefer has been playing the shakuhachi for 40 years. A native New Yorker, he first heard the instrument in 1979, while working towards his Master’s degree in musicology. This was at a musical soirée in New York’s famed Dakota building, hosted by one of the professors at the CUNY Graduate Center. There was a sankyoku ensemble of shakuhachi, koto and shamisen, and following the performance, Schlefer was offered the opportunity to play the bamboo flute. The effort was met with total failure and taking that as a mandate, he began his now four-decade long pursuit.

Schlefer received his Dai-Shi-Han (Grand Master) certificate in 2001, and in 2008, a Shi-Han certificate from Mujuan Dojo, in Kyoto. In Japan Schlefer studied with Yoshio Kurahashi, Reibo Aoki, Katsuya Yokoyama, and Kifu Mitsuhashi. His first teacher was Ronnie Nyogetsu Seldin in New York. He is trained in the Kinko school following the lineage of Jin Nyodo.

Schlefer holds a Master’s degree in Western flute and musicology from Queens College, and currently teaches shakuhachi at Columbia University and music history courses at the City University of New York. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Tanglewood, BAM, the Metropolitan Museum, at colleges and universities throughout the US, and has toured in Japan, Malaysia, Brazil and counties in Europe.

My name is Jacob deGroot-Maggetti.

I am a musician. I play in many styles, from classical to bluegrass to jazz to trad. I play many instruments, from violin to mandolin to guitar to bass. I sing in and direct choirs. Learn more about the music I make.

I am a learner. I am always searching for more effective ways to think, work and learn. I am an avid reader with a thirst for knowledge. I work to develop new skills, learning by doing.

I am a community builder. By directing choirs, leading jam sessions, performing at porch parties and busking at the local farmer's market, I aim to bring people together through music.