Charles Addams

On Jan. 7, 1610, the astronomer Galileo Galilei sighted four of Jupiter's moons. In 1789 the first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president. In...

Even in casual conversation, British author Neil Gaiman sometimes sounds as if he's narrating some dark fairy tale -- his sentences slither across old stone floors or flit on gossamer wings. He also happens to live in a rambling Minnesota manse that...

They're creepy, kooky, spooky and ooky, and, more important, they've definitely settled on Chicago. The new musical known as "The Addams Family"—long expected to have its pre-Broadway tryout in Chicago—announced firm dates Tuesday. The world-...

IT WAS fast, it was furious and it was over in a blink. But photographer Edward Colver's shutter blinked a fraction faster. If not for his poking in and out of hot, dank punk clubs across the Southland, a whole bigchunk of L.A.'s early hardcore scene of...

The poet Weldon Kees was born in Beatrice, Neb., in 1914, though what's best known about him is that on July 18, 1955, his car was found abandoned with the keys still in the ignition in a parking lot on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate Bridge....

In the early days of television, when horror movies were often campy by nature, actress Maila Nurmi created the character Vampira, a glamorous ghoul who as hostess of late-night fright films in the 1950s layered on her own brand of camp. Vampira played...

That whooshing noise you hear is a collective sigh of relief coming from the Hamptons. At last, the summer folk, day trippers and tourists tossed back a final mojito before hopping the Hampton Jitney for the season's final trip west. It must be how the...

As if to ensure that there's enough food to go with all that wine, the North Fork is expected to welcome at least five new restaurants this season. While last year was dominated by the arrivals of Jedediah's in Jamesport and the North Fork Table & Inn in...

A mecca for collectors, this quaint town has more antique stores per square foot than most places in Florida. Located 25 miles northwest of Orlando, via U.S. 441, it is a lovingly preserved, frozen-in-time town (pop. 8,000) with a dozen turn-of-the-...

I had been trying for days to get a mental fix on Punta del Este, to figure out just which place it reminded me of. St. Bart's, I had thought at first, choosing the obvious connections of sun, sea and sand, and snippets from the press about which...

Renninger's Antique Extravaganza is among the largest in the South, featuring more than 1,400 antiques and collectibles dealers on Friday through Nov. 16. The event typically draws thousands of antique lovers to Renninger's Antique Center to view and...

If you're yearning for a time-warp weekend free of theme parks and other excesses of modern-day living, think about an escape to the New England of Florida, the antique capital as well as the rose capital of Central Florida. Think Mount Dora. Located...