Happy Halloween!  In honor of the spooky holiday, Vol.1 has collected some particularly frightening Bites, ranging from the traditionally fun-filled, the absolutely outraging, and the sadly serious.

Lit.

• Did medical malpractice lead to the death of John Keats, leaving the poet starving and anguished?  Wait, isn’t that what poets are definitively?
• After losing his own book deal, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford praises Ayn Rand.
• In a review of Alistair Morgan’s Sleeper’s Wake, The Rumpus expostulates on the penis as literary device, citing memorable protagonists  “whose dicks are divining rods for locating fleeting pleasure and lasting trouble.”
• An essay on vampire literature.
• Why am I scared of this?: How to find the best literary Twitter chat
• R.L. Stine (yes, you read him!) window displays at the Scholastic store in SoHo.

Theater and Film:

• So I guess people are still enamored with the bodaciously hott Ms. Johansson?  Apparently, she’s on her way to New York to appear on Broadway in Arthur Miller’s Tony-winning “A View From the Bridge.”  I’m sorry, World, I just don’t see it.  Stop handing ScarJo the green card to bastardize our (very few, it sometimes seems) decent artistic endeavors.  (Woody Allen, I’m serious, that means you!)  I could rant about this for awhile, but instead I’ll quietly continue collecting our news.
• Ghostbusters is real!!  The Aykroyd family’s real-life experience with ghosts and goblins inspired the timeless movie.
• Martin Scorsese lists his 11 scariest horror films of all time.

Health:

• Did you know that 114 children have been killed by the H1N1 virus in the US since April?  And only half of those most at risk have sought vaccines.  “At risk” means, apparently, those with underlying conditions such as heart disease, asthma, or lung disease.
• Making pumpkin pie this weekend?  Might as well turn your kitchen into a meth lab!  Junk food is as addicting as hard drugs, a study claims.
• Oh my.  Anna Nicole Smith mistook her pregnancy for gas.  On video.