October 2022 Events for Myth Lovers
Francisco de Goya’s The Sabbath of Witches is in the public domain.
Virtual Events
On October 5, join a Book Club discussion of "The Glass Hotel" by Emily St. John Mandel.
On October 6, join a discussion of Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow, in which a woman goes back in time to relive her 16th birthday in 1996.
On October 6, learn about “mummy portraits” that were popular throughout Egypt in the Roman period and what these images reveal about the religious beliefs and multi-layered ethnicities of their subjects..
On Thursday Oct 13, 20, and 21, take a series that will wind through the history of ancient paths and puzzles, ranging from Dedalus’s maze built to hold the minotaur to the Egyptian labyrinth near the City of Crocodiles.
On October 19, join a virtual discussion of The Lord of the Rings.
On October 19, learn about the giants in Scandinavian mythology and folklore, moving from the Old Norse mythology to younger accounts. You will see examples of traces of giants in archaeology, rune carvings and architecture.
On October 27, learn about yogic Mythology, the Hindu Gods & Goddesses and yogic practices aligned to them.
November 1 is the first lecture in a five-part series about Virgil’s Aeneid.
Whenever you want, listen to the free audiobook sample of The Book of Gothel by Mary McMyne, a retelling of Rapunzel from the witch’s perspective.
Gustav Klimt’s painting The Kiss is in the public domain.
New York City Events
On October 6, Melissa Jayne Madara will speak about their book The Witch's Feast: A Kitchen Grimoire!, which explores the occult through food: traditional recipes, the zodiac, devotional meals to the planets, seasonal feasts to celebrate solstices and equinoxes, and practical spellwork.
On October 6-9, superheroes, monsters and other creatures will descend for the New York Comic Con.
In the evening on Fridays and Saturdays from October 7-29, you can go on a Halloween-themed walk in the Bronx Zoo that involves prehistoric creatures and a dinosaur egg about to hatch.
On different days between August 13 and October 8, you can take a trolley tour at Greenwood Cemetery that begins with the “Who’s Who of the Revolutionary War and the distillers who made their mark on the young Republic.” Afterward, taste old American style whiskey and barrel-aged maple syrup.
Until October 9, you can attend the Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo.
On October 11, discuss James Joyce’s Ulysses in person.
On October 12 or 15, watch a free screening of Ghostbusters at the library.
On October 22, you can celebrate a harvest festival at Brooklyn Bridge Park.
On October 22, you can participate in an Escape Room type interactive experience in Central Park to save Alice in Wonderland.
September 15, October 7, October 22, and more days besides get wine and a movie outside on a green rooftop winery in Brooklyn. Movies coming up include Hocus Pocus, Adam’s Family Values, and The Conjuring.
On October 24, Kevin Chen will talk about his new magical realism novel Ghost Town.
In the morning on October 31, attend a workshop on how to draw superheroes in American mythology, including of heroic women, children and the elderly. After learning where the legends come from and more, you will be asked to create your own.
On October 31, the Village Halloween Parade takes place in person. Like normal. No more pandemic, guys.
On various dates throughout the month go to Sleepy Hollow for cemetery tours, a jack o-lantern exhibit, haunted hayrides and more spooky activities.
On any day other than Monday or Tuesday, you can pretend to have a more interesting life by participating in an interactive experience that puts you in the center of a Stranger Things story.
You can go see The Fans Strike Back, an exhibition featuring more than 600 official items from the Star Wars Universe.
Explore the life and works of the surrealist artist Magritte in a new virtual reality exhibition.
Participate in the immersive theater experience Sleep No More, which portrays Shakespeare’s classic Scottish tragedy through the lens of suspenseful film noir. Tickets are available any night other than Tuesday.
Go to Gotham City, where top scientists are missing and Batman and Batgirl need new recruits. Gather intelligence, dodge lasers and communicate with some Gotham City characters in an interactive experience.
Any day you want you can go to Beetle House, a restaurant that takes inspiration from Tim Burton, Alfred Hitchcock, Bram Stoker, Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe and many more. The menu includes, Blood Bags, Hautned Lemonade, Bio-Exorcism’s, among other things. Dining in only, which adds a new COVID element to the scare show.
Check out the dragons, kings, pirate ships, Merlin’s flying machines and other spectacles at the new Legoland in Goshen, New York.
Get Butter Beer at the new Harry Potter-themed store and bar at 935 Broadway near the Flatiron Building.
Miss going to the movies? Watch a socially distanced one outside with your friends at Sidewalk Cinema on Thames Street in Brooklyn.
Check out the images of buddhas, bodhisattvas, tantric deities, protectors and more at the Rubin Museum’s Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room.
U.S. Events
"Myth.Slide1.16" by c.a.francese is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
From June 23 through January 8, there will be a multimedia art exhibit in Nashville that retells the story of The Odyssey..
From October 21-23, Harry Potter fans will hold a Wizard Retreat weekend in Chester, Connecticut, where (apparently) magic can happen.
On October 25, you can listen to a lecture at the University of Pennsylvania about archeological excavations of a goddess sanctuary, a cemetery with a vampire burial, and more in a city of Lesbos that later became a brothel.
World Events
On October 22-23, the Belgian Comic Con FACTS will celebrate movies, series, video games, board games, cosplay, superheroes, anime, and other pop culture phenomena. Featuring Billy Boyd, the furry footed one from Lord of the Rings.
Recurring Virtual Events
Every year in the secret realm of Bunnyville, magical creatures from around the world gather for their annual summit. This is supposed to be a time to reconnect with old and new friends, but this year someone (or some creature!) has stolen the Easter Bunny’s magical golden egg! Kids and adults can both enjoy this enchanted game featuring creatures like fairies, dragons, mermaids, and of course the Easter Bunny!
If you would rather be in France right now, view a selection of thematically-themed works from the Louvre online, including the ones in the Sully Wing, which includes major works of Greek and Egyptian art such as the Venus de Milo.
Take an online course with Stanford research scholar Adrienne Mayor in which you will “uncover the natural origins of stories about dragons. . .; ponder whether the Amazon horsewomen-archers of myth existed; consider the dilemmas of using poison weapons in myth and ancient historical times; and marvel at robots and other science fiction tales from the time of Homer.” $120.
Take an online mini-course about Rome, seeing how it exists not only in brick and mortar, but also in the realm of ideas, and through the eyes of locals and visitors. Topics will include Rome’s urban and architectural development, as well as its representation in maps and artworks from across the city’s exceptionally long lifetime. $99.
The NY Mythology Group, which is associated with the Joseph Campbell Foundation, holds presentations and discussions about mythology related topics ranging from the Greek goddess Hecate to Carl Jung. Their events usually take place on Tuesday evenings at 8 pm EDT, and have been online since the pandemic started.
BSFW, or Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, meetings take place mostly online currently, but pre-pandemic were in the homes of writers mostly in Brooklyn but also on occasion Manhattan or Queens. Check out their calendar on meetup to attend their numerous writing workshops, social gatherings, meetings with editors/agents/authors, book clubs, and more. The group includes many published writers and has its own audio fiction magazine, Kaleidocast. If you post about your fetish for Olympian gods on their Facebook group feed, they (probably) won’t judge.
EREWHON BOOKS, a publisher focusing on novel-length works of speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy, and related genres, holds readings usually on the second Thursday each month virtually for now and in a pre-apocalypse world at its high ceilinged office of many windows in Manhattan.
Fantastic Fiction at KGB is a monthly speculative-fiction reading series held on the third Wednesday of every month virtually for now, and in a pre-apocalypse world at KGB Bar in Manhattan. Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel host the event. As one might expect from a communism-themed bar, admission is free.
The NYC Greek Myth & Classical Lit Meetup meets every third Thursday of the month at the Cloister Cafe in the East Village to discuss the work of mostly long dead authors (e.g. Aristophanes, Dante.) The group has existed for more than a decade, so the long-term participants have already earned their unofficial classics PhD’s, and we already know that anybody who would do this for fun is as hip as a person can get.
Marcantonio Raimondi’s “A Bacchanal”. CC01.0 Public domain.
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