Have you ever walked down the corridor on the first floor of Evaristus Hall and had a particular door grab your attention?
Adorned with flashy lights and spooky embellishments, the door belonging to John Wangsgaard, a Lab Technician in the Biology Department, is proof that you’re never too old to celebrate Halloween.
John’s passion for Halloween is on full (and very impressive!) display inside his office too.
It all started when he was a child and his mother always decorated their house for Halloween. He remembers drawing pictures of Freddy Kruger in the second grade. His fascination with the macabre later evolved into writing volumes of Scary Poems to Read in the Dark and becoming the president of the Vampire Club. Today, he’s bringing interest to the halls of Evaristus and creating a welcoming space for everyone by decorating his office so wonderfully.
One of his favourite items is the real crow skeleton mounted on the wall behind his desk. His daughter found it a few years back and John cleaned it up, wired it back together, and now proudly displays it. He would like to emphasize that it was already long dead when he found it and that “he’d never harm his crow bros” – just in case any of the thousands of crows that make MSVU their home catch wind of this.
But there’s much spookier things in biology than crow skeletons. John cites entomopathogenic fungi, also known as zombie-ant fungus, as one of the spookier organisms on earth: “These things infest the host, then compel it to climb to the highest point it can, and just…wait, while the fungus consumes it from the inside, out, then bursts forth from the carcass to distribute its spores from its lofty location. There’s something exceedingly unsettling about a parasite that hijacks the brain and induces complex behaviour to spread itself. We humans like to think we’re above such manipulation, but it’s been observed that the flu makes people more sociable—it makes us more likely to interact with others, and in larger groups, to spread itself more effectively! So, what’s really unsettling is the idea that our choices and desires aren’t wholly our own. Sometimes, we’re quietly manipulated to act contrary to our own interests by the will of imperceptibly tiny—but insidious!—things.”
While Halloween only gets to officially have one day a year, in John’s office, it’s Halloween all year round. How much of that is his love for the esthetic and how much of it is the dread of taking down decorations, we’ll never know.
Join in John’s Halloween celebration by stopping by his office for a look at his fantastic decorations (Evaristus Hall, Room 120). We highly doubt that there’s ever been a better Halloween office display on campus. He has candy to share too, including some healthier treats and stickers in case candy’s not your thing.
If you’re looking for a scary movie to watch this Halloween, John recommends Dracula and Session 9. Or The Conjuring or It. Need something a little lower on the spooky scale? He suggests the Disney cartoon version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and notes that the horse is the best character. For more movie recommendations, stop by his office for a chat.