The sPoOkOuT checks in 👻

The candy is in the novelty cauldron, the dog’s trazodone dose is in a frozen gob of peanut butter, and the thrift-store bowler hat to complete my Hercule Poirot look has been sprayed with an industrial volume of disinfectant. It’s Halloween here at Lookout HQ, and reader, I am ready to go.

As has become a bit of a holiday publishing tradition, today’s special edition eschews the standard format to highlight popular coverage, recent performance, and other “housekeeping”-type items that don’t really fit into the normal editorial calendar. You’re busy getting your kids ready for trick-or-treating, and/or yourself ready to drink eleventy pumpkin beers, I’m busy wrapping up work for my other/”real” jobs so I can get out to the porch and start handing out candy. That’s serious business, by the way. Here’s my “note to self” from last year:

This year, we undershot a bit at Costco. Stay tuned next week to find out how long 22.7lbs of candy holds out against the onslaught of East End youths with sweet tooths. (I know it’s supposed to be “teeth,” just let me have this.)

Please be safe out there tonight, whether you’re planning on strolling the sidewalks of East Broad Street, or elsewhere in the neighborhood or the city. Halloween is the most dangerous night of the year for pedestrians by far, and Church Hill’s (mostly bad) street designs and (typically limited) traffic enforcement heavily favor reckless drivers. Keep your head on a swivel out there.

As I mentioned last week, the Church Hill Association (CHA) was gracious enough to carve out some time in its next meeting to discuss plans to shut down E. Broad St. for Halloween 2026. That confab commences at 7pm on Tuesday, November 18th; mark your calendars.

Speaking of keeping your head on a swivel, if you spot federal immigration forces in the neighborhood this evening, submit a tip. As far as I know, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raiders have not targeted Church Hill much/at all yet, but they’re certainly operating in the metro area. Richmond Defensa spotted a group of them massing at Short Pump mall yesterday. Elsewhere, Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem declined requests to keep Chicago’s kids safe by suspending raids there on Halloween, increasing the odds that Customs and Border Protection gunmen tear-gas another costume parade; and harrowing reports from Los Angeles suggest federal goons are wearing Halloween masks to further terrorize immigrant communities there during the holiday. If you see something in our community, say something. Anonymity available.

You already know I’m dressing up like Agatha Christie’s tweedy gumshoe. I’ve got mustache wax and everything. (Actually mostly just mustache wax. But also a delouséd bowler!) What are you dressing up as this evening? If you think you’ve got the goods, show up to show out at the CHA’s Hill-O-Ween Costume Parade this afternoon from 5-5:30pm at Libby Hill Park.

Regular programming resumes next week. Be safe, have fun, and please do not egg my house when I inevitably run out of candy before the end of the night. Happy Halloween, folks.—Dave.

👀 A look at The Lookout’s growth

Welcome to all the new readers who have signed up over the past three months, and thank you to all the old readers who’ve been here since the beginning. The best thing you can do to help The Lookout continue to grow is tell your neighbors to subscribe.

Some other topline stats, for those interested:

• Editions published (all-time): 60

• Open rate (last 4 weeks): 76.84%, -3.4% from the prior frame

• Click-through rate (L4): 17.17%, +10.3%

This snapshot is a bit less apples-to-apples with the previous ones because of the introduction of Mad Enough to Blog It™️, The Lookout’s local media criticism column, which publishes exclusively to the web. Also I think I sent one edition at like 8pm on a Friday night somewhere along the way, which could not have helped the open-rate average. Oops! But overall, The Lookout’s growth continues to be slow, steady, and upward. We love to see it, folks.

📸 Send me your Very CHill Photos!

The Lookout may be my newsletter, but Church Hill is our neighborhood, and being as beautiful as it is, I suspect you have some stunning photos of it. Please submit them for publication at the bottom of an upcoming edition! Submitting your Very CHill Photo is as easy as sending it to me via email ([email protected]) with your name and the camera you took it on. You don’t need to be a professional photographer or even a hobbyist to submit, though it’s fine if you are. I don’t care if you’re shooting on iPhone, Android, eleventy-bajillion-dollar mirrorless, or performative Kodak disposable. If it’s a good shot of Church Hill, I want to see it. And your fellow Lookouts do, too.

Regarding subjects: please send photos of views, buildings, flora and fauna, and the like from around Church Hill. (And of course, if you see interesting trash, please send photos of that, too, to provoke the poetic faculties of The Lookout’s litter critter-at-large, Penelope Poubelle.) Please do not send heavily edited photos, or portraits of people. Submit them at your convenience, and at your inconvenience, too. Your humble Lookout editor thanks you in advance.

✂️ And now, to the clips!

Here are the the top-five most read editions of The Lookout since Labor Day: