Halloween’s around the corner. One thing this means is that people break out the creepy crawly decorations to get festively creepy. It’s harder to get much creepier or crawlier than spiders. So I offer you a whole mess of festively creepy crawly eight-legged critters for this week’s Themed Things Thursday. Enjoy. (Or shield your eyes, depending on your feelings towards spiders.)
A Few Spiders
- Charlotte’s Web, by E. B. White. A novel featuring a very smart spider who could weave a remarkable web. One of my favorite books of childhood.
- Little Miss Muffet
A nursery rhyme about a little girl who was frightened off her tuffet by a spider. - “The Spider and the Fly”, a poem by Mary Howitt. A poem best known for a first line that doesn’t actually appear in the poem: “Step into my parlour, said the spider to the fly”. Here’s how the text actually begins. (You can read the full text here.)
Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,
‘Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I’ve a many curious things to shew when you are there.”
Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.” - Seven Spiders Spinning, a kid’s novel by Gregory Maguire, an author best known for writing Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.
- Anansi: A spider who is a trickster character in many West African folktales.
- Spider-Man. (Or Spiderman.) The superhero of comics, cartoons, and the more recent live action movies. A man was bitten by a spider and got spider-themed superpowers. Such as a spider sense. Which tingled. (When I’ve been bitten by a spider I’ve gotten a red welt. I guess you could say it tingled. But I wouldn’t.)
- “Spider-Man,” the song. The theme song from a cartoon version of Spider-Man. Since performed by a variety of artists, including Moxy Fruvous and the Ramones.
Spiderman, Spiderman,
Does whatever a spider can
Spins a web, any size,
Catches thieves just like flies
Look Out!
Here comes the Spiderman. - “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” A children’s folk song. About a small spider, itsy bitsy even, who went up a spout. Then down, then back up.
- “Spiders,” a song by Joydrop
When love was fresh like a web we’d mesh
Nothing felt better than your flesh against my flesh
One fatal slip one rip a tear
Touch me now and every single hair on my body stands on end
So don’t touch me anymore
‘Cause it feels like spiders
Like spiders all over me
Like spiders
Like spiders all over me - It: a book by Steven King and miniseries based on the same. Involves a big evil spider. (And a clown.)
- Shelob: A giant, nasty spider from the Lord of the Rings
- Aragog: A giant, nasty spider from the Harry Potter books and movies
- Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)
A TV movie with William Shatner, about evil, venemous spiders that infest a town. - Arachnophobia (1990)
A movie about evil, venemous spiders that infest a town. - A few other random spiders include: spider(a type of pan, basically a frying pan with legs), web spider, Alfa Romeo Spider, Spider (2002), and spider veins.
collecting tokens 
spider monkeys. dude.
you may want to check your numbering system on that post. ;)
I always think of the They Might Be Giants song that went something like “Spider. He’s our Hero…”
There was a divine TV adaptation of the book Summer’s Lease (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0163961/) with Feodor Chaliapin doing this monologue about spiders – he doesn’t like them: “they descend by a thread produced from their own body”. It’s hilarious and worth watching the movie for that scene, though the rest is pretty good too.
Great spider list – see ya.
jen-
It’s always good to add monkeys. Dude.
painted-
I don’t think I know the TMBG song. Thanks for the addition. (And as for the number, are you referring to the way some of the list numbers are being chased off by a spider?)
magpie-
I don’t know that movie. Perhaps I will add it to my Netflix queue. (Though sadly, not many movies get watched these days.)
Kellan-
Thanks, and thanks for dropping in.
You forgot that song by The Cure
flying-
Oooo. I don’t think I ever noticed the lyrics to that song. It sounds so soothing…