Happy Halloween! Or if you are a Calvinist like me, Happy Reformation Day! Here is an interesting story from Paris Review on the eruption of Mount Tambora 201 years ago and the “Year without a Summer” that brought freezing conditions and atmospheric gloom to much of the Northern Hemisphere.  The conditions led Mary Shelley and company to sit around the fire in Switzerland telling stories instead of hiking in the mountains, leading to the writing of “Frankenstein” and the creation of some excellent paintings by those who saw the spectacular volcanic sunsets. You can read it at https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/10/25/year-without-summer/.

Source: Jialiang Gao, Commons Wikimedia