PICK OF THE WEEK: With Halloween approaching, things at the Heights Theater are getting spooky. Starting this week and continuing through the end of October, the theater is hosting Thursday-evening ghost stories. The series — "Who Says I'm Dead? Hollywood's Greatest Ghosts!" — kicks off with "Laura." Otto Preminger's haunting — and haunted — 1944 film noir crime drama stars Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews. He plays a police detective who falls in love with the title character, a situation that's a bit disconcerting, seeing as how she's dead. In fact, it's her murder that he's investigating. The other films in the series include "The Spiritualist" (Oct. 6), "Topper" (Oct. 13), "Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte" (Oct. 20) and "Arsenic and Old Lace" (Oct. 27). The screenings are at 7:30 p.m., and tickets are $8. (heightstheater.com)
Cheat sheet: Sunday marks the anniversary of the publication of the first "Peanuts" cartoon strip in 1950.
• Creator Charles Schulz titled the strip "Li'l Folks," but the syndicate distributing it renamed it over concerns that they might be sued by the strips "Little Foks" and "Li'l Abner."
• Charlie Brown started as a 4-year-old. When he reached 8, he stopped aging.
• In preliminary versions of the strip, Snoopy was called Sniffy. Schulz changed it after remembering that his late mother once told him that if she ever got another dog, she was going to name it Snoopy.
Day by day: Monday is national Situational Awareness Day, which encourages people to notice what's happening around them. It also could be called Put Down Your &%#@ Phone and Pay Attention to Where You're Going Day.
LIFE HACK: If you have a problem remembering to take something with you when you leave home in the morning — your work ID card, perhaps, or the lunch you packed the night before — leave something next to it that you need when you leave the house, like your keys.
recommended reading: Animal lovers are going high-tech to locate lost dogs. Hunt down the story in Tuesday's Variety.
JEFF STRICKLER • jeff.strickler@startribune.com
