Get Spooked! Take a tour of the “Haunted Suite” at the Sorrento Hotel. We suggest stumbling into the ghost-infested room with friends right before close and practicing your best shriek. Oct 28–31, 4–10.

Three of The Town’s most discerning (and hospital-proximate) drinkeries are dropping a $500 best costume prize on the first person to earn an ER necklace from each of the participating spots — the Hideout, Vito’s (w/ performances by DJ Stack & Lushy, respectively), and a… um, sweet haunted suite at the Sorrento — all of which are going with no cover for the night, just like the girl who will no doubt win the $500.

Vermillion is throwing a bash on Saturday, the same night the Hideout, the Sorrento, and Vito’s team up for the now-annual ER Costume Crawl. Expect live music and festivities at each. Best outfit wins $500, and nota bene: you’ve got to be wearing a getup to get in. Things kick off at 9pm.

This week I checked in on what’s going on at The Sorrento this fall, as fall is such a perfect time to drop in to Pill Hill’s iconic historic hotel. Fireplaces, books, fantastic brown liquor drinks and good old-fashioned hauntings – what more does a cloud-plagued, sun-deprived Seattleite need?

Haunted Suite (Seattle), Friday, Oct. 28 – Monday, Oct. 31, 4 p.m. — 10 p.m. The Sorrento Hotel’s Madison Room will be transformed into a spooky Haunted Suite. Suggested donation of $5 will benefit community-based nonprofit Puget Sound Blood Center.

Composer, multimedia artist and writer Paul D. Miller AKA DJ Spooky is always on the cutting edge of where digital media and music intertwine. He’s helped create his own app with Apple, can DJ entire sets using only his tablet, and has always pushed the boundaries of what’s possible when you combine digital and analytical. A week ago, he was in Seattle for the kick-off of the second season of Night School, an interdisciplinary social gathering put on by Michael Hebb, and what emerged was a night of discussion, music and a swirling look at where the planet is headed via the lens of his latest project, The Book of Ice.

When we asked readers what they thought were the most beautiful buildings in Seattle, libraries, schools, churches, apartments and skyscrapers across the city were cited. Done up in what is called the Italian Oasis style, the Sorrento Hotel at Cherry and Madison streets was erected in 1909 in anticipation of the crowds for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. The handsome brick façade is welcoming and affords sprawling views of the city.

A trip to a strange city is made or broken by its lodgings, especially if your visit combines business and pleasure as mine did during a recent 5-day jaunt to Seattle. I needed a place to write, a place to crash, a place to play and a place to eat if I didn’t feel like walking around, and I didn’t want a generic chain hotel or an over-the-top white-glove experience, either. A cousin who used to promote rock shows in Seattle recommended the Sorrento, adding that A-list rockers hung their hats and leather pants there. I booked four nights, figuring if it was good enough for Black Sabbath, it was good enough for me.

It’s rarely comforting to find the TV set in a bar tuned to FOX News, unless perhaps you’re in the mood for a martini. The Hunt Club makes an admirably austere version of Richard Nixon’s favorite drink, adding the appropriate amount of vermouth to gin and garnishing it with a single olive.

It’s the kind of opulent hotel room you see in a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie where he throws bad guys through French doors that separate the bedroom from the living room sofa. [Note to the tax men who are chasing me: I can’t really afford to stay here, so I talked the management into lending me a room by saying I’m on a “Top secret travel writer fact-finding mission that requires me to find facts on 400 thread-count Egyptian cotton linens.”]