Treats of the Season!
"It's Halloween! It's Halloween! The moon is full and bright
And we shall see what can't be seen on any other night.
Skeletons and ghosts and ghouls,
Grinning goblins fighting duels,
Werewolves rising from their tombs,
Witches on their magic brooms.
In masks and gown we haunt the street
And knock on doors for trick or treat.
Tonight we are the king and queen,
For oh tonight it's Halloween!"
Jack Prelutsky
Autumn is in full swing and all the shop windows are full of bats and pumpkins--that means it's Halloween season!
I can't recall just how early the Halloween bug bit me but the "infection" was already firmly established by the second grade. That year, two of my class mates and I wore our skeleton costumes and did a performance for the rest of the school. We dreamed up a little pantomime to be performed to the music of the Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns. How in heaven's name three seven-year-olds figured out a little skit based on a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death, is beyond me.
Suffice it to say, the Halloween die (no pun intended) was cast.
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As an art student in the 1970's, I would visit a deliciously decadent occult shop on nineteenth street, in New York City called Magickal Childe. This place was right out of the parallel universe that would spawn the Harry Potter novels years later! The front window alone was worth a visit as it was crammed full of all manner of creepy paraphernalia. Upon entering, you'd find everything you could imagine a shop such as this might carry. I was always taken by the jewelry case that stared back at me with outrageous jewelry made from silver and prosthetic glass eyes! Crammed to the ceiling with arcane objects, antiques and many dusty leather bound books on esoteric magical practices--this place even had a bookcase that swung aside to reveal another area of the shop. Needless to say, in spite of the fact my student self had almost no money, I occasionally "haunted" the place just for the ambience!
My art student days in New York also brought me my first visit to the Greenwich Village Halloween parade. This event is the crème de la crème of costume parties! Now in its 35th year, it's the nation's largest Halloween celebration and the only major night parade. Artists slave away for months to outdo each other with the most fantastic costumes and masks you will ever see. In addition to splendid costumes and puppets, some of the very best political and satirical theater I've ever seen goes walking down Sixth Avenue! The event is worth a trip from anywhere--but to participate, you must be in costume. You can find out more at: http://www.halloween-nyc.com/index.php.
Much later on, I started collecting vintage Halloween noisemakers and paper ephemera. Initially, these objects started finding me. I stumbled upon a box lot of noisemakers at an auction. They were just like the ones that decorated the candy store that was next to my family's service station in the late 1950's. Since they reminded me of pleasant memories from childhood, I bought them on a whim. Of course, as these things go, I now have two large cartons of carefully packed goodies tucked away until I am ready to display them again. Whenever I look at them, I'm brought back to my childhood feelings about the season.
I loved dressing up and there were no fairy princesses for me! As a child, I was a skeleton, pirate and a devil--in a great costume made by my Mom complete with stuffed, pointed tail! As an adult, I've worn a lot of Halloween costumes and made more than a few wild ones. I've been everything from Mae West, to an X-rated Brunhilde to a Chuthuluesqe monster straight out of the H.P. Lovecraft mythos. (There is no thrill like completely flabbergasting one's fellow party goers!)
Dear readers, consider it part of our duty to raise a few joyful hackles as an antidote to all the fear energy being swirled around us! Instead of succumbing to it all, why not dress up, go out and cause a creative stir? Dreamscaping the New Earth will require plenty of creativity and imagination. Halloween is a good excuse to start practicing!
- Evelyn
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What do you get when you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its radius?
Pumpkin pi.
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For more terrible seasonal jokes that will bring out the second grader in you, click here!
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