Halloween 2007

[Enforcer]

Best holiday, hands down. Lots to look forward to, as always. Costume parties, haunted attractions, and some hard to describe, weird things to do. And, of course, setting fires on Devil's Night. Good times.

Some of my faves I plan to check out this year:

Erebus. My favorite haunted house.

Realm Of Darkness is good, too. Right by a cemetery.

This place only has a Halloween party every few years. But they're in the business of being strange year round. Theatre Bizarre.

Fun in the city, motherfuckers.

[Enforcer]

[Enforcer]

[Erik Lund]

BOO! ya fuckers!

[Erik Lund]

Halloween is my little brother, Michael's, birthday. Which basically means I need to remember to call him and say "Happy birthday, Michael" some time before hitting the parties and getting absolutely shit-faced in a Cobra Kai skeleton-halloween outfit.

[Gary Sisco]

I'm going to take a wide stance all day and see if anyone guesses.

[Monte Smith]

Gungadar's a dragon, Fulgencia Maeve Myfanwy will be a chicken. The wife and I are Darryl Hall and John Oates. She's Oates.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

With all due respect to my friend Larry because I know how much he gets into it, but Halloween has got to be the dopiest most useless holiday on the planet. Okay , there might be a dumber holiday in the Maldives or Palau but Halloween, imo, is totally useless. Dress children up in ridiculous costumes and send them out after dark to beg for candy from strangers. What the?

[Monte Smith]

Somebody please prepare a burning bag of shit for Jimmy's front stoop. [Ding-dong].

[Gary Sisco]

It's actually an ancient, pagan holiday run (like Easter and Christmas and so forth) through centuries of various Christianities, but now, here, dumbed-up American style and commercialized. Its an interesting aspect of human culture that people will continue observing rituals long after their origin or even meaning has been forgotten. The wedding ring, for example, is an ancient holdover from the early Roman period, when marriages were finalized by the placement of iron rings on the left hand, "ring finger." It predates Christianity by many centuries. The Church just incorporated it, as it did many other things from the ancient pagans.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Hey, Gary, is there gonna be a test on this?

[Tom Storer]

Here in France there was a brief, lame attempt a few years ago to import Halloween. It led to Halloween-themed display windows in lots of shops, and little kids dressing up in Halloween costumes at cute little parties. But lacking cultural roots, it failed to stick. Halloween without trick-or-treating is ridiculous, and let's face it, no adult in his or her right mind would invent trick-or-treating if it wasn't there to begin with. And without adults to distribute the candy, no trick-or-treating.

I remember it fondly from my childhood, though. As of age 8 or 9, I recall trooping off with the neighborhood kids to make quite a wide circuit, with no adults in attendance. So we threw eggs, did the shaving cream thing, and came home whenever we got back, often past midnight. I have the impression things are less carefree nowadays.

[Gary Sisco]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Cantiello

Hey, Gary, is there gonna be a test on this?

I hope not.

[Gary Sisco]

Tom -- We did all kinds of nasty kid's stuff in my neighborhood, too. Strangely -- no test is scheduled; I just find these things interesting -- that's an ancient practice as well, for young people to make mischievous pranks the night before. When my family moved to Vermont from New York, I found the same practices here, but called "Cabbage Night." I can't remember what we called it as kids in New York, if anything. It was just traditional to trash the neighborhood the night before Halloween.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Where I come from we trashed the neighborhood every night.

[Enforcer]

Oh, yeah.

"The name Devil's Night or Mischief Night is used in the eastern U.S. and Canada, although the acts are generally less destructive and violent than those committed in Detroit."

[Enforcer]

[Gary Sisco]

Well, I admit we never went that far!

The worst thing we used to do was mix up these incredibly awful concoctions of stuff we found around our folks' houses, and adults who were especially disliked by the neighborhood kids, would find terrible things, nearly impossible to remove, all over their windshields in the morning. (There were almost no garages.) Not just eggs or soap; those were routine. This was an always different, custom goo, semi-liquid, sometimes mixed with paint if the person was really, really disliked.

[Dan G]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

It's actually an ancient, pagan holiday run (like Easter and Christmas and so forth) through centuries of various Christianities, but now, here, dumbed-up American style and commercialized. Its an interesting aspect of human culture that people will continue observing rituals long after their origin or even meaning has been forgotten.

From what I remember about it, the origins of Hallowe'en go back to Samhain (pronounced something like "sow en"), almost like a Celtic Thanksgiving and there are theories about Celtic New Year also being rolled into it, as it was the start of the 'dark half' of the year. But there's not really a consensus on whether they recognized a new year holiday even. But, rather than 4 seasons, they did recognize two distinct periods - dark and light. Why it didn't come on the equinox, I don't know, but probably has to do wiht the realities of harvest time more than the sun/moon, and I don't know.

It took when the harvest was completed, and livestock brought in from the fields for slaughter for the winter. The rich families, or any who had a good enough crop to share, put out some sort of a sign that they were willing to share. The poor folk then put on masks, because though everyone knew who they were, it was shameful to beg, and went door to door gathering extra barley, potatos, a bit of meat, etc from those with extra. I think it also involved a dram or two of whisky.

The jack-o-lanterns were used to keep evil spirits away - there was a belief at the time that the atmosphere between this world and the afterlife was thinnest at this time, and scary objects were needed to keep the unwanted dead from returning.

The dead thing was a bit of a conflict though, because this closeness between the two worlds was seen as a good thing for those who wanted to communicate with a dead loved one.

The dark season ended at the first of May, with Beltane, when the days started to get long again, new crops were planted, and the livestock put back out to pasture. And probably some whisky involved again.

No test on this material, and accuracy...close enough, though I'm sure there are people here who can/will point out mistakes.

[walto]

Like Larry, it's always been my favorite holiday.

I have to admit, though, I'm getting kind of tired of it. Of course, at my age, there's not too much I'm not tired of.

[cookie]

I love Halloween! I live in the best trick or treat neighborhood around.

Unfortunately, I have to work on Halloween this year, so I won't get to give out the treats.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

Gungadar's a dragon, Fulgencia Maeve Myfanwy will be a chicken.

Yes, this pagan holdover of death worship is just too cute!

[Rob C]

I usually get somewhere between zero and two groups of trick-or-treaters in my neighborhood. And one of those tends to be a group of surly teenagers not wearing costumes.

[Enforcer]

Cute, Monte!

I'm at that age where I repeat myself, and I've been around here for about 100 years now, so you've probably heard this before: When I was a kid, I used to make our home a haunted house for trick or treaters. I'd do it up with lights, props, scary sounds (playing a record and pointing the speakers out the window, and playing the bass drum on my drumset progressively louder to sound like an approaching heartbeat). My old man would help out and hide in the shrubs and jump out and scream at the kids. Kids came in droves; we were the hit of the neighborhood.

I was inspired by a house we visited once where the kids would drop a ghost (made from a bedsheet... I think!) out of a second story window on unsuspecting kids while they were loading up their bags with candy at the front door. Good times.

[walto]

We decorate, play 'weird' music and I hand out the candy on my porch in disguise. But it's not a scary disguise, because (a) you're not allowed to scare children anymore, you'll get arrested; and (b) if I scare some little 'un, his/her father will walk up the steps to my porch and beat the shit out of me.

[Jon Abbey]

for some reason, I want to go check out the parade in the Village this year, not something I've ever done before (usually I try to steer as clear as possible).

[GoodSpeak]

Halloween sucks.


I used to really like it until all that demon possession, devil bullshit started up.



Now it's all about the blood and gore instead of the dress-up and trick-or-treat.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Well, I have to admit, sometimes Halloween can be pretty funny.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z6mXfFTOxbM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1JjI45M4uGU

[Gary Sisco]

I used to like playing Halloween gigs. My most memorable one started out as not much fun, though, when someone dosed me with LSD. It's not easy to play music on acid, let me tell you. Eventually I just had to go with it as there wasn't any other choice. It was an adult costume thing. A friend and I kept people amused by huffing helium (from a tank that was for balloons) and singing harmonies in munchkin voices.

[Enforcer]

Got my tickets to Theatre Bizarre today. Oh, yeah.