This evening I might sit in the dark and listen to Schumann's Geistervariationen (Ghost Variations - written when he was convinced ghosts were taking over his mind, during the writing of which he attempted suicide and then died in an insane asylum … yay fun), but that's about my limit.
The sad news is, we no longer do Halloween here. Or at least we no longer do it right.
A couple of decades back some idiot imported the nastier side of Halloween from across the Pond but never got around to importing the good stuff. We somehow managed to turn "Trick or treat" into gangs of teenagers in cheap Scream masks demanding goods with menaces, terrorising lonely elderly people and plastering the fronts of people's homes with eggs if they don't get what they want. I got that treatment regularly myself when I commuted to London and was unable to get home in time to stop it, and believe me, caked-on egg takes industrial machinery to get out of brickwork.
And yes, you heard me. I said the good stuff. Stop falling over and pretending to faint. I'm actually fessing up to being jealous of the Colonies for doing something right.
If there's anyone from England sneaking in here to read this, just check out Petrea's post from Sunday or Robyn's . I defy you not to go all gooey at these übercute kids from Robyn's Halloween Party and you simply must go back and watch that wonderful Buffy Halloween episode (series 2, episode 6) to see what we're missing (apart of course from my favourite sexy witch Willow).
Back when I was a kid (around the end of the last ice age), the neighbourhood parents would get together and put on a great time for kids at Halloween. We dressed in old sheets, made paper witches' hats, baked potatoes in bonfires, carved swedes (that's the vegetable, not the people from Sweden) into little jack'o'lanterns (in austerity Britain pumpkins were for the rich) and bobbed for apples and played games while our mums and dads stood around getting quietly plastered and eating themselves silly. Good innocent fun. And nobody went around demanding "trick or treat."
Now all that is gone and I honestly don't know how to get it back. We seem to have had all the fun sucked out of us as a nation since Thatcherism destroyed the last shreds of our decency, Blairism drained us of our souls and Cameron the plastic-faced bankers' buttplug took away our jobs and stole all our money. England is a truly shitty place to live now.
It's been over fifteen years since I last saw a group of cute little kids all dressed up as ghouls and witches, politely knocking on doors and chaperoned by friendly parents (that was the time I asked the biggest kid how many of them there were so I could count out chocolate bars and he counted all the others and forgot to count himself - He looked so crestfallen I had to laugh but I gave him his chocolate anyway).
Now it's just gangs of thuggish kids and drunken teenagers in hoodies wearing cheap, unimaginative plastic masks instead of home-made costumes, sneering "Trick or treat" by which they mean "Give us sweets or money or we'll trash your house."
There's no dressing up, no community spirit, not a pumpkin to be seen in my entire village, no parades or neighburhood parties and definitely no fun. If someone decorated their house and front lawn like the one in Petrea's photo the kids would just destroy it.
For God's sake, America. Come over here and show us how it's done.
Please?
16 comments:
My Dearest Getting old and Grouchy,
It is the one thing the USA does well. Halloween is tres fun! But we also have teenagers with eggs, shaving cream and toilet paper trying to wreck havoc on our homes. Luckily, in White Plains, NY anyway we have an excellent police force that patrols the neighborhoods and keeps the vandalism in check. I will miss it this year ;-(. I adore the UK, I find it so charming. But I must say, I find the US a pretty dire place to live in now. between Bush and Wall Street, we are broke and have no jobs. I enjoyed your post so much, I'll be back this evening to read more!
Happy Halloween!
Gypsy!
What a lovely lady you look Gypsy Chef..
Ha ha Son you brought back some memories, you forgot to tell them how you, Phil, Stevie and more ..altered all the white stones on the front lawn of a lady over the road from us, or had you put that in the back of your mind!
The supermarkets just make money from halloween nowadays, sad as you say.
I am going to tuck myself and the cat in and not answer the door, I know that sounds mean as we always had fun, but get a bit scared nowadays to answer the door in the dark, poor old thing tee he.
Most of us have a great time here on Halloween, but there is always some idiot who paints a Satanic symbol in a church parking lot just to be ironic.
Speaking of irony, tonight I'm going to put a bowl of candy on the front porch and go see Spamalot.
Dive, it has been almost centuries since I've seen a trick-or-treater in my neighborhood. I don't know where they went, except perhaps to organized events. For years, there have been so many people who took all the fun from the night everyone from people on the (insane) religious right to criminals using the date as an excuse for vandalism.
Then there were those "reports" of evil people to poisoned or booby-trapped the treats, which obliterated the tasty homemade treats in favor of the commercially manufactured candies.
Oh, yeah, I thought you might like to know I'm planning to take part in a class, beginning in January, to become a chef. On a very small scale, of course, as I'd like to work for a caterer and/or get a job on one of the riverboats that are being revitalized to cruise the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. I used to cook a lot, but haven't for years and thought I may as well put my interest to use for a future book/photos.
"Ha ha Son you brought back some memories, you forgot to tell them how you, Phil, Stevie and more ..altered all the white stones on the front lawn of a lady over the road from us, or had you put that in the back of your mind!"
Phil, the young hoodlum... I can totally picture it.
Dive, your fond memories of years ago sound like how my neighborhood celebrates. I just hope that in a few years from now we don't have the hoodlums with hoodies.
I love the little cherubs in their superman costumes, and especially the ones who dress up in something they and their parents created with their imaginations.
I would relish a Halloween communing with the spirits of old. I'm just not sure how or where to do it in Pasadena without getting bitten by a rattlesnake or a mountain lion.
Well, tis All Hallow's Eve and I'm sitting alone in the dark and listening to Geistervariationen.
Actually I'm also dashing back and forth between the Mac and the kitchen as I have a roux on the go. If any little monsters come a knocking while I'm cooking they'll get short shrift, sound advice and maybe a carrot.
Hi there, Gypsy! Welcome to charming England (actually, I live on the Norfolk Broads which is spectacularly beautiful but don't tell the tourists as we don't want them coming here). I'm sorry to hear it's not all cuteness and candy over on the other side of the Pond, but at least you guys do Halloween a lot better than we do.
I can't wait to hear more of your wonderful French adventure, though I have to keep lying to myself that I am not insanely jealous of you for doing that.
Happy Halloween!
Mum, you don't know the half of it. My favourite Halloween trick was (in the good old days before they glued the smegging things in place) unscrewing the front numberplates from all the cars on Blyburgate car park that were parked up against the wall and swapping them around. It must have taken months to sort that one out.
Oh, and moving "FOR SALE" signs to different houses. But at least we never egged anyone or demanded chocolate or money.
Good luck keeping Oscar sane through fireworks season.
Robyn, have a marvellous time with the Pythons. What a great way to spend Halloween.
Speedway, the evil queen poisoning the apple will always be with us (or at least in my case the evil schoolboy passing round the laxative chocolate in a new wrapper).
Yay you for doing the chef thang! Watch out though: you might end up my shape. Oh, and be sure to do a series of recipe posts (though try to make them less sweary than my own "What's Cooking With Dive" excresences). I can't wait to hear more.
Vanda: please see above for the milder of our escapades.
Oh, I forgot one: the time we stole/borrowed a load of cones and roadworks signs and closed off a whole street in Beccles. It took a day for the police to cotton on and clear it.
Er … and of course the bomb-making (it's deep in the archives - just don't go there).
So perhaps today's hoodlums aren't quite as bad as we were. Sigh …
Petrea, I, too, hope you avoid the hoodies and vandals. Your Halloween photo was so heartwarming ( the decorations, not the scary ghost - hee hee).
I think you should be able to safely commune with the spirits of old in one of your many lovely libraries. That's where they did it in Buffy and you know I use that as a rule to live by.
I wish I could be there for the upcoming Ladies of Tenchi Muyo. It's on my birthday though so I can't really go swanning off across the Pond. If it's recorded, do be sure and post it so I can watch (pretty please).
You little B you I always thought you were nice boys..shame on you both.
You brought us up to be intelligent and imaginative. What on earth did you expect?
Wow, Dive, you were quite a trouble maker.
Thank you, Dive.
We had a number of cute trick or treaters come to our door tonight. And there will be some nasty pranks played out in some parts of town, as usual.
When I was a kid, we'd run around the streets of a small town, gather treats -- a lot of them homemade -- and did a few pranks. But nothing that damaged anything, and no eggs thrown.
So what delicacy did you create in your kitchen tonight, Dive?
I actually had a thought this year that I'm ashamed to have failed to execute.
While driving home the night before Shallow-ween, I considered pulling into the local pound and purchasing a vicious dog. My thought: leash this attention starved creature to a big bucket of candy at the end of the drive.
Then wonder: would the kids approach the house? Would they bang on the door? Would they greedily snatch up fist fulls of candy, not once, but three times while their parents smiled on? "Oh, little angel. Not too much now."
Or: would plastic costumes with dog-bite shaped tears in their rumps go fleeing from my lawn? Would it truly have been a night of monstrous terror? O' Brando, "... the horror, the horror, the horror."
But, all is not lost. I still have two more months to run into the little bastards at the stores as they yell, "I want that! I want that! Tell Santa I want that!"
... don't wish for us Americans to show you how our Shallow-ween is done, Dive. You may regret the result.
For now, I drink my cider, read my book, and slowly sink into my couch already dreading the coming months of fucking reindeer, Xmas Moose, and god damned Elf on the Shelf.
"... the horror, the horror, the horror."
Cheers mate,
Todd
I think that's a splendid idea, Todd. As for the looming season of misery, I am at a new office now, with new people and no more singing fucking reindeer (as far as I know). They seem very much into social events so I face the coming weeks with a sense of dread. Watch this space.
I don't know. Let's not advocate cruelty to animals just because people are cruel to each other.
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