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Not that ours or previous generations have a lock on the celebration, but I often think about how Halloween will be received by future people the further we progress from its roots. Hopefully there will always be a change of seasons along with a reverence and healthy curiosity for the otherworldly, but the more technically advanced we become the less connected we are with the natural world. Still, not crap. I love how for one month we celebrate the natural world and our possible misconceptions of it.

What say you? Crap or Not Crap

Hallowe'en In A Suburb

The steeples are white in the wild moonlight,
And the trees have a silver glare;
Past the chimneys high see the vampires fly,
And the harpies of upper air,
That flutter and laugh and stare.

For the village dead to the moon outspread
Never shone in the sunset’s gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep
Where the rivers of madness stream
Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.

A chill wind weaves thro’ the rows of sheaves
In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.

Not a breath of the strange grey gods of change
That tore from the past its own
Can quicken this hour, when a spectral pow’r
Spreads sleep o’er the cosmic throne
And looses the vast unknown.

So here again stretch the vale and plain
That moons long-forgotten saw,
And the dead leap gay in the pallid ray,
Sprung out of the tomb’s black maw
To shake all the world with awe.

And all that the morn shall greet forlorn,
The ugliness and the pest
Of rows where thick rise the stones and brick,
Shall some day be with the rest,
And brood with the shades unblest.

Then wild in the dark let the lemurs bark,
And the leprous spires ascend;
For new and old alike in the fold
Of horror and death are penn’d,
For the hounds of Time to rend.

- H.P. Lovecraft

(First published in The National Amateur, 48, No. 4 (March 1926), 33 (as “In a Suburb”))

Halloween is Not Crap, but people overdo it. I don't need 15 activities within a 2-3 week span. One night is fine.

Halloween is not crap. My wife loves it more than me, but I remain aligned with Danzig. It makes me miss New England.

The tradition was imported here a couple of years ago. Or some sliver of it. Kids dressing up and doing trick-or-treat. I grew up without it and thought it was weird and lame when it started getting popular, and I didn't think it was ever going to catch on seriously, but it's much more common now. If you were born 2000 or later it's probably natural to you.

I'm neutral about it.

My kids high school reminds you “costumes cannot include masks, a fully painted face, or anything else that covers the entire face. Additionally, students cannot carry or include any type of weapon or weapon-like object.” Additionally there will be no cultural costumes unless it’s your own culture.

I’m actually impressed they stopped there and left a little room for fun and candy.

Not crap

kokorodoko wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2024 12:11 pm The tradition was imported here a couple of years ago.

Africa doesn't recognize Halloween as they consider it to be disrespectful of the dead. Is it more just a commercial holiday where you live or were there deeper implications into why it was never celebrated?

hbiden@onlyfans.com wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2024 12:24 pm My kids high school reminds you “costumes cannot include masks, a fully painted face, or anything else that covers the entire face. Additionally, students cannot carry or include any type of weapon or weapon-like object.” Additionally there will be no cultural costumes unless it’s your own culture.

I think I can understand the masks as they obviously obscure facial recognition, maybe less so with makeup but because racism, bigotry, and school shootings it appears there are erring on the side of caution.

I can not imagine the roads kids have to navigate in school today.

rsmurphy wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2024 12:31 pm

kokorodoko wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2024 12:11 pm The tradition was imported here a couple of years ago.

Africa doesn't recognize Halloween as they consider it to be disrespectful of the dead. Is it more just a commercial holiday where you live or were there deeper implications into why it was never celebrated?

They didn't celebrate Halloween ANYWHERE outside of the US (maybe Canada?) until a few years ago....well because it was US specific. Then it crept in as a ful- on Hallmark holiday now in several places in the world, probably because of social media. As junk cultural proliferation goes, it seems cool because it's a chance for kids to get nuts. I love this clip from Meet me in St. Louis - You want a trick? We'll burn your patio furniture in the middle of the street. Being a little shit seems to be a lost art.

zorg wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2024 1:50 pm They didn't celebrate Halloween ANYWHERE outside of the US (maybe Canada?) until a few years ago....well because it was US specific.

Weird being it started out as a Gaelic festival or am I missing something?

Dunno . . . Wouldn't say that Halloween is Crap across the board, but as an adult it always feels like the amount of genuine enjoyment I can squeeze out of it pales in comparison to whatever it meant to me as a kid. It's been this way for years. And this is true of the horror genre in general, in that it doesn't as easily capture my imagination. I rented Halloween a couple of weeks ago, and liked it more than the last time I'd seen it, but it's at its creepiest when it's at its most ambiguous, with stark imagery featuring a lot of darkness and startling musical cues popping out of nowhere. But then, when I see some mentally ill guy in a mask slashing people up on the screen, it doesn't feel that interesting. This is one reason why Don't Look Now is cooler, or a movie like The Haunting (1963) is more effective--they both capitalize on that quasi-unknowable dread and don't offer too many explanations.

The holiday Halloween as an excuse to get together and play dress-up, exchange candy, and/or listen to power electronics/metal/goth music, or play in a cover band, is something I don't have a problem with. But as an adult and non-parent it's not an impulse I've often indulged.

[Edited for spelling.]