The massive power outages caused by Hurricane Sandy, or “Frankenstorm” as it has been dubbed due to its proximity to Halloween, has many in New Jersey considering – perhaps, for the first time – what life would be like without electric power.  Electricity provides mobility, connectivity, and creature comforts unimagined by most just two or three centuries ago.  And, its imprint is not just upon daily living but also the field of entertainment.

 

Without electricity, entertainment as we know it today would be impossible.  Theatrical productions of today, many with special effects one might expect of a Hollywood blockbuster, bear little resemblance to those in centuries past.  And, of course, cinema and television depend upon electric power for both transmission and viewing.  The symbiotic effect of modern life and electric power, however, has pervaded the thoughts of creatives in the film, television, and print industries for decades and beyond.

 

At one point in history, electricity was theorized to be the life force.  It was the reanimation of the dead by electric power that was at the core of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the many film adaptations of her novel.

 

For sheer terror, however, consider the impact of darkness on the human psyche.  Biblically speaking, darkness has been viewed as being in opposition to light and symbolizes the eternal conflict between evil and good.  In darkness, evil men perpetrate nefarious schemes.  As children, we fear the dark – a fear that appears to have been ingrained in mankind from his earliest days on earth.

 

Hollywood has based some of its most frightening films on fear of darkness.  In the 1965 film I Saw What You Did and its subsequent remake, a prank turns potentially deadly for teen girls who find themselves home alone in an isolated, dark setting.   And, who can forget a masked Michael Myers in Halloween or hockey-masked Jason in Friday the 13^th – each seemingly always lying in wait for his prey in the dark.

 

Yet, if darkness inspires terror, the loss of power at any time of day or night is a cause of significant concern and anxiety to most people.  In one of my favorite and most influential sci-fi films of the 1950s, The Day the Earth Stood Still, a complete worldwide loss of power is employed by an alien emissary to gain the attention of a hostile world on the verge of interplanetary travel.

 

 

More recently, NBC has broadcast Revolution, a series chronicling the exploits of a small band of survivors fifteen years after a complete and seemingly permanent loss of electrical power globally.  If art is an imitation of life, then this program graphically demonstrates how quickly social order can collapse in the aftermath of a complete loss of power.  Electricity and its transmission, it appears, are the glue that hold together our modern world.  And, it seems that those in the arts realized the potential implications of its loss sooner than our supposed leaders in government and society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello everyone! I’m back, and I’m going to tell you about some last minute Halloween decorations and treats.

 

First off, the picture at the top of this article is of a fun decoration you make from a water jug using a black sharpie marker and some lights. I plan to make this fun creation, and I urge you to make one as well.

 

Another fun creation has to deal with food. So moms, get your frying pans and oven mitts out because this is a good one. The picture to the left is of these treats called Witch cupcakes. They are basically cupcakes with an ice cream cone on their heads, a gummy for a nose, M&M’s for eyes, and icing for hair and mouth.

 

In case you were wondering, for Halloween I am going to be a ghillie sniper.  If you don’t play video games like me, a ghillie sniper is one of those army guys that have those grass suits. They lay in the grass, camouflaged, hidden from all enemies.

Of the 365 days of the year on which my birthday could have fallen, I have always been supremely grateful that my entrance into the world coincided with Halloween.  It was the one day of the school year unmarred by homework, the day that kindly strangers willingly handed over all manner of goodies at the press of a doorbell, and the sole opportunity, year-long, to assume a persona 180 degrees removed from my little bookworm self.   Perhaps best of all, I knew that every kid across America celebrated my birthday in grand style.  In my own neighborhood, gaggles of miniature firemen, Cinderellas, Barbie Dolls, and Supermen flew from stoops, their jewel-colored capes fluttering behind them, their trick or treat bags filled to bursting, their laughter tinkling on the autumnal wind.

 

The day that I became a teenager, my thirteenth birthday, I stopped ringing bells.  Longing to run unfettered through the night air playing innocent pranks with my friends, it was the worst birthday of my young life.  Although “too old” to be hiding out behind my death’s head mask, I vowed to keep the holiday alive when I really grew up.  Those who know and love me best will argue my maturity; however, I did keep my promise.  Should my birthday fall during the week, I take the day off from work. Vigilantly, I compose a minimum of one hundred brightly colored goodie bags into which I slip at least three different types of candy (the good kind!) and a small trinket, such a spider ring.  Well past adolescence now, I’ve refused all offers to celebrate my birthday in upscale restaurants.  I’ve never seen a play, traveled, enjoyed a concert, caught the latest film, or even entertained friends on Halloween.

 

Instead, I lie in wait outside my house, where fat spiders spin in the wind and Frankenstein’s monster claws his way out of the earth.  Outwardly, I am but a former shade of the kid who prowled the New York streets in a tracery of silver bones.  But in my heart, I am still that child.  Now I wait in delicious anticipation of the children who will come demanding treats.  And each year, fewer and fewer rouged, winged, eye-patched, bloodied revelers rush up beside me breathless, yanking open their pillowcases for their treasures to tumble therein.

 

Is Halloween going the way of Christmas: blatantly commercial, ripped of its original meaning, and devoid of genuine spirit?  Has it been trampled by those who view the holiday as pagan, zealous breast-thumpers who prize political correctness over small, innocent joys that celebrate the sanctity of childhood?  Those who are offended by the Christ in Christmas have also bastardized Halloween, renaming the holiday “Autumn Festival” in our school systems and forbidding the donning of costumes that might insult someone.

 

Why do parents unafraid to leave their children day after day, year after year, in the care of school systems that preach Diversity and critical thinking, and who work simultaneously to dismantle both principles, forbid their youngsters to ring doorbells in their own familiar neighborhoods on All Hallows Eve?  Why do the same parents who grant their children unrestrained access to violence via broadcast news and clips on Internet browser pages, shrink in terror from the exposure of formative minds to time-honored, moralistic films such as the original Dracula and Frankenstein?  In becoming PC, have we, in fact, become a nation of the bland and unimaginative?   Have we, a melting pot of richly diverse peoples and beliefs, returned to the Puritanical?   Have we murdered Halloween?   My answer?  Only if we allow it!

 

If you feel as I do, if you remember the thrill of Halloweens past and wish to preserve this fun-filled holiday for your own progeny’s enjoyment, here is some ammunition for you.  Please, aim it straight at the myopic, ignorant hearts of the naysayers and others masquerading as politically correct.

 

Those who credit Halloween as an evil machination of the Druids have not been educated in the ways that religions have, down through the centuries, emerged.  In order to sell any new religion, in order to gain converts, practitioners lift rituals and symbols from older faiths to incorporate them into the newer creeds.  The miracle of water turning into wine and the very symbol of the Christmas tree — cornerstones of the Christian faith — are, in fact, taken directly from Druidism and younger pagan (read: Earth-friendly, eco-conscious) religions.

 

The ancient Druids also believed that Halloween was the one day of the year on which the veil between the living and the dead hung at its thinnest. In other words, if you longed to communicate with a loved one “on the other side” in order to receive guidance, or just to honor that person, Halloween was the most efficacious day on which to do so.  The Catholic religion relegates a day for similar observances: two days after Halloween, in fact!  On All Souls’ Day, Catholics around the world pray for and honor their dead.

 

The intent behind the enduring symbol of the jack-o-lantern was never to strike terror into God-fearing souls or to manifest Devil worship; it was just the opposite.  In ancient Scotland and Ireland, people carved frightful faces into pumpkins and root vegetables, inserted a smoldering coal into the vegetables’ hulls, and carted the jack-o-lanterns over the countryside or propped them up in windows to ward off evil spirits.  In the Catholic faith, we make the Sign of the Cross and clutch our rosaries when we sense the approach of evil.  I do not single out Catholicism, as every religion has its own talismans.

 

Honor Halloween, for your children’s sakes.  Encourage them to design and create their own costumes that reflect their individual personalities, fantasies, fears, and aspirations. Accompany them on their trick or treating escapades.  Leave the car in the garage and tread the darkening streets.  Quit moaning about the housework that you could be doing or the report that must be written by tomorrow morning.  Look closely at your children’s laughing faces as they flit like brightly colored moths between houses glowing with jack-o-lanterns against the gathering chill.  Childhood is fleeting and precious; tomorrow, your little ones will return to harsh realities.  On All Hallows’ Eve, on this one day of the year, let them be children. 

“From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!”

 

The traditional Scottish prayer is befitting on the day that we celebrate as Halloween.  The holiday has its roots in pre-Christian times and the culture of the Celts, a people occupying parts of what are now Great Britain and northern France.

 

The Celts, as did many peoples of the pre-Christian era, believed in many deities, foremost being the sun god.  A pastoral people, they established their calendar based upon climatic conditions that dictated changes in their way of life.  November 1^st began their new year and winter season, a period following the harvesting of crops when cattle were brought back from summer pastures and society turned toward indoor craft-making activities.

 

On that day began a three-day festival, Samhain (pronounced sow-ween).  On the eve of Samhain, Celtic families would extinguish the fires in their homes and the priestly caste – the Druids – would light new fires, dance around them, and sacrifice animals to mark the passing of the season of the sun and the commencement of the season of darkness.  During the festival, many people would don costumes made from the skins and heads of their animals.

 

The Celts also believed that the change in seasons and other turning points in their lives represented magical times when they could communicate with deceased loved ones.  While they did not believe in evil, they did believe in Fairy Folk who, resentful of appropriation of their land, would trap people in fairy mounds where they would be forever lost.

 

Also, since the eve of their new year was a night that belonged to neither year, the Celts considered it a time of chaos and would engage in various pranks.  Fairies were believed to roam the earth on this night, and people would leave food and drink outside the doors to their homes to gain their blessings in the coming year.  People would imitate fairies and go from house to house begging for treats, the failure of which to provide usually resulted in some type of practical joke.

 

With the spread of Christianity, pagan practices such as those of the Celts and Druids were viewed as devil-worship and their practitioners as witches.  In an attempt to assimilate pagan customs and festivals into Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church established November 1^st as All Saints’ Day, also known as All Hallows’ Day.

 

But, Celtic belief continued and so All Hallows’ Eve has morphed into All Hallows’ Even, Hallowe’en, and ultimately, our Halloween.  And so, as you don your costumes, attend a party, go trick or treating, or pass out candy or treats to those at your door, consider that you are perpetuating a tradition that is more than two millennia old.

 

Have a Happy Halloween.