Halloween is coming!!

[sistermagpie]

I had a really interesting conversation with P today--interesting in the way you can know somebody for years and then they say something surprising. We were talking about Halloween, and Guy Fawkes Night came up. She said she would probably prefer GFN to Halloween.

Needless to say, I was shocked. Not because I've got anything against GFN, but because I can't imagine picking anything over Halloween. I know that P shares my love of horror movies and scary things in general, we just wrote a Halloween picture book together and have also written other spooky stuff together. It turns out, though, that she loves all that about Halloween. As a kid she liked getting candy, of course. What she doesn't like is...costumes.

She hates dressing up in costumes. She doesn't mind other people doing it, doesn't hate the idea of it, she just really really hates being asked to be anything other than herself. She wasn't saying it to be weird or anything (I don't know if she's really capable of that anyway--she's the most straightforward person I know). It was obviously something that struck a chord with her. She said, "I guess I feel like being myself is something I fought hard for for so long I won't give it up for anyone."

Coming from her, I got what she was saying. But it made me think...I don't think I ever looked at it that way. To some extent I loved "being someone else" when I put together my costumes (and yes, I was one of those kids--and am now one of those people--who gets really into making a costume) but it never felt like a disguise to me. In fact, it was almost revealing because whatever I was dressed as was something I really really wanted to be on some level. I think I do feel like I'm dressing up as something that's already inside me somehow. One tradition of Halloween, for instance, has girls dressing up as boys and vice versa. I don't consider that a disguise so much as each sex being able indulge the parts of themselves that "are" the opposite sex. For some people this is even more literal. I think this is a big reason Halloween's become so associated with the gay community in a lot of places. I remember reading about a club that had a big party every year; this was the only day of the year that drag queens could go out on the street as themselves without being arrested.

This is one of the things I like about knowing P, really. On so many "primal" (or whatever) things we're completely in tune, but then we're coming from totally different directions in others. Things like hands. P loves images of hands reaching up, like coming out of a pool or the earth or just space. I see that image and think of the old Chiller Theater show with the six-fingered hand coming out of the pool of blood. I adored that image and looked forward to it at every commercial break, but for me it's a scary image. For her it's inspiring. She sees the hand as reaching up, breaking out, breaking free. I see the hand as reaching up to pull me down.

I love Halloween.

Comments

[enarte.livejournal.com]

Iiinteresting, re: the costumes thing.

Personally, I have always found costumes to be a form of escapism also. I used to feel kind of put off when my mom would decide to dress me up as a pumpkin or something for Halloween, because who wants to be a pumpkin? I felt like I was missing out on a chance to Be Someone Else -- and orange gourds did not count as someone else.

Interesting also that you bring up the relation between Halloween and the gay community. I had never heard of this, but I do know that for the past six years or so, I have made grandiose plans to dress up as some male character or another for Halloween. Granted, the plans have not yet fallen through, but that would be t00by fear of ostracism for you. :P

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

A pumpkin? Bleh! Well, unless you wanted to be a pumpkin. I hate the idea of being told what you're going to be for Halloween. Maybe when you're a baby and don't know any better. Then your mom can put you in a pumpkin suit. But once you know what you are I think you should have some say.

The earliest Halloween costume I remember was when I was either 2 or 3 and I was a tiger. I always remembered it because my mother used the excess fabric to make pillow covers for the station wagon. Terrycloth tiger print. I saw pictures of me in the costume years later, and I think I looked pretty fierce. Well, maybe not. :-)

[chresimos.livejournal.com]

I think I agree with you, but with me it was probably more simply about "Whee! Strange clothing!" Although I do recall that one of my goals as a youth was to see if I could make myself so others didn't recognize me. So maybe a bit of both? I'd never think of a costume as disguising or obscuring the real me, since it would be my personality generating what I wanted to dress up as.


Very few people celebrate Halloween around here, I think it's seen as a rather too-American thing. You get some kids trick-or-treating, but there's no commotion, not even any aggressive costume-marketing on the TV. I kind of miss it (well, not the marketing so much). :D

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think the "Whee! Strange clothing!" aspect is the best part. Like one thing I learned early was that you always wanted to be in clothes you felt comfortable in. You can't be yourself if you're fighting with a costume.

I kind of miss it (well, not the marketing so much). :D


Heh. Yeah, Halloween starts in August practically now (and Xmas starts right after Halloween). I'm amazed looking at some of the costumes for kids I see in stores here--they're much more elaborate and cool than anything I remember when I was a kid. (Like they used to sell those costumes that were like pajamas with the picture of the character on them--how is that a costume?) Last year my favorite one was this guy walking with what I think was his daughter but I couldn't tell because she was a toothbrush. I mean a serious toothbrush. I don't know how she saw through the bristles, but she looked great.

[chresimos.livejournal.com]

Due to the not having Halloween, Christmas marketing started a few days ago! People are putting trees up! I was horrified.

...Once, when I was little, my costume was a brown paper bag with a smiley face painted on it.

[blankcanvas.livejournal.com]

Um, I feel a little stupid saying this, but what's Guy Fawkes Night?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Not stupid at all! It's a holiday in England on November 5th (hope I'm not getting that wrong...it's been a while...) commemorating the foiling of a plot to blow up Parliament by one Guy Fawkes. They make effigies of him and light bonfires and party.

If you've ever read the Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynne Jones, she uses that holiday very cleverly in "Witch Week." (That series is about child wizards, btw.)

[samaranth.livejournal.com]

Halloween is not a usual thing here, although recently I’ve noticed costumes, jack o’lanterns and other paraphernalia in the shops.

I think it’s a pity, because it gives kids a chance to dress up on a mass scale, and do something with an element of ‘scariness’ to it, something almost not-childlike… like holding adults to ransom.

It’s curious how Hallowe’en has developed from a pagan celebration (Samhain) to a pretty well commercial one, in spite of a religious overlay (All Souls/All Saints). But the sense of supernatural still seems to be there, even if kids are choosing to dress up as non-spooky things. (Although I can see that a giant toothbrush could be spooky too.)

Its an interesting thought about the alternation of sex in costuming. It’s something I’ve noticed in some of the LOTR fandom activities – the number of females who want to dress as Frodo or Sam (but not so many males want to dress up as Rosie.) This could be because of the dearth of likely female characters, or perhaps it’s a close identification with F and S. I don’t know, perhaps it’s a bit like wearing a boyfriend’s/partner’s jumper when it’s cold – you feel closer to them because you’re inhabiting their ‘skin’. I do like the idea of being able to express otherwise hidden aspects of yourself.

(I’m not sure if any of this makes sense…)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, it does makes sense, definitely!

I read a book recently about the history of Halloween in America--it's really wonderful. The traditions we think of as being so old here (as old as something can be in the US, that is) are often fairly recent. Halloween's always been around in one form or another but it's changed in the way it was celebrated. Trick or treating as we think of it now seems to have started as a Thanksgiving thing where kids would dress as urchins and beg. For a while Halloween was very associated with working class vandalism of upper class neighborhoods.

P is about 20 years older than I am so she remembers Halloween as being primarily really safe where people just gave you loose candy. I grew up in the age of urban legends about poisoned candy where everything had to be individuall wrapped etc. Even that's now become part of the tradition. Such a weird holiday; I love it!

[closet-geek.livejournal.com]

I was a banana for two years as a child. Not that I was a particularly long and skinny baby, per se, it was simply that my mother had just bought a violently yellow babysuit that had a green hat attached. The outcome was inevitable. It's not very scary to see a fat child waddling around in shiny polyester clothing, but there you go.

Stupid costume ideas aside, I've always loved Halloween. I'm not one for horror movies, but creepy novels have always interested me, and I consider writing them scads of fun. As an artist and a budding filmmaker, my movies and art pieces are always similarly eerie. I don't think I'm a particularly morbid person, but October 31st has been less about the costumes and "strange clothing", and more about exploring the dark side in all of us. At the same time, the holiday ridicules that dark potential, makes it about little kids running around in their mass-produced Wal-Mart outfits and receiving various confectionery from Mr and Mrs Next-Door. I don't really think Halloween is about that, I consider the unexplored dark possibilities unleashed for one night the crux of the matter and everything else a little silly. I like to indulge that dark side and show it freely, have it be conventional and fun—that’s the real Halloween and why I enjoy it.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I am beginning to think we must be sharing a brain.:-)

That's totally what I love about Halloween too. For a while I would get kind of annoyed at the sillier aspects of Halloween because I really wanted it to be all about the eerie. But then I saw there's room for all of that--the chaos can be death or darkness or just anything at all.

There is definitely something special about the well-done creepy novel, I think. There's the pulpy stuff but the good stuff is hard. I've been thinking about ghosts recently and trying to somehow do an entry about them because they just puzzle me...

[maymorning.livejournal.com]

The Guy Fawkes plot was really just an excuse. It's still part of Samhain, the lighting of bonfires went on for several days, not just october 31. I love bonfire night. We used to go to big fireworks displays when I was a child, great fun! Much more fun than Hallowe'en. (Though I do love Samhain.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh that makes total sense. I mean, I don't think anybody really cares that this one guy wanted to blow up Parliament and didn't. I remember reading how the fires went on for several days--it's no surprise this holiday continues in different forms.

I didn't know about the fireworks--that is excellent! My high school used to have a bonfire once a year that was as close as we came to bonfire night. I think they discontinued it after they re-seeded the field or something. Such a shame. Nothing like a good bonfire (with the twirlers twirling fire while their pantyhose melt from the heat).