h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just don't get it I don't get all the fuss and hoo-hah.

When I was a young Gosho growing up in the 1960s, Halloween was known by us kids to be something to do with ghosts and witches, and there were certain traditions around it, like being able to see your true love if you held a candle and looked into a mirror on this night. We also heard that American kids did this thing called trick or treat, but I don't believe anyone ever thought of giving it a bash.

It's a multi-million dollar industry here. More than that in fact - I heard a figure not long ago of $2 billion a year. I wonder how that sits with George Dubya? On the one hand he's a devout Christian, a scion of the Texan Christian right wing. On the other though, he's all for unfettered business. He must be hopping from one foot to the other like Homer Simpson, trying to work out which he worships most - God or a $2,000,000,000 a year industry, and which he could least do without And I wonder what kind of useful things (like hospitals and schools) $2 billion would buy.

It's time for the marketers to think up some new cliches - the old ones are really pretty tired now. 'Halloween Headquarters', 'Shocktober', 'spooktacular'... come on guys, it can't be that difficult (and I've lost count of the number of times I've heard the soundtrack from 'Psycho today).

For many, it's not even anything to do with ghosts and the occult any more, it's just an excuse to dress up in costume. Mrs Gosho and some friends have gone to 6th Street tonight. She's dressed as a schoolgirl

Me? I'm staying in tonight. I've read a few more chapters of THHGTTG (thanks broe ), I've had a relaxing bath (I wish we had a smiley), a glass of Knob Creek, and I'm going to bed soon because I have to get up at 6.30am to open the store. I only live four miles away from it, but since the buses on Saturday and Sunday morning run only once an hour, I've got two choices - 45 minutes early or 15 minutes late, and since the latter of those two won't leave me enough time to count the money and complete the morning reconciliation before opening up, I have to leave here at about 7.20 in order to punch in at 8.30, but my actual bus journey is only 10 minutes

Hey Gosho

Call me a cynic (*You cynic, Frenchbean*), but I think the main point of Halloween in Scotland is to dress up , then accost people on their doorsteps, demanding sweeties with menaces. I'm afraid I thwart them with apples and nuts, which are the traditional Hallow'en fayre in these parts, but which seem to have been forgotten in the rush to Be American.

Dubya wouldn't spend that money on useful things, surely? More like a microscopic addition to his defence (offence?) budget.

Have you thought of cycling to work, if it's 4 miles away? Or are the roads too busy? Then you'd get in whenever you wanted and not have to rely on buses. Do they come on time in your town? We have 6 a day past my cottage - about 2 hours apart - and as I drove home yesterday, I actually saw 3 at once.


F/b

Speaking from personal experience, attempts to commercialise Halloween along American lines in this country tend to be a washout. I had to reduce to half price about three-quarters of the stock on our rather small Halloween display yesterday (and even now most of it's going back to the warehouse).

Here is a history of Hallowe'en, wherein they also talk about th origin of the "trick or treat" thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick-or-treat

Down on the Six Nations Reserve in Southern Ontario, the Longhouse believers have a practice which is like Trick or Treat. This occurs during the Midwinter Festival.

This is a description of the celebration in Northern New York, but it is much the same in Southern Ontario. My former mother-in-law used to talk about having people come to the door on New Years Day and even the homes which were not traditional (the C of E homes) had treats for the Longhouse children who would come to the door.

"The festival as it is presently observed among the New York Tuscaroras includes the following events: a visit to each house on the reserve by collectors to obtain food for a feast, a hunt which is a competition between the young men and the old men of the community, a visitation of as many houses as possible on New Year's morning by people who are making the rounds and calling out, "Nu Yah!" at each stop, the presentation of these visitors with a cookie or piece of pie or cake or a piece of fruit at each house visited, the feast in the afternoon, and a meeting of the Tuscarora Temperance Society in the evening."

"The Midwinter Festival, or "Most Excellent Faith," is the most sacred celebration of the Iroquois ritual calendar. It occurs at the end of January or the first part of February, depending on the appearance of the Pleiades and the first new moon after the winter solstice. It is a time of thanksgiving to the beneficent spirits for all the good things in creation and a focus for bringing mankind into closer unity with the good spirit forces in nature" http://tuscaroras.com/pages/history/new_years.html

Gosho, there must be a fair bit of Los Dias de los Muertos celebrating in your part of the universe. That is a real fascination for me. I am doing something with the kids at our Fellowship about it tomorrow and I did a service about it two years ago that went over very well (Unitarians, unlike some Christians don't equate it with devil-worship....).

My first encounter with the celebration was in, of all places, London (UK). There was an exhibition at the Museum of Mankind on tThe Days of the Dead. I rounded the corner into the exhibit and came face to face with this..... http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/cassidy/images/cassidy6-8-3.jpg

The sculpture is life-sized and brilliantly colored. Some people might be horrified by it, but I was really fascinated with the fact that it gets the ideas that out of death comes life, and that death is part of life.... I started reading up on it.

Unfortunately, most North Americans know nothing about the celebrations.

Here is a photo of my front door decorated (rather modestly, compared to some of my neighbours) for Hallowe'en. My pumpkin was a real hit with the kids. "Ewww, GROSSS!!!.... Cooooll!" http://public.fotki.com/Mudhooks/artistic_stuff/autumn_and_halloween/fall0168_r1a.html

I don't know if the photo is too dark to see the pumpkin properly. I really have to get a new monitor. Everything is so much darker on it than on any other monitor.

My friend who lives across the street and I had to call the policce several times because about 100 high-schoolers were gathered at the local high-school soccer field and the Quickie store parking lot, drinking, screaming, and throwing beer bottles. They spray-painted a neighbours' car. Someone got hauled off in an ambulance about mid-way through the evening, after my friend's first call and mine.

Every time the police showed up, the kids would scatter and the police would sit in their car and chat with the other kids. When I called the dispatcher said "I don't know if our sending a unit around is going to help the situation any...."

I thought "Geez.... could it hurt to get one to go and to actually haul his butt out of the car? It isn't like it was 3 teens skateboarding or something. Cripes, I hope I'm not disturbing someone on their Timmy's break....."

I have thought about cycling to work Frenchbean, and I did for a while, but the thing is that it's all downhill on the way in but uphill on the way back, and the temperature here during the summer can be over 100ºF around the time I knock off work. Even at this time of the year it's still pushing 90 at 4.30pm Also, the drivers in this town are ing murderers. They don't take prisoners. I think I feared for my life more times in the six months I cycled the four miles to and from work here, that in all the time I cycled to school, all the time I did a paper round, all the time I cycled to from work in London, and all the time I cycled around just for fun. That's cycling from the age of 10 until 35. Believe me, the streets of London are much safer than Texas for cyclists.

Speaking of apres-Halloween sweeties, Mrs Gosho and I are just waiting for all the Halloween candy to go on sale either today or tomorrow

picture btw Mudhooks

I think until about 8 years ago my only experience of the 'trick or treat' phenomenon was from Snoopy cartoons. Since then the only thing I see of it is the odd kid or two banging on the door (none this year btw). And a slightly higher prevalence of pumpkins on sale at the local supermarket - these pumpkins are the self same ones that are on sale for 80% off on 1st November.

The only event that sticks in my memory is one year three lumpen teenagers knocked on the door about 22nd October () asking for stuff. No costume, save for one pretty poor mask, and no idea what they were really doing. Naturally I just laughed at them and they trudged off.

I do recall trick or treat starting to get some interest in the UK before I came here, but just as in the US, it was mostly a marketing ploy. Besides, it's too close to Bonfire Night for most parents to want to have much to do with the effort and the expense of two such events in the space of a week.

Ugh, Bonfire Night! Never quite the same in my mind since the days when I was going out with a Catholic lass from Belfast. Her and her family tended to get a little bit touchy about celebrating anti-Catholic pogroms!

These are the photos from today's activities for Los Dias de los Muertos: http://public.fotki.com/Mudhooks/uufo/november_2_2003/

Halloween is kind of fun because I get to wear
a costume to work. This year, I wore a crown.
I told people I was the Little King.