It's not the greatest video, but, it's a great song, so you might want to check out The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black doing “I Believe in Halloween.”
Incidentally, I do believe in Halloween. I believe it exists. No, really, sincerely, about Halloween, I believe that Halloween is the only North American holiday that still means anything.
Halloween is incorruptible, somehow -- maybe because it's about corruption. Christmas, Halloween's seemingly respectable older brother, meant something once. Once it was about good tidings in the middle of our darkest hour -- whether tidings of the changing season or tidings of the arrival of the savior of all mankind, take your pick, it's still good tidings. But now? The gift-giving custom has become bloated beyond recognition, the "holiday season" time frame is stretched thinner than filo dough, and the very notion of Christmas, the very name of it, has become a club that some people use to beat other people over the head with. And, for pity's sake, the heartwarming! The heartwarming! See, if something tries to scare me and fails, I'm merely a little bored. If something tries to warm my heart and fails, sometimes it makes me lose all faith in humanity. (PS: if you want a truly heartwarming Christmas movie, watch Bad Santa. Seriously.)
So anyway, I think Halloween still means something. But what does it mean?
I'm not sure if Halloween is a holiday about death, which is therefore about fear, or a holiday about fear, which is therefore about death. And maybe it doesn't matter. Halloween is about fear. It's about facing your fears, giving them names and faces, dressing up in their raiment, and then partying with them all night long.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's about overcoming your fears. I'm not sure fears can be overcome. But I think you can learn to live with them. Maybe you can't always be the master of your fear, but you can work to not let your fear be the master of you.
Mind you, I'm not very good at this whole not being mastered by fear thing. Some people seem to assume that I love all things Halloween because I am immune to fear. Actually, no. Really, I'm sort of perpetually terrified by everything, from the rational (automobiles) to the ridiculous (spiders that I know for a fact are harmless) to the purely neurotic (a telephone ringing unexpectedly). I like watching horror movies not because I'm hard to scare, but because I'm bloody easy to scare. I'm arachnophobic, right, so I've watched Arachnophobia twice and consider it an underrated cinematic terror gem. I like it because it scares me, not because it doesn't.
Of course, Halloween is also about celebrating things that people fear, that they don't need to. So, you know, bats. To me, bats are about as scary as flying puppies. But they are a little mysterious, and have been seen as symbols of fear in the past, so I'll celebrate them on Halloween. And witches. Man, witches. Have you ever been to Salem, Massachusetts? A city that is largely famous for the fact that about three hundred years ago they turned into a mob and murdered, as witches, some people who were almost certainly no such thing. But -- ah, karma! -- the lasting influence of that history is a distinctly pro-witch atmosphere. Big Halloween party, Wicca conventions, that sort of thing. The witches won. Even though they were never there in the first place.
Why is The Rocky Horror Picture Show a Halloween staple? Because it celebrates things that some people fear. Alternative lifestyles, alternative sexuality. Carnival. Dressing up in masks. Trying on identities. Wondering who you are.
Halloween is about freaks and geeks, gods and monsters, pushing the envelope, asking the tough questions, living for the moment, looking to eternity, and really, really not taking any of it too seriously. Because (as Joss Whedon has taught us) there is no aspect of life so important that it won't have an element of the ridiculous.
Below, the first invite to our Halloween party -- It's been awhile since I did a Chick Tract parody.
Then, Paul pointed out that it wouldn't reproduce very well at postcard size. So I did another one.
The statue is a photo of the same Bayview Cemetery statue as “Cemetery Girl” And also the same statue on the cover of this book recently released by a fellow Bellinghamite, Blackmoore. All I can say is, there's something special about that particular statue. Something that seems mystical, but probably isn't.
On Halloween, at least, we will declare her the Benevolent Goddess of Bellingham and if you do your part to prevent cemetery vandalism she will smile upon you with favor.
Memento mori, amen.
