So fall has come. It’s chilly outside, the weather where I live has become habitable, and we have already made the first batch of chili and started talk of an experiment in beef and barley soup. And it’s October. Halloween is in the distance waving hello.
I love Halloween. For me, it is the advent of a social season among my friends and me, which leads to lots of days off from work, social gathering and feasting, and hearty peasant food that often gets relegated to the winter because most of it is served hot. Halloween leads to Thanksgiving, which leads to Christmas, which leads to New Year’s.
And unfortunately, Halloween gets a bad rap. Despite the fact that we have come to celebrate Halloween much more elaborately than we used to, Halloween still has to deal with its bad reputation of pagan beginnings, mysterious things, and spooks and monsters. Halloween, its decriers say, is an evil holiday.
So here are my thoughts on Halloween:
My Halloween is not very pagan. I am aware of all the various forms of occult hinkiness in Halloween’s past, but my Halloween is not about pentagrams, sacrifices, rituals, big stone circles, guys in white robes who look like Gandalf, or goats. In fact, I do not invite goats to Halloween parties simply because of their tendency to eat all the food at the table and then start on the tablecloth. Any goats who wish to come will have to stay on the lawn.
My Halloween is not about serial killers, hyperactive zombies, inhuman mental or physical torture, or excessive gore of the sort that is often created with a lot of latex rubber and red syrup. It is also much more inclusive and optimistic in its outlook than these genres tend to be.
My Halloween is not particularly Wiccan. I suppose all that getting back to nature and being one with the universe is a fine thing for those who want it, but I maintain that the main thrust of human civilization is not to return to nature but to get as far away from it as possible. Plus, if you scratch a certain type of Wiccan hard enough, you will eventually find an Earth-Motherly sort who wears Birkenstocks a lot and is trying to cut a deal with Pottery Barn to market her own line of handmade ceramics.
My Halloween has a soft heart and a kindly attitude for monsters: Frankenstein monsters, vampires, werewolves, mummies, ghosts, witches, giant apes, Godzilla, Jekyll and Hyde, Blackie Lagoon, the Phantom of the Opera, all those guys. Any of these who stalk up to the door expecting to scare someone are usually surprised and somewhat pleased to have drinks shoved in their hands (or claws, paws, appendages, etc.) and taken around to be introduced to the other guests. My Halloween is a bit like the Addams Family’s theory of entertaining: Everyone is always welcome, and if you can stand the weirdness, you will most likely get asked back.
My Halloween is truly and madly and deeply and hopelessly and unrepentantly in love with Universal Monsters, Hammer Films, and Full Moon Pictures.
My Halloween is not truly Halloween unless there is chocolate involved at some point.
My Halloween thinks it’s an outrage that the Great Pumpkin never made it to Linus’ pumpkin patch, or that Charlie Brown spent the whole night trick-or-treating and got nothing, NOTHING, but a bagful of rocks. What kind of Halloween Scrooge gives a kid, any kid, a rock in his trick-or-treat bag?
My Halloween would never, ever, ever put a razor blade in an apple and give it to a kid.
My Halloween will dress in a funky sexy costume, but is not given to rampant and overt sluttiness. It used to be that we dressed up like things we were afraid of. If the new crop of Halloween costumes is any indication, we as a people are frightened of sex, prison, zombies, organized crime and the type of sight gag that usually shows up in any movie with “Movie” in the title. In that order.
My Halloween believes in wonder and magic and kindhearted anarchy. Anyone who has ever taken a moment to stand back and look at the world around them, who has spent some time looking at pictures in a museum, or who has watched animals and people interact with each other knows that there are worlds beyond this world, times beyond this time, and that the dance is never really over. We celebrate Halloween to remind ourselves of things like this: not because we want to see ghosts and monsters and magic, but because we want to imagine, for just a little while, what these things might be like. The darkness of Halloween is momentary, and sometimes even a comfort when compared to the real horrors present in the world. But love and the soul and the spirit abide. They are what is left when the dust is swept away.
• John Rose is an art teacher at Greenwood Middle School and the writer/creator of the series “The MonsterGrrls.”
