September 22 marked the Autumn Equinox, or as the Pagans and Wiccans call it, Mabon.For those not in the know, this is when there is exactly as much daylight as darkness, and every day past, one more minute of night consumes the sun, until of course, December 21, the last day of autumn and the beginning of winter, where like some witches’ spell that has been reversed, we gain one more minute of sunlight each day on into spring.
Historically, this has been a remarkable time, a time of harvest, a time of remembrance of those who have passed on before us, such as Dia de los Muertos, the ultimate Halloween.
For me, there is a physical, psychological, and emotional change that occurs when autumn arrives...
I grow more confident, more passionate, there’s nothing that doesn’t capture some degree of fascination. There’s a kind of fractured poetry in those chilled nights and smoky autumn days. I scamper, spring heeled, through the graveyards of my heart, kicking in skeleton toothed-picked fences and flying among ink-winged crows, lighting pumpkin fires on dark porches, and howling under the harvest moon, just like I was 12-years-old again.
Here are just a few things that warrant celebration in this fiery renewal season…
My daughter
On July 18, 2003, at 12:47am, my daughter, with much difficulty, finally made her way into the world, and with my two steady hands, I was able to help bring her there.
Like her mother, there was a hint of auburn hair, and in the wee morning hours, while mother and newborn slept, the name Autumn snapped to mind.
Partially based on the hint of the baby’s red hair, which actually transformed into milky blonde, the fact that our child was conceived on one autumn night the previous year in a Vermont bed & breakfast, and the name of my protagonist from a novel that I have been writing, retooling, and writing again for the better part of eight years.
And now, I have Autumn all year ‘round.
Halloween
Let’s face it—Halloween is the greatest day of the year, in the greatest month of the year, in the greatest season of the year.
Enough said.
Ray Bradbury books
OK, so there are two books that I love and cherish, both are a kind of celebration and emanation of autumn and All Hallow’s Eve.
The Halloween Tree and Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. These are two books that I have read and re-read time and time again on steel-cold October nights. Bradbury, like no author who I have ever read, is somehow able to gather up all the witch’s dust, pumpkin vines, and candy corn and stuff his pages full. Both of these books, strangely enough, began as screenplays. Something Wicked This Way Comes was originally a screenplay, Dark Carnival, which was to be produced by actor Gene Kelly. Fortunately, the film project fell through and we were presented instead with this fine, timeless novel.
The Halloween Tree originated as a teleplay for Chuck Jones after the success of such holiday specials as How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Again, the project fell through and we received another delicious book from Mr. Bradbury. Of the films that do exist from these works, none can ever quite capture that aforementioned witch’s dust, pumpkin vines, and candy corn.
Director Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch) once wanted to film one of the author’s books.
“Sam,” Bradbury asked the director, “how do you do it?”
And Peckinpah responded, “Rip the pages out of your book and stuff ‘em into the camera.”
Luckily, reading Bradbury, we can already do that, leagues ahead of digital technology, with our own magnificent “cameras,” our eyes.
Walking in leaves
Let’s not forget the proverbial autumn walks, blue
shadows lying like death shrouds on yellow paths of crispy leaves.
A time for me, of falling in love, of a marriage proposal in a midnight Seattle park, and of renewed acquaintances of old friends, and “anything/nothing” conversations lasting all night and into the dawn.
Movies and TV specials
So the quintessential show to watch every autumn season is It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Accept no substitutes. The second Peanuts special to be produced after A Charlie Brown Christmas, the Great Pumpkin debuted in the year of my birth, 1966, and though 42 years old, still remains as timely and entertaining as ever.
Other notables include—Mad Monster Party, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, The Fat Albert Halloween Special, John Carpenter’s Halloween, Sleepy Hollow, Mario Bava’s The Mask of Satan (AKA Black Sunday), E.A. Poe/Roger Corman/Vincent Price’s House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum, and any classic Universal Monster and Hammer Horror film that you can put your hands on.
Monster cereals
In many parts of the United States, General Mills’ monster cereals, Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry, are on the shelves year ‘round. But for most retail stores in the Pacific Northwest, we only see those delicious, colorful boxes after the Equinox.
They’re as tasty in autumn as any other time of year, but I digress.
Today, I saw the ghoulish cereal trio looming on the store shelves. It took all the will power that I could muster not to buy a $1.99 box of Count Chocula, take it home, overdose on bowl after bowl until the bright brown box was empty, and then cast myself onto the bed in a self-satisfied, chocolate marshmallow coma…
For more about cereal love, check out my July FoG column: What Happened in the 1970s, Stayed in the 1970s: A Cereal Killer’s Lament
Halloween display at Target
One tradition that my family and I share is our annual pilgrimage to Target after they put up all their Halloween displays.
It’s not so much as going and buying tons and tons of plastic seasonal stuff, I already have enough to fill three black and orange storage bins in my basement.
No, it’s just drinking in the season through the eyeballs—the skeleton hand candy dishes, the faux tombstones, the cackling electronic witch stirring the dry ice, bubbling cauldron, and one of my all-time favorites, rows upon rows of pumpkin spice candles that storm your nostrils with coppery, cinnamon scents.
This, of course, goes for every retail store that celebrates Halloween, from the seasonal costume shops that pop up like Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show from the Bradbury book, only to be gone without a trace on November 1, to the mom and pop hardware stores, the few that are left, that is.
Bless your orange and black retail hearts!
Soundtracks
Being a film score aficionado and lover of “mood music,” my favorite season cannot escape its musical grasp.
There are a handful of soundtracks that really put me into the spirit, if you don’t have them, I suggest you find them, they’re all gems—The Nightmare Before Christmas and Night Breed by Danny Elfman, Candyman and The Hours by Philip Glass, The Village by James Newton Howard, Psycho and The Trouble with Harry by Bernard Herrmann, and Something Wicked This Way Comes by James Horner, just to name a few.
Also, though it’s not a soundtrack, and a bit cheesy and dated, I love the Halloween Hootenanny album that Rob Zombie put together back in 1998.
The Buffalo Bop compilations, Monster Bop and Horror Hop, also round out the season with a collection of rockabilly retro tunes.
Craven Farm
Last, but by no means least, is the annual journey to the pumpkin patch. But who can go to just any pumpkin patch? There’s this wonderful little place out in the countryside of Snohomish, Washington called Craven Farm. Every October, my family and friends load up in cars and we head out there like soldiers on a covert operation to seize every pumpkin and corn stalk that our little red wheelbarrows, provided by the farm, can carry.
The air is filled with good eats, too—spiced cider, pumpkin spice lattes, and the ethereal aroma of sweet and salty kettle corn. A season that you can taste.
And so, if there are any more of you worshippers of the darkening days, you legions of Autumn People out there, I salute you. I light my pumpkin spice candle, raise my mug of spiced cider, carve the eyes and mouth of my Jack O’ Lantern, and will take a long, red- orange-yellow leafy walk in your honor.
For we are the Denizens of the Dark, my friends…
For me, there is a physical, psychological, and emotional change that occurs when autumn arrives...
I grow more confident, more passionate, there’s nothing that doesn’t capture some degree of fascination. There’s a kind of fractured poetry in those chilled nights and smoky autumn days. I scamper, spring heeled, through the graveyards of my heart, kicking in skeleton toothed-picked fences and flying among ink-winged crows, lighting pumpkin fires on dark porches, and howling under the harvest moon, just like I was 12-years-old again.
Here are just a few things that warrant celebration in this fiery renewal season…
My daughter
On July 18, 2003, at 12:47am, my daughter, with much difficulty, finally made her way into the world, and with my two steady hands, I was able to help bring her there.Like her mother, there was a hint of auburn hair, and in the wee morning hours, while mother and newborn slept, the name Autumn snapped to mind.
Partially based on the hint of the baby’s red hair, which actually transformed into milky blonde, the fact that our child was conceived on one autumn night the previous year in a Vermont bed & breakfast, and the name of my protagonist from a novel that I have been writing, retooling, and writing again for the better part of eight years.
And now, I have Autumn all year ‘round.
Halloween
Let’s face it—Halloween is the greatest day of the year, in the greatest month of the year, in the greatest season of the year.Enough said.
Ray Bradbury books
OK, so there are two books that I love and cherish, both are a kind of celebration and emanation of autumn and All Hallow’s Eve.The Halloween Tree and Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. These are two books that I have read and re-read time and time again on steel-cold October nights. Bradbury, like no author who I have ever read, is somehow able to gather up all the witch’s dust, pumpkin vines, and candy corn and stuff his pages full. Both of these books, strangely enough, began as screenplays. Something Wicked This Way Comes was originally a screenplay, Dark Carnival, which was to be produced by actor Gene Kelly. Fortunately, the film project fell through and we were presented instead with this fine, timeless novel.
The Halloween Tree originated as a teleplay for Chuck Jones after the success of such holiday specials as How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Again, the project fell through and we received another delicious book from Mr. Bradbury. Of the films that do exist from these works, none can ever quite capture that aforementioned witch’s dust, pumpkin vines, and candy corn.Director Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch) once wanted to film one of the author’s books.
“Sam,” Bradbury asked the director, “how do you do it?”
And Peckinpah responded, “Rip the pages out of your book and stuff ‘em into the camera.”
Luckily, reading Bradbury, we can already do that, leagues ahead of digital technology, with our own magnificent “cameras,” our eyes.
Walking in leaves
Let’s not forget the proverbial autumn walks, blue
shadows lying like death shrouds on yellow paths of crispy leaves.A time for me, of falling in love, of a marriage proposal in a midnight Seattle park, and of renewed acquaintances of old friends, and “anything/nothing” conversations lasting all night and into the dawn.
Movies and TV specials
So the quintessential show to watch every autumn season is It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Accept no substitutes. The second Peanuts special to be produced after A Charlie Brown Christmas, the Great Pumpkin debuted in the year of my birth, 1966, and though 42 years old, still remains as timely and entertaining as ever.
Other notables include—Mad Monster Party, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, The Fat Albert Halloween Special, John Carpenter’s Halloween, Sleepy Hollow, Mario Bava’s The Mask of Satan (AKA Black Sunday), E.A. Poe/Roger Corman/Vincent Price’s House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum, and any classic Universal Monster and Hammer Horror film that you can put your hands on.
Monster cereals
In many parts of the United States, General Mills’ monster cereals, Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry, are on the shelves year ‘round. But for most retail stores in the Pacific Northwest, we only see those delicious, colorful boxes after the Equinox.They’re as tasty in autumn as any other time of year, but I digress.
Today, I saw the ghoulish cereal trio looming on the store shelves. It took all the will power that I could muster not to buy a $1.99 box of Count Chocula, take it home, overdose on bowl after bowl until the bright brown box was empty, and then cast myself onto the bed in a self-satisfied, chocolate marshmallow coma…
For more about cereal love, check out my July FoG column: What Happened in the 1970s, Stayed in the 1970s: A Cereal Killer’s Lament
Halloween display at Target
One tradition that my family and I share is our annual pilgrimage to Target after they put up all their Halloween displays.It’s not so much as going and buying tons and tons of plastic seasonal stuff, I already have enough to fill three black and orange storage bins in my basement.
No, it’s just drinking in the season through the eyeballs—the skeleton hand candy dishes, the faux tombstones, the cackling electronic witch stirring the dry ice, bubbling cauldron, and one of my all-time favorites, rows upon rows of pumpkin spice candles that storm your nostrils with coppery, cinnamon scents.
This, of course, goes for every retail store that celebrates Halloween, from the seasonal costume shops that pop up like Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show from the Bradbury book, only to be gone without a trace on November 1, to the mom and pop hardware stores, the few that are left, that is.
Bless your orange and black retail hearts!
Soundtracks
Being a film score aficionado and lover of “mood music,” my favorite season cannot escape its musical grasp.There are a handful of soundtracks that really put me into the spirit, if you don’t have them, I suggest you find them, they’re all gems—The Nightmare Before Christmas and Night Breed by Danny Elfman, Candyman and The Hours by Philip Glass, The Village by James Newton Howard, Psycho and The Trouble with Harry by Bernard Herrmann, and Something Wicked This Way Comes by James Horner, just to name a few.
Also, though it’s not a soundtrack, and a bit cheesy and dated, I love the Halloween Hootenanny album that Rob Zombie put together back in 1998.
The Buffalo Bop compilations, Monster Bop and Horror Hop, also round out the season with a collection of rockabilly retro tunes.
Craven Farm
Last, but by no means least, is the annual journey to the pumpkin patch. But who can go to just any pumpkin patch? There’s this wonderful little place out in the countryside of Snohomish, Washington called Craven Farm. Every October, my family and friends load up in cars and we head out there like soldiers on a covert operation to seize every pumpkin and corn stalk that our little red wheelbarrows, provided by the farm, can carry.The air is filled with good eats, too—spiced cider, pumpkin spice lattes, and the ethereal aroma of sweet and salty kettle corn. A season that you can taste.
And so, if there are any more of you worshippers of the darkening days, you legions of Autumn People out there, I salute you. I light my pumpkin spice candle, raise my mug of spiced cider, carve the eyes and mouth of my Jack O’ Lantern, and will take a long, red- orange-yellow leafy walk in your honor.
For we are the Denizens of the Dark, my friends…
1 comments:
What a vivid recollection of Autumn and Halloween....love both times of year equally. I once wanted to get married in Autumn but somehow that never happened...
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