http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2006 by the authors Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:59:43 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/17/050500.php#comment-467246 To me, Autumn/Fall has always been the beginning of the year, not January: the new year begins when school begins. Somehow I've never shaken that off. The fall colors of the leaves are a celebration, a sort of vegetable fireworks before the snow & quiet enforced inward-turning meditation of winter sets in. What is more joyous & explosive than the tree across the street, practically incandescent with yellows flaming to scarlets? Looks like someone stuck a big light bulb in the center of it, the colors are so intense. I've tried a million times to paint it, but can never get that wonderful lit-up look to my paper that the tree produces with its leaves. Halloween is hearing the shouts & squeals of the kids as they run from house to house in the neighborhood. It's getting ready behind the door for the knock; slooooooowly easing it open - ANDTHENLEAPINGOUTWITHASCREAM-! God, we all love that. The kids all hang around outside for the next batch of unsuspecting suckers to come along & get jumped in turn. I love how they love being scared. My dad used to rig up the front door so that it would pull open from far down the hall, invisibly. Then he'd come lumbering, slowly, down the hall, dressed in black pants, a hood, wristlets, and bearing a huge fake axe & a basket with a "bloody" fake head in it, and breathing menacingly like Darth Vader - only long before DV as a thought in anyone's mind. The kids would have to reach into that basket, rooting under cold, slimey spaghetti to get the goodies underneath (but dad did make it worth your while to go thru that); even the big kids would shudder - but they all loved it. Frank & his theatrics: all the parents would hang around at the end of the skull-lit walk to watch the kids & see what he'd concocted for their delight this year. Dad knew how to celebrate Halloween. 467246@blogcritics.org Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:59:43 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/17/050500.php#comment-256178 you and victor lana have sure made my fall day with your musings... i've lived through autumns on the plains, in the desert, in the south, and now in southern germany...the feeling is the same, always a need to acknowledge and mark the close of the season if not the year...fortunately, every place has their associations, their rituals, and their ways...i get to partake without having to come up with too much on my own... good of you to share... 256178@blogcritics.org Mon, 17 Oct 2005 06:15:02 EDT