Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Quirky Ghouls

I don’t know about you, but run-of-the-mill skeletons and every day witches don’t do much for me. They have become so banal they've lost their mojo. Not scary.
As you prepare for Halloween, ask yourself- do I want to be just another blood-dripping-from-an-arrow-in-the-head walking dead? I don’t.

Time was when this holiday was an emotional exorcism, making the English speaking world shiver. Waking up from the nightmare the next day, November first All Saints Day, one felt their psyche cleansed of the ghouls. I'm not making fun, nor claiming scholarship. This is not about origins or deep meaning, but about what the celebration of ghastly ghosts has become.

Maybe that’s the point. Ghouls are no longer ghastly, and everyday life is filled with ultimately more terrifying things. Always was.

A few not-so-fun “fun-facts” to usher us through this week:

*Victorian guidebooks advised the women to put pins in their mouths to avoid being kissed in the dark when trains went through tunnels. SCARY.

** A pumping human heart can squirt blood a distance of thirty feet. Just imagine what mess a hole in the heart would make. Yuck.

***99% of all the species that have ever lived are now extinct. Memento Mori. That really does it for me.



Candy’s always good.

Happy Halloween!

4 comments:

Johnell said...

Those cupcakes are really cute! The pins in the mouth, kinds of creepy. Sounds like a good premise for a Victorian murder mystery.

Stephanie Faris said...

Oh wow...those are some creepy facts! Most of the costumes I see are far from scary. Nurses and fairies and whatever the latest craze is. I have a feeling we'll see some zombies this year, though, thanks to The Walking Dead being so popular.

Kelly Hashway said...

I saw a lot of great costumes at the Monster Mash at my daughter's school. I'm hoping to see the same on Halloween. I like unique costumes.

Vijaya said...

My kids only care about the candy ... they'd love your cupcakes! I wish they'd dress as some of the martyrs ... many had gruesome deaths and make a very scary picture.
St. Sebastian with arrows in his body; Paul of Tarsus carrying his head; St. Lucy blinded.