| Author | Message | ||
     Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.236.176.133 |
Sorry, Probert, but there are some of us who simply can't stand Halloween. Read my annual rant against the holiday (mentioning the Landlord, plus stuff on a short-story collection about bridge climbing; and an essay on reading a Japanese detective novel in translation at: http://www.redroom.com/member-blog/Thomas%20Burchfield/ Someone has to open that forbidden door . . . . Cheers | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.178.82.216 |
I have to be honest; I'm no fan, and have watched dismally as, over the past fifteen years or more, media and stores alike have pushed people towards 'celebrating' Halloween here in the UK. I love horror fiction and horror films, but Halloween, and especially bloody Trick or Treat, really does nothing for me. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Ah, it's what you make of it, not what others push down your throat.  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.194.128 |
Ye miserable bastards! Now, Christmas . . . well, that's quite a different kettle of kippers . . . | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.197.117 |
To be fair, it's only 'trick or treat' that's a problem. And even then only in the leafy suburbs. Where I live it never happens, as the only people who would open the door for some kids are not people even those kids would want to encounter. If you haven't read Alan Ryan's classic 1980s anthology Halloween Horrors, look out for a second-hand copy. Streiber's 'The Nixon Mask' is breathtaking. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21 |
Sounds like an interesting hood, Joel. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 79.79.184.34 |
Teenage kids knocking on your door gone nine in the evening with "Trick or Treat" mumbled in monotone and accompanied with a "begging" gesture is bad enough but when I have to reply "it's only October the 29th, lads", well, that just takes the piss. I wonder who here gives to Trick or Treaters. | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.236.174.135 |
I live on the edge of an extremely tough neighborhood in West Oakland, Ca, USA, in a compound of houses, of which mine is far far in the back. So, at least, I'm NOT bothered by T or Ts and haven't been in many years. I get the impression trick or treating is more a suburban tradition than a city one. Still, I fantasize about having the *real* Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein Monster et al, available when the little nippers come knocking. That'll teach 'em! | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
In Yorkshire, we also have a thing called Mischief Night (does it extend into Lancashire too?) which happens the night before Bonfire Night (for non-UK RCMBers, Bonfire Night is 5th November, when we celebrate Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament a long, long time ago). Anyway, Mischief Night is just an excuse for yobs to go wild and terrorise the neighbourhood. We're quite lucky where we are now, we don't get much trouble (just a few eggs thrown at the windows and fence panels kicked in), but I always hate this time of year because of the problems it brings.  | ||
| Giancarlo (Giancarlo) Username: Giancarlo Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 85.116.228.5 |
Halloween is a washed down tradition harking back to ancient times when people arrayed themselves as ghosts to stave off being recognized as living beings by real ghosts who were supposed to walk the night. Children were kept tight at home. As an aside, Christmas is a symbolic date originally relating to the birth of the Persian god Mithra who later became the hypogeal protector of Roman gladiators. He was sacrificed as the Bull whose spilt blood was collected in the "fossa sanguinis" to be partaken between the rite officiants to incorporate his martial spirit. Is it a crude precursor to the Roman Catholic Eucharist, or is the religious Mystery of Blood the center of the nowadays festivity?  | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21 |
Is it a crude precursor to the Roman Catholic Eucharist It very probably is. See Frazer's The Golden Bough. |