Wednesday, 16 October 2019
The observationist: halloween
The observationist: halloween: But we see, amid the mimic rout A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out The scenic solitude! It writhes!-it wr...
halloween
But we see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!-it writhes!-with mortal pangs
The mimes become it's food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued
Ligeia Edgar Allan Poe September 1838
Well if that doesn't put the willys up you i don't know what will. A poem about a fella whose wife dies a slow painful death remarries not long after and the same fate befalls his new wife only this time, while he sits with her body, she comes back to life in the guise of his first dead wife. Gothic romantic or just smacked off his tits on opium? Either way a perfect start to my blog on Halloween.
We love Halloween in our house and have a vast collection of spiders, costumes, cobwebs, fake blood, masks...you name it we've got it. My dad even made some headstones for the garden which we still have and use.
Each year as my kids get older i have to up my game to terrify them in the true Halloween spirit (pun intended). Last year i hosted a zombie apocalypse Halloween party for around 20 difficult to please teenagers. We lived in the middle of no where and our house was only accessible by a long, straight dead end dirt track. A perfect plan hatched. This time if at least one kid didn't have an asthma attack or actually shit themselves i was hanging up my scythe for good. I put police tape all over the house and across the drive way with a large 'zombie outbreak' sign hanging ominously from the big oak tree at the drive entrance. I made a coffin, filled it with bones and placed a lamp inside just under the skew lid. I then set to work on Halloween themed party games. We had blow the balloon up until it pops (top tip use extra large balloons but don't tell the kids) It takes ages but the determination to win in front of their peers takes over. The cringe factor of the balloon popping in your face while everyone eggs you on is brilliant fun. We played zombie tig. One 'zombie' is it and everyone they tig/tag becomes a 'zombie'. Eventually you end up with 19 'zombies' chasing one human. The best game by far is 'what's in the box'. All you need for this is a largeish box with a hole at either end, various bowls of seemingly horrific items (such as spaghetti-worms, grapes-eyeballs, jelly-gore) and a blindfold. Blindfold the kid and get them to put their hand into the box to guess the item. A bit of bluff works a treat here if you can get any one else in the vicinity to shout things like 'oh my god! that's disgusting! I can't believe you've put that in the box or just make disgusted noises. You can also move the box about a bit to suggest there's a live creature in there. Simple but effective, especially if you put a real lamb's heart in the box like i did last year. One of my daughter's friends actually took it out of the box and gave it a sniff. When the other kids started screaming she took her blindfold off, squealed and lobbed it across the kitchen where my dog promptly ran off with it and ate it. The horror etched on those kids faces will stay with me forever. The girl who threw it has been receiving counselling ever since and will probably go on to be a serial killer. I lied about the last bit.
Turning the house into a zombie zone and the party games would pale into insignificance compared to my piece de resistance. They were merely an amuse bouche for what preceded. An actual zombie invasion. As previously mentioned we lived in the middle of no where with a dead end dirt track. The track was the only way in and the only way out. Now i may have permanently damaged their teenage minds or given them nightmares forever but the fact that they willingly attended one of my Halloween parties is my disclaimer. Myself and some other 'grown ups' dressed as full on zombies-makeup, rotten limbs, ripped clothing etc. We then positioned ourselves on both sides of the track in the dead of the night and waited for the car headlights delivering our victims to approach. Once they were close enough we went full zombie scratching at the car windows with our bloodied stumps and surrounding each car. Some of the 'cool as fuck' teens tried to style it out by getting out of their mum's cars and casually walking up the drive (one with a zombie hanging off her leg) right up until the point we gave chase. I had no idea a 15 year old boy could scream that high! the other teens clung onto their parents and refused to leave the safety of the car until we backed off . Which we did...until they got half way up the drive....then it was every human for themselves. One of the girls' dads' actually pushed his daughter out of the car and sped off shouting 'good luck' as he went. Too much 'Walking Dead' i reckon.
When the killer clown phase was all the rage a few years ago that became my costume of choice, naturally. My kids were old enough to go off trick or treating on their own so i was left to man the fort and sweet distribution. What happened next is clearly my kids fault for leaving me home alone on Halloween for a few hours. At that time we lived in a cul-de-sac and had a large front garden with a path from the gate to the front door. I placed the artificial head stones either side of the path, liberally adorned the trees, windows and front door with cobwebs and spiders. I put lit pumpkins on the front door step and played a spooky sounds CD. I then put on my killer clown costume complete with plastic chainsaw. I sat in a dark corner of the garden, unseen, a few feet from the front door and awaited my first victims. When the local mandem descended on my house ( i say mandem but they were probably 10/11 years old with a dad as a chaperone) i waited stock still in my dark corner until they got to around a foot from my front door. It was at this moment i jumped out and revealed my killer clown alter ego. The screams that came from those boys will haunt my neighbours for a long time to come. They all ran off and i swear one of them actually cleared the hedge. The dad who was chaperoning the yoofs found it hilarious and said 'thanks mate. That's the best scare they've had all night'. They did not come back for sweets.
Those who know me will testify that i love to dress up for Halloween and my costumes always have a lot of thought gone into them. I've been to parties dressed a dead knife throwers assistant, a shark attack victim, a corpse complete with coffin, a zombie Freddie Mercury, a nun, bad santa and the grim reaper and dead Amy Winehouse to name but a few. The grim reaper costume was interesting as the party was in the day time (weird) and i had to do a full grocery shop on the way. Walking around Asda dressed as death complete with scythe did not phase me in the slightest but my teenage daughters who were with me at the time were mortified. I wouldn't have minded but one of them was dressed as Wednesday addams and the other as what looked like a hernia.
Some folk don't like Halloween but those people are weird. Avoid.
Halloween is one of the world's oldest festivals and is celebrated globally by people of different faiths. Mexico celebrate with Dia de los muertos (day of the dead) which starts on October 31st and finishes on November 2nd. Halloween originated in Ireland from the celtic festival Samhain and is a massive deal over there. Halloween is older than christmas. It's a time to remember the dead including martyrs, saints and all faithfully departed christians (not sure about the unfaithful ones-they're probably in hell or something having a horrifying time with the devil ironically) It's also a time to scare the crap out of our kids and elderly neighbours.
This year will be no different for us. We will dress up, enjoy the scariest night of the year, eat too many sweets (weirdly encouraging our kids to take sweets from strangers is ok at Halloween) and pay our respects to our dead.
On that note i'll leave you with my favourite petrifyingly pant shitting poet.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while i pondered,
Weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of
forgotten lore-
While i nodded, nearly napping,
Suddenly there came a tapping
As of someone gently rapping,
Rapping at my chamber door.
'tis some visitor' i muttered 'tapping at my chamber door'
only this and nothing more.....
The Raven Edgar Allan Poe January 1845
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!-it writhes!-with mortal pangs
The mimes become it's food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued
Ligeia Edgar Allan Poe September 1838
Well if that doesn't put the willys up you i don't know what will. A poem about a fella whose wife dies a slow painful death remarries not long after and the same fate befalls his new wife only this time, while he sits with her body, she comes back to life in the guise of his first dead wife. Gothic romantic or just smacked off his tits on opium? Either way a perfect start to my blog on Halloween.
We love Halloween in our house and have a vast collection of spiders, costumes, cobwebs, fake blood, masks...you name it we've got it. My dad even made some headstones for the garden which we still have and use.
Each year as my kids get older i have to up my game to terrify them in the true Halloween spirit (pun intended). Last year i hosted a zombie apocalypse Halloween party for around 20 difficult to please teenagers. We lived in the middle of no where and our house was only accessible by a long, straight dead end dirt track. A perfect plan hatched. This time if at least one kid didn't have an asthma attack or actually shit themselves i was hanging up my scythe for good. I put police tape all over the house and across the drive way with a large 'zombie outbreak' sign hanging ominously from the big oak tree at the drive entrance. I made a coffin, filled it with bones and placed a lamp inside just under the skew lid. I then set to work on Halloween themed party games. We had blow the balloon up until it pops (top tip use extra large balloons but don't tell the kids) It takes ages but the determination to win in front of their peers takes over. The cringe factor of the balloon popping in your face while everyone eggs you on is brilliant fun. We played zombie tig. One 'zombie' is it and everyone they tig/tag becomes a 'zombie'. Eventually you end up with 19 'zombies' chasing one human. The best game by far is 'what's in the box'. All you need for this is a largeish box with a hole at either end, various bowls of seemingly horrific items (such as spaghetti-worms, grapes-eyeballs, jelly-gore) and a blindfold. Blindfold the kid and get them to put their hand into the box to guess the item. A bit of bluff works a treat here if you can get any one else in the vicinity to shout things like 'oh my god! that's disgusting! I can't believe you've put that in the box or just make disgusted noises. You can also move the box about a bit to suggest there's a live creature in there. Simple but effective, especially if you put a real lamb's heart in the box like i did last year. One of my daughter's friends actually took it out of the box and gave it a sniff. When the other kids started screaming she took her blindfold off, squealed and lobbed it across the kitchen where my dog promptly ran off with it and ate it. The horror etched on those kids faces will stay with me forever. The girl who threw it has been receiving counselling ever since and will probably go on to be a serial killer. I lied about the last bit.
Turning the house into a zombie zone and the party games would pale into insignificance compared to my piece de resistance. They were merely an amuse bouche for what preceded. An actual zombie invasion. As previously mentioned we lived in the middle of no where with a dead end dirt track. The track was the only way in and the only way out. Now i may have permanently damaged their teenage minds or given them nightmares forever but the fact that they willingly attended one of my Halloween parties is my disclaimer. Myself and some other 'grown ups' dressed as full on zombies-makeup, rotten limbs, ripped clothing etc. We then positioned ourselves on both sides of the track in the dead of the night and waited for the car headlights delivering our victims to approach. Once they were close enough we went full zombie scratching at the car windows with our bloodied stumps and surrounding each car. Some of the 'cool as fuck' teens tried to style it out by getting out of their mum's cars and casually walking up the drive (one with a zombie hanging off her leg) right up until the point we gave chase. I had no idea a 15 year old boy could scream that high! the other teens clung onto their parents and refused to leave the safety of the car until we backed off . Which we did...until they got half way up the drive....then it was every human for themselves. One of the girls' dads' actually pushed his daughter out of the car and sped off shouting 'good luck' as he went. Too much 'Walking Dead' i reckon.
When the killer clown phase was all the rage a few years ago that became my costume of choice, naturally. My kids were old enough to go off trick or treating on their own so i was left to man the fort and sweet distribution. What happened next is clearly my kids fault for leaving me home alone on Halloween for a few hours. At that time we lived in a cul-de-sac and had a large front garden with a path from the gate to the front door. I placed the artificial head stones either side of the path, liberally adorned the trees, windows and front door with cobwebs and spiders. I put lit pumpkins on the front door step and played a spooky sounds CD. I then put on my killer clown costume complete with plastic chainsaw. I sat in a dark corner of the garden, unseen, a few feet from the front door and awaited my first victims. When the local mandem descended on my house ( i say mandem but they were probably 10/11 years old with a dad as a chaperone) i waited stock still in my dark corner until they got to around a foot from my front door. It was at this moment i jumped out and revealed my killer clown alter ego. The screams that came from those boys will haunt my neighbours for a long time to come. They all ran off and i swear one of them actually cleared the hedge. The dad who was chaperoning the yoofs found it hilarious and said 'thanks mate. That's the best scare they've had all night'. They did not come back for sweets.
Those who know me will testify that i love to dress up for Halloween and my costumes always have a lot of thought gone into them. I've been to parties dressed a dead knife throwers assistant, a shark attack victim, a corpse complete with coffin, a zombie Freddie Mercury, a nun, bad santa and the grim reaper and dead Amy Winehouse to name but a few. The grim reaper costume was interesting as the party was in the day time (weird) and i had to do a full grocery shop on the way. Walking around Asda dressed as death complete with scythe did not phase me in the slightest but my teenage daughters who were with me at the time were mortified. I wouldn't have minded but one of them was dressed as Wednesday addams and the other as what looked like a hernia.
Some folk don't like Halloween but those people are weird. Avoid.
Halloween is one of the world's oldest festivals and is celebrated globally by people of different faiths. Mexico celebrate with Dia de los muertos (day of the dead) which starts on October 31st and finishes on November 2nd. Halloween originated in Ireland from the celtic festival Samhain and is a massive deal over there. Halloween is older than christmas. It's a time to remember the dead including martyrs, saints and all faithfully departed christians (not sure about the unfaithful ones-they're probably in hell or something having a horrifying time with the devil ironically) It's also a time to scare the crap out of our kids and elderly neighbours.
This year will be no different for us. We will dress up, enjoy the scariest night of the year, eat too many sweets (weirdly encouraging our kids to take sweets from strangers is ok at Halloween) and pay our respects to our dead.
On that note i'll leave you with my favourite petrifyingly pant shitting poet.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while i pondered,
Weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of
forgotten lore-
While i nodded, nearly napping,
Suddenly there came a tapping
As of someone gently rapping,
Rapping at my chamber door.
'tis some visitor' i muttered 'tapping at my chamber door'
only this and nothing more.....
The Raven Edgar Allan Poe January 1845
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
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