Tag Archives: halloween

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Hello Eyeball House

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The twisted celebration that Halloween has become boldly invites us to go overboard, and many people oblige.

That’s how we get the annual Zombie Pub Crawl in Minneapolis and that one macabre house in your neighborhood where the front lawn looks like a mortuary supply truck crashed into Dracula’s estate auction.

Hey, that would be a good theme for next year!

At our house, we’ve adopted the self-limiting tactic of declaring that the place shall not be adorned with any Halloween decoration that can’t go up the day of the actual event, and can’t come down the next day.  That has the wonderful effect of lightening the work load and reducing Hallow-stress.

As for the creepiness factor, I’m far too squeamish to decorate with skulls split by bloody hatchets and mutilated corpses.   My dear and clever wife, who shares my feelings about gore, hit upon the idea one year that eyeballs are sufficiently creepy without being  totally repulsive.

Thus was born the Eyeball House.

 

Eyeball House 1b

All in all, aside from some exotic and (usually) invisible internal organs, I would say eyeballs are the body part that best represents Halloween.  They generate a certain quality of undefined menace.  Yet they are completely approachable –  not totally horrible, like feet, or inexplicable, like ears.

As the proud lifelong owner of two completely natural eyeballs, I’m delighted to be able to collect new ones for our annual display.   And yes, I’m always on the look out.

And while there’s no element of political commentary in this bit of seasonal decoration, whenever I go out to the street to see the window eyeballs looking back at me, the surveillance society feels very real.

I know we’ll get a lot of Ninja Turtles and Disney Princesses this year, the kid who gets two candy bars from me will be dressed as Edward Snowden.

How do you decorate for Halloween? 

 

 

The Baboon Congress

Halloween Hijinks

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Today’s guest post comes from tim.

My 13-year-old daughter is very excited that Halloween is on Friday night this year.

She asked me about the origins of Halloween and I being a good recovering Catholic coming from a good Catholic household knew that Halloween is the celebration of the fighting from the spirits on the day before all souls day.

On all souls day heaven comes down and takes the good spirits directly to heaven with no stop in purgatory on the way but if you’re not  a good spirit you may end up going to hell instead.

My father was a person who was involved in activities at the Catholic church and was asked on numerous occasions to spend the night of all souls day in church guarding against the possibility that the spirits could be taken to evil places if they were not guarded properly.  This evolved into our wearing costumes and hiding from the demons.

When people from other parts of the world, and ask what is this Halloween holiday it’s a hard one to explain.

“Well we have the children dressed up as ghosts and goblins and they go knock on peoples doors and threatened that we will trick you if you don’t give us a treat and beg for candy expecting for the house to be prepared for our begging.  Some of the side benefits are that you can go to someone’s house you don’t like and toilet paper their tree sold their windows egg their cars and do awful things to people in the name of the holiday tradition.”

I remember my favorite costume was that of a pirate in fifth-grade complete with big blousey sleeves on my pirate shirt.

In later life I went to the barbershop and got hair clippings to glue on  along with a putty nose to complete my Wolfman attire.

At my house now if I get 10 kids it’s a big year – this is because of my long driveway.

My work associate took great delight in hiding in the bushes outside his house so that when children came to get candy from his wife at the door upon their turning around to leave the house he would spring out with raised hands and yell boo and make them cry and run away sometimes dropping the candy bags they were so scared.

I think any place that allows people to exhibit such behavior should be celebrated.  We are such a predictable anal society today that I think finding an excuse for people to get into costume and take on identities while dangerous is also good therapy.

It makes me think that I should start contemplating my costumes once again.  The only thing that’s kept me from doing it is the realization that it’s just going to be for those 10 kids to come down the driveway.

What would you be if you could?

Uncategorized

Bounce House

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Today’s post comes from Minnesota’s 9th District Congressman, representing all the water surface area in the state, the Honorable Loomis Beechly.

Beechly Uses The Smooth Lake Surface as a Teleprompter

Greetings Constituents, non-Constituents, All Pontoons in my District and all Ships At Sea,

I hope you all had a chance to watch the two political conventions over the past couple of weeks. I loved them both and after each one I wanted to vote for the party that had entertained me! That’s the way I am – I can’t help it. I think I share that tendency with most Americans.

We like the people we see on TV because they’re on TV and we’re not and we know that’s a Big Deal, even today when TV is not nearly as important as it used to be. A week’s worth of televised political speechifying that goes in one particular political direction does tend to have an effect on the viewing public, much in the same way a bunch of ads for Budweiser run over a short period of time will get people to buy more beer. It doesn’t much matter whether the product is any good – if it’s being talked up on TV people will respond. A large part of our economy has been built on this predictable effect.

So it is with the political candidates. Each one got a “bounce” in the opinion polls immediately following the convention.

Romney and the Republicans received a mild lift in terms of the electorate’s response in the few days following their shindig in Tampa, and Obama’s Democrats got an 8 point surge after the conclusion of festivities in Charlotte.

Like a small wake from a passing canoe, it appears Romney’s bounce passed quickly and faded to almost nothing by the time it reached shore. The Obama swell is bigger, and could be longer lasting. But will it take him all the way to election day? That remains to be seen.

But it makes me wonder – if having your gathering and its parade of loyal faces on TV assures even a small rise in the polls for each party, how long will it be before one of them decides to roll the dice and hold their convention, not two months ahead of election day, but during the week right before polls open?

Well why not?

We’re already messing with the voter laws, talking about putting an ID requirement in the Minnesota Constitution. The campaign season is too long – everybody knows that. And the big, big money comes out with a barrage of TV ads in the last few days before voting anyway! Why not move everything there?

In each case we already knew who the nominee would be – no surprise there if we wait. In fact there are no surprises at all at the political conventions anymore. There’s nothing to keep them from being held during the last week in October. And if they had done it like that this year, the Wednesday night speeches would have happened on Halloween!

Think of it.

The American people love Halloween. It is our own version of Mardi Gras, and we would embrace any political party that included a Halloween extravaganza as part of their convention. Wild costumes and elaborate make-up create great television images, and the spirit of the observance makes it logical for a candidate to literally demonize his opponent. Halloween night would be, for example, a great night to bring out Clint Eastwood talking to an invisible presence in an empty chair. Suddenly it all makes sense!

We the People have already shown that we have short memories. Why not truly take advantage of that and put on a show just before we have to decide? It works for American Idol and Dancing With The Stars. I believe this is where we are headed!

I wrote this all down as a blog post to share with you all so that you can remind me of it in four years. Otherwise, how will I remember?

Your Congressman,
Loomis Beechly

I think Rep. Beechly has a terrible idea here that is so bad, it will probably come true. By 2020, look for the conventions to start migrating into October as Halloween and Election Day slowly merge. Boo!

What are your ideas for improving the electoral process?