Doing anything? I'm off to a colleague's party, if I can concoct a decent costume. It's a terrible yankee concoction, but my chums are all literate chaps and chapesses, so we'll be celebrating
Samhain, the original Irish festival from which the new thing springs. Light a candle for the departed and put it in your western window, and construct a Brazen Head (though Cowper Powys's
book of the same name isn't really related, though it is a monolithic masterpiece).
We've always done the candle in the window thing here as my Irish mammy is a bit superstitious but largely All Hallows Eve has been ignored here in NZ....until the last couple of years when suddenly trick or treating seems to be gaining momentum. I HATE it with a vengence. It annoys me that people are blindly following the American tradition with no idea about what the night is about. I am so mean I shut the big gate and let the dog (harmless but satisfyingly big and scary looking) patrol the yard.
ReplyDeleteSaying that, do have fun at your party. I await the photo of a costumed vole.
Capitalism appropriates everything - we need to find things they find it hard to assimilate. How about celebrating things that they'd find hard to market as cross-community and wholesome? Or the institution of minor laws? International Traffic Light Invention Day? Pol Pot's birthday? I'd love to see them market costumes for that…
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