Thanks Be to St. Isidore of Seville

Look at that, with Halloween past and the Great Pumpkin returned to... wherever it is he goes (I like to picture a Holiday Inn with the Easter Bunny, Santa, and friends) the banner is back to normal.  Following all sorts of positive feedback about the banner editing fun, you can expect some special edition banners in the future.  Perhaps as early as next Tuesday...
Hope you all had a happy Halloween with more treats than tricks and whatnot.  I practiced what I spent a week preaching, giving out full size candy bars, watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and closing off the night by reading The Fifty Year Sword.  But now the holiday is over and where are we now?  November!  Why, only just next month it will be December!  But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
 
November 1, as you might remember from the history of Halloween links, is All Saints' Day.  Of course we're celebrating ALL Saints, but I want to give a particular report shout-out to St. Isidore of Seville, patron saint of the Internet.  I'm assuming he was named thus for his effort in his lifetime to compile a summa of all universal knowledge.  Though perhaps he was secretly known for a vast collection of cat icons... What a strange concept, though, to be named patron saint of something he never got to use.  He's not the only strange saint out there, though... It' s a pity praying to Saint Polycarp of Smyrna wasn't an option on The Oregon Trail.
 
November also kicks off two big month-long events.  First, there's "No-Shave-November," which has (I believe recently) also become known as "Movember,"  though the latter is more specific to hair-growth above the upper lip.  Movember is actually a really awesome event raising money for prostate and testicular cancer initiatives through pledges.  I would certainly encourage anyone who doesn't need to maintain a sense of professionalism in their workplace to consider participating.  What've you got to lose?  And besides, it could set you off on the path to being a CHAMPION!  At the very least, let me know and I will tell the readership that some of you are participating.  And those that aren't can still share their favorite beards...
 
The other big event is a bit less passive in nature.  November is also recognized as National Novel Writing Month, or "NaNoWriMo" for clumsy/short.  Over the course of one month, participants work to draft a copy of a 50,000 word novel by meeting daily wordcount goals.  It is a bold endeavor, and one in which I will not be participating.  I do know that one (maybe two) current readers have participated in the past, though, and perhaps some of you are considering going for it this year.  If so, here are some helpful tips.  I'm particularly keen on the negative and positive reinforcement motivators in 2011's #24 and 2012's #20.  Those who don't plan on writing a novel (most of us, I'm sure) and even those who don't particularly care for reading novels (I encourage you to try one...) can certainly get behind the tip in 2011's #25.  I would certainly love to raise a glass with Chandler, Fitzgerald, or James Gould Cozzens right now... And I'd certainly try what Tennessee Williams is having at least once.  Now that I've boarded this train of thought... Five hours til Happy Hour!
 
Chew on a Popsicle today, it's Toni Collette's birthday!

Halloweek Day 5 - All Hallow's Report

It's here!  The day we've been waiting for all Halloweek!  The day we get to see what the Great Pumpkin brought the Report.  Gifts?!  Candy?!  Are we the most faithful pumpkin patch, or -- AUGH!  Wait!  That's not the Great Pumpkin!  We've been tricked!  We waited all week and all we got was a stupid beagle!  Drats!  Well, there's always next year...

For now, I'll try to make it up to you with a ton of Halloween links! Let's celebrate the day with some scary stories, music, and movies...

Stories 
While I hope by now all readers affected by Hurricane Sandy have had their power restored, those living by candlelight have the perfect atmosphere for reading a few scary stories.  You could choose to go the classic route, with a story by Poe.  I would recommend "The Tell-Tale Heart" or, my all-time favorite, "The Cask of Amontillado."  You could plunge into some 90s elementary school nostalgia and check out a copy of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, though just the illustrations are enough to give you nightmares for all of November.  For more modern, longer reads, I recommend checking out Mark Z. Danielewski's newest book, The Fifty Year Sword or, longer yet, the haunting and incredible House of Leaves.  Or for a free read, check out these free and classic downloads compiled by GalleyCat for Neil Gaiman's brilliant "All Hallow's Read."  But really, you can't go wrong with just making up some spooky stories of your own.  Just remember to start them off with "Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society..."

Music
 Sure, radio stations and department stores are already playing Christmas music.  But that doesn't mean we can't celebrate the Pumpkin Carols and haunting tunes of this holiday first.  Problem is... There aren't too many.  Sure we can do the Mash and Thriller.  And a few movie tunes work to remind us Who We Gonna Call, since This Is Halloween.  These lack something of the classic holiday feel that Christmas Carols have, even when sung by Bing Crosby.  (Who knew he had a Halloween song?!)  My favorite, though?  The modern 30 Rock classic, Werewolf Bar Mitzvah!
 
Movies 
What this holiday lacks in music it makes up for in movies.  You can get away with any horror movie and justify it, but I think there should be a bit more specificity.  It doesn't exactly make sense to justify watching a Friday the 13th film because it's Wednesday the 31st...  Any of the many Universal Monster movies are solid choices, and even offer some non-scary options for the 'fraidy cats out there.  If the monster connection isn't substantial enough for you, though, you can get Halloween-specific.  We've already called out Nightmare Before Christmas above, but what about other Disney classics like Halloweentown and Hocus Pocus.  For those looking for something a little more mature, I recommend Trick 'r Treat.  It's an excellent blend of horror and comedy (Trick AND Treat!) that has all the making of a tragically overlooked modern classic.

And that's a wrap for the Report's coverage of Halloweek.  Too bad we got tricked by that stupid beagle.  But keep the faith and maybe next year we'll prove worthy of a visit from the Great Pumpkin himself!

Tomorrow we'll return to classic reporting...  I've got a whole lot of great non-Halloween materials that we've missed over the past week.

Til then, Happy Haunting!

Halloweek - Great Pumpkin Special Report

Occasionally, my frequent suggestions that people respond to the report are answered.  Usually, these answers are consolidated into a quick paragraph at the start of the next day's report.  However, one response today was so heartfelt and of such a length that it deserves to be presented in full.  I asked the reader in question, who agreed to have this piece submitted to the readership.  It says so much about what I feel about Peanuts, the Great Pumpkin, and the wonders of tradition that create shared experiences and bridge age-gaps of all sizes... I could not cut or consolidate this reflection, nor could I keep it to myself:

I am a firm believer in traditions. They connect us, they root us to something deeper than ourselves, and they tie us together. They tell us that something is more important than the daily frenzy, because we are willing and obligated to put that frenzy aside to partake in tradition.

For me, The Great Pumpkin always makes me think of some long-ago Halloween. I must have been quite young, in kindergarten or first grade perhaps. After school, my brother and I would go to our grandmother's house, and Mom would pick us up in the evening. And I remember this one night, my brother was anxious to get home because It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown would be on TV. "We have to watch The Great Pumpkin! It's a tradition!"

Well, if I was about five or six, Eric had to be twelve or thirteen.  When you're thirteen, nothing is cool. When you're thirteen, there is nothing you want to do with your little sister. Finding an activity for a thirteen-year-old that is both cool and something you want to do with your little sister is like finding a unicorn, Big Foot, the Loch Ness monster, or a piece of candy in Charlie Brown's trick-or-treat bag.

But The Great Pumpkin was a tradition. My way-too-cool older brother--- too cool to even dress up for Halloween-- wanted to watch it with the whole family..Because it's something you do. Once a year. Every year.

That's what traditions do. They celebrate something old that's important to remember, while creating new meaning with each iteration. They also aren't necessarily literal. For me, The Great Pumpkin isn't about staring at a metal box watching rocks being tossed at a sad little boy. It's sitting on the living room floor with my brother, prematurely opening a bag of Halloween candy meant for trick-or-treaters without Eric throwing a single wrapper at me or eating all of the milk chocolate Hershey bars.

I guess that means I'm a firm believer in the Great Pumpkin as well.

 If you ever get lonely, Linus, I'll wait out there all night with you in the pumpkin patch.

Linus tells us that "Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere."  There is not a doubt in my mind that, lest the hurricane keep him at bay, the Great Pumpkin will be rising in this reader's pumpkin patch this year.

Halloweek Day 3 - Religion, Politics, and the Great Pumpkin

After a weekend away, it seems the rising pumpkin is is a great deal further along in his approach, undeterred by Hurricane Sandy.  Speaking of Sandy, I hope all my northeast readers are safe and dry.  (Humorously, I attended a screening of National Theatre Live's "The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-Time," a brilliant stage adaptation of Mark Haddon's novel, which included an enthusiastic moment of naming a dog "Sandy.")

Originally, on the schedule of Halloweek reporting, today had called for a general discussion of pumpkins.  Record-holders, chunkin, impressive jack o'lanterns, that sort of thing.  However, last week my dad alerted me to an interesting news item that I find requires some reshuffling of reports.  It also requires that I fail to heed the  advice of a great hero of mine.  That's right.  Against Linus van Pelt's advice that one avoid discussions of "religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin," it's time to talk Pumpkin.
 
For those of you unfamiliar with the Great Pumpkin, he is a holiday figure created by Charles M. Schulz in the comic strip Peanuts.  Every year, according to Linus, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that it deems the most sincere to bring presents to those who are there.  The character, though never seen in the comics, was introduced in 1959, but gained wider fame when Schulz and Bill Melendez followed-up the success of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" with the now-Halloween-classic, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."
 
Having long been a Peanuts fan, and Linus being my favorite character, it should come as no surprise that I am a huge fan of the special, I watch it every year.  However, not everyone likes it.  Some people, I learned last week, are fundamentally opposed to it.  My dad sent me a link last week to local news coverage of a man who believes this special, now nearly fifty years old, should be retired from the air.  His argument centers on the idea that the name-calling and blatant, unpunished bullying in the film is too much for today's young viewers.
 
Perhaps it is because I am not raising young viewers of my own, as that blogger is, but I believe his critique fails to appreciate certain nuances of the special and Peanuts in general.  Yes, Charlie Brown is called a "blockhead," and other names.  His round head is used as a template for designing a pumpkin carving.  Each anonymous adult famously gives him a rock as he trick or treats in his multi-holed ghost costume.  And the blogger is correct, none of these instances is ever "punished."  No one ends up in time-out, no one gets in trouble, nothing.  But the avoidance of explicit punishment is not the same as condoning this behavior!
 
The blogger calls Charlie Brown "the hero," but this paints him with too broad a brush.  Charlie Brown is the protagonist and, in all his insecurities, doubts, and shortcomings, the character that we, as people who often face the same things, are meant to identify with.  This means that when Charlie Brown gets a rock, or gets drawn on, or gets called blockhead, we chuckle, but we also empathize.  The knowledge that the bullying we see is wrong comes from putting ourselves in Charlie Brown's shoes; seeing the world from under his multi-holed ghost costume.  And maybe that's something that younger viewers aren't able to do, but that's why this nearly fifty year old program is celebrated as a family tradition.  Parents should watch it with their children, and, if they feel further discussion is necessary, talk to them about what's going on.  Though we may have similar anxieties, we don't live in Charlie Brown's world, so parents don't need to worry; kids will hear more than just "Waaah Waaah Waaah" when they talk.
 
I could go on to discuss the merits of the Job-like suffering of Linus that comes from his faith and devotion to the Great Pumpkin, or note that Snoopy escapes his imagined World War I experience unscathed, a great feature of the adventures of the imagination.  But that one sentence nod is all I'll give as a note to the multiple levels of appreciation this special brings.  It is a true family special, one that can be enjoyed and discussed by all ages.  And that has always been the appeal of the Peanuts world.  In a universe populated entirely by children, the issues faced, conclusions reached, and jokes made are often applicable to adults, too.
 
I'd be curious to hear what readers think of this.  Am I simply defending something I love and turning a blind eye to its problems?  Do you agree with me, or do you think that it's time for the Peanuts gang to retire?  Do you believe in the Great Pumpkin?  Will you be watching the special on Halloween at 8:00 on ABC?

Tomorrow, on All Hallow's Eve Eve, assuming I don't lose power, we'll discuss what nearly every elementary schooler in the nation would agree is the best part of the holiday: Taking candy from strangers.