Friday Five: almost Halloween
T'was the week before Halloween and all through the house all creatures were stirring---I hope that's a mouse! Okay, enough of that. Halloween is my favorite holiday. Sadly, it doesn't come with a day off work, but that's okay because there's plenty to make up for it:
- Candy! Bring on the Snickers fun size, Pop Rocks, Laffy Taffy, Sour Worms and Coke all at the same time. Like George Carlin says, "Take a chance." Sure, that's a recipe for puking, but it's Halloween.
- Ridiculous scarecrows. Here in Cranford, NJ, we love our arts and crafts. Currently, the annual Scarecrow Contest is in full swing and some of them are just bizarre. I saw one holding a bottle of Bleach outside of the Breadsmith store. That's deep. I don't know what it means because I didn't have a chance to stop and take a closer look, but I know it must be interesting.
- Movies! Horror movies galore! If you don't already know about the two Vs make a note: Vincent Price and Val Lewton. It's hard to choose a favorite Vincent Price movie, but I just saw a really cool adaptation of Poe's stories. I think it's called Tales of Terror. Richard Matheson (author of I Am Legend wrote the screenplay and it is brilliant. As for Val Lewton, no Halloween is complete without I Walked With a Zombie which is less about the supernatural or zombies and more about the pernicious effects of guilt on a family heavily invested in African slave labor and other icky things.
- Scary Stories! Anything by Alvin Schwartz will probably be fun, but I love the audio version---it has sound effects too!
- Dressing up! And now, for the costume warehouse video.
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