city Hallowe'en - only a little scary

Hallowe'en! A festival of carefully chaperoned parties and pre-school parades, little kids escorted by their moms, older siblings, nannies, to other floors in their building where apartment dwellers have agreed to receive trick-or-treaters, spooky but artistic and tasteful lobby decor, shamelessly costumed dogs and cats, creative and profit-motivated store windows...

And of course, our world-famous Hallowe'en parades, the most famous of which is the Greenwich Village parade, so ancient in origins that it predates the gentrification and "dormification" of the Village. The costumes are crafted by experts, the wit is sharp and dangerous, and the crowds are like New Year's Eve in Times Square, only better dressed. Also like New Year's Eve, many streets are blocked to contain the crowds. Oh, I would love to lament the Village and the West Village of my teen years, when there were affordable music venues and philosophical coffee shops and bar entrances in little alleys, instead of flagship international stores and flight capital investors and Hollywood people who use their apartments or town houses a few weeks a year... Not the time, not the place. Not here, not now.

The Parade was once one of the few places where people who could then be described only by euphemism and innuendo could stride down the street, openly and in public, in costumes that expressed what they were about. In New York, at least, that's no longer so, the whole city is open, and that's a serious improvement.

However, witches, demons and vampires still lurk, even the laundering of their other-worldly powers and pursuits by popular media hasn't completely sanitized them (see this wonderful article by Stacy Schiff in the New York Times for more on the watering down of witchcraft).

Even today, with close observation, the knowledgeable may discern the presence of strange beings walking and flying among us.

In adding a touch or more of the Gothic, the bizarre, the slyly referential, the exotic, to our attire, whether it's Hallowe'en or only another workday, are we celebrating the original and non-conformist in ourselves, or are we just brightening up the woman in the mirror? And really, does it even matter?

well, c'mon, you didn't think I was going to let the coincidental appearance of feathered minis and floppy shreds of leather right before Hallowe'en pass without comment, did you?

The clever pictures of creatures dressed for the holiday illustrated the NY Times article to which I linked above. Other costumes shown here did not.

Merrie First of October!

I admit to having seen La Vie en Rose, the bio-pic of Edith Piaf, multiple times. Not  just because of Marion Cotillard, not just because of the music, although that was a lot of it. The movie was filmed nostalgically in the style of the 1930's and 40's, which I loved. I gather some people complained because of the clichéd cinematography. Hey, that was avant-garde in the 1930's and 40's. There was a shot of calendar pages flipping, another of newspaper headlines succeeding one another...

Those shots reminded me of autumn in New York, or I guess, in any large city, as one set of holiday decorations pushes another out of the stores. I'm already walking past Christmas ornaments and New Year's Eve finery, and I haven't even polished up my broomstick for its season yet! It's possible that what I took to be glittery New Year's Eve finery was in fact back-to-school sequin wear, but can the elves and Santas be frolicking because the end of  September approacheth?



And what do I do every time I sense the arrival, however distant, of an event? I make a list.

I already know who's getting the first five books of the Betsy-Tacy series, and who's getting The Velveteen Rabbit.

Whether Himself likes it or not, I am replacing his much-loved sweatshirt with its exact duplicate, minus only the indelible food and wine history. I can say exact with confidence because I'm going to buy it at Ralph Lauren. With a little luck, he might not even notice. Sadly, this year there are fewer old folk to surprise with outrageous underwear, but we have the joy of buying goofy stuff for more little ones, including a little guy who stopped being little at 11 weeks.





I'm so glad I decided to wait to buy him a "welcome-to-the-world" gift until he arrived in the US. He's here now, and like both his parents, he's tall and strong and gorgeous. Still not employed, but we've noticed scouts. Perhaps he'd like a javelin.

My sister, very close to me in age, is still wishing for a pony.

A good friend who has a difficult apartment situation owns a dog who doesn't live with her, but visits. Another friend "time-shares" a cat; its owners know that it likes to visit around the neighborhood and spend time with other human friends where the food might be more elegant. Cat has great charm, so much so that some of its friends share its vet bills with the titular owner.

Shared ownership of a "companion animal" may reflect our time's commitment issues. However, if you try to buy a share of a horse, it's called syndication and all four syllables of that mean red tape and regulation. Sister dear will have to settle for a ratcatcher shirt. You might let me know if there's a shared guppy in your circle of friends and family.

If the advancement of seasons continues at this pace, maybe my grandchildren will buy fluffy ducklings and chickens in the spring, and strings of twinkly lights and little Santas in December. Until then, as always, crisp mornings ⇒ to-do list. .

TRICK OR TREAT! Fred copes with the Great Northeast Pumpkin Shortage...

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE HURRICANE GETS TO THE PUMPKINS FIRST!

YOU HAVE TO MAKE VEG-O-LANTERNS 

AND FRUIT-O-LANTERNS

HEIRLOOM TOMATO - O - LANTERNS AND GRAPE - O -LANTERNS 

 GRANNY SMITH-O-LANTERN  AND SQUASH-O-LANTERNS

 OF COURSE THERE IS AN ADVANTAGE: NO PUMPKIN SEEDS TO DEAL WITH!

UNLESS YOU LOVE THEM, OF COURSE, 

IN WHICH CASE IT'S A DISADVANTAGE.

and, because one cannot live on fruit and veg alone, here are some SCARY GHOST COOKIES.
I was going to include the recipe, because these things are really cute
but every single ingredient was a prepared food,
many of which contained other prepared foods
and unpronounceable chemical compounds.
Now that's scary.

Scheduled to post while we're in France

J.Crew does J.Peterman

The J.Peterman duster has been around since I babysat for professors' kids and thumbed through their magazines (Peterman advertised in The New Yorker, not Highlights for Children). It gave me the idea of protecting the bottom part of my trousers, or my legs in fragile hose, from being splashed by inconsiderate drivers. Even though there's lot of short rainwear around, long remains my preference. I've copied the Peterman catalog's description to show that it is possible to write fanciful or evocative or even silly descriptions without doing serious harm to the English language. I don't think the duster's waterproof, or even water-resistant, nor does my current lifestyle call for anything with a "saddle vent," but I can like the coat, read the copy, and chuckle. In a nice way. I've never known anyone who owned this coat, although I once saw one on a tall guy with clipboard outside a sample sale. He looked like he wanted to be recognized.

Now I turn to another duster-like outer garment, which I haven't seen in person, even on someone with a clipboard. This is the J.Crew Nili Lotan overcoat. The breathless description leaves out the part about the elves who weave the magic fabric while waiting for the cookies to cool and then hand the fabric from tree branches for the birds to admire while the elves box up the cookies. This is disappointing: I would expect no less for an unlined garment going for $528. Otherwise the copy ticks all the boxes: in love, streamlined, understated, effortlessly chic, crafted. Aha! they left out "our newest obsession" and "we're obsessed." I always thought if you had obsessions, you dealt with them and if they really bothered you, you got help. It appears that some (collective) obsessions can just go away. Oh, and it looks to me like the coat "hits" at or above the knee, not at mid-thigh. Now I am chuckling, but not in a nice way.

It's not just the human anatomy that confuses the interplanetary crowd: I've concluded that everything on their home planet is a colloid, since the most basic concepts of, say, a straight line, up vs. down, down vs. across, and the like, continue to elude them. Clearly such concepts are not necessary on a planet where the basic means of locomotion is the ooze.

Let us look at horizontal vs. vertical. ⎮is a vertical line. — is a horizontal line. We will deal with the names of other kinds of lines in the Advanced Session. Now we look at a New Arrival in the J.Crew catalog: the Snowbound Sweater. Made of cashmere along the lines of the classic shetland crew. So far, so good.

 Granted, this is a sewn-in yoke, and a very nice yoke it is. However, there are two seams that connect the yoke to the body of the sweater, and to do this, one of them has to be horizontal. The other has to be vertical. Otherwise the result would be a dustmop, not a garment. So having seams hold one piece of a garment to another is not a feature. It is sewing. It could be a feature if the seaming were decorative. As it is, telling me that my sweater is sewn together suggests that others may not be. Well, if the sweater had been hand-knitted on circular needles, then there might not be any seams, but in that case why add them? Enough, stop, it looks like a nice sweater, I like the idea of the yoke, and I hope some kind soul will order it and let me know how it fits and how the construction is on the inside. I used to cringe when my mom would turn something inside out and point out the reasons she wasn't going to buy it. Now of course I -- is every woman's worst fear turning into her mother, or not turning into her mother? Have you ever heard tapes of your mother coming out of your very own mouth?

I warned you, didn't I, that as Hallowe'en draws near, there will be a number of posts with scary subjects. Turning into one's mother is one of the scariest.

and now for something completely different!

SHAMELESSLY COPIED FROM RICKY'S EMAIL

For a year in which very little has actually happened, the entertainment and political scenes have been interesting indeed. And sometimes it's been hard to tell one from the other. As Hallowe'en approaches, here in New York City the store windows and store ads are showing Hallowe'en get-ups that are sometimes very funny,  though I wouldn't want to be the one trying to explain the joke to a little kid. Nevertheless, I share with you an ad from an email sent to me by Ricky's NYC, a local chain specializing in makeup, skin/hair products, and glorious disguises. If you're in town shopping, save a few minutes to play in a Ricky's store. Meanwhile, please note the absence of politics/witch jokes. Sooo last year. But there will be more Hallowe'en posts. You betcha. The ad's on the left.