Halloween 2019 brought 80-95 trick or treaters (depending on who is counting in our neighborhood). Reaching this number took years of planning and preparation…and building a reputation as the house that gives away full size candy bars. With three flights of stairs to our front door, we had to offer some extra incentives.
When we moved in to this neighborhood in 1992, nothing was going on so Michele and I started up annual celebrations: summer block party with movie nights, Memorial Day and Labor Day pancake breakfasts, Christmas caroling, pumpkin carving and Halloween decorating. Our first few Halloweens lured only a handful of children so we decided to up the game. Michele came up with a ghost theme for the neighborhood and not just any ghosts, but those from history and literature that haunt one’s memories: Miss Haversham from Great Expectations, The Headless Horsemen from the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Bloody Mary, Freda Kahlo among others. Neighbors generously donated their yards for the sets and pitched in to help create the scenes.
With styrofoam heads from Joanne’s and cheap wigs and some clothing from Display and Costume, the characters emerged. Michele created various outfits and sets. I was the make-up artist. I learned with time that I could mold the styrofoam just enough to develop brows, distinct noses, high cheekbones, unique lips and chins. A touch of red around the neck, across the face and voila, decapitated heads.
Red ribbon works marvelously as spurting blood. I was inspired by Caravaggio’s Judith and Holofernes – a gruesome depiction of sweet revenge.
Warning the image is graphic and is rated PG.
You might be thinking this will give little children nightmares and permanently damage them with PTSD. This is nothing compared to the images brought to us down from the medieval ages – images of tortured saints that we were exposed to in Spain. Those museums and churches don’t offer any warning about the gory details. Think of what the naive children of the 15th century Catholic world had to suffer when instructed on the lives of the Saints.
Lady Haversham is not designed to scare…only haunt with the image of a jilted bride and her lust for revenge.
And Freda Kahlo…well if you don’t know the back story of her being impaled in a bus accident and spending years recovering and incorporating her damaged frame into her imagery…well then you may lose the reference to the horror of survival.
Our headless horseman has moved between trees over time but is lit to startle the young and amuse the old, riding on the black horse and tossing the pumpkin through the air.
Next year who should appear? I believe that Long John Silver may shiver a few timbers. So a fair warning to all, he may be handing out the black spot. Be afraid…be Very Afraid.
We did find some fine local chocolates with a platypus image molded on to the surface. That would have to do for now.
Across from the station, we entered the Ian Potter NGV to view two shows of photography by women- Petrina Hicks: Bleached Gothic show and Olympia: Photographs by Polixeni Papatetrou.
Breakfast was at the Social Society Cafe where they served everything vegetarian…and sold vegan dog food. You can hear the dingos laughing like hyenas over that. Actually there are warning signs about dingos up here though we did not heard any yipes in the night.
Back in 1973 I was a crew boss for Petty Ray Geophysical Company, working in the Great Sandy Desert. Normally on our breaks, the company sent us to Perth, but we had passed an escarpment with caves during our cross county trek looking for oil and I asked to be dropped off at the site. My crew thought I was crazy. As you can see from the old photo, they left me with a large container of water and “Good Luck, Mate!”
As we learned from the Cultural Museum, several highly significant events occurred on and around Uluru in local Ananga legend. The marks of ancestral spirit pythons versus poisonous snakes are on the walls, the vanquished snake is now a huge boulder. The holes potmarked the surface, some created by the ancestral Minyma Itjaritjari mole.
In the cool of one evening, we joined others to view an art installation, the Field Of Lights by Bruce Munro. As we enjoyed beers before the show and as the sun tinted Uluru, another couple regaled us with their last four days and nights in the bush, sleeping in swags under the stars. Knowing they would be going to a canyon where Prescilla in the Desert was filmed, the mate had purchased an outrageous outfit on eBay complete with size 14 red, high heeled shoes. Once at the site, he decked himself out in full regalia and showed us photo documentation on his phone. The Show must go on so we downed our beers and headed out into the dry warm night wandering through the vast field of stars fallen to earth.
Whittoons 