All Hallows Eve

Halloween has arrived. I think for today most people in the Philadelphia area are grateful that hurricane Sandy is gone. Some of my friends in New York City and North Jersey are taking the storm damage in stride. The kids stuck in one college dorm (the school to remain nameless) are planning a flash mob of zombies for today to celebrate both Halloween and the storm apocalypse.

The word from New York City is things are a mess but generally okay. New York is known as a city of wry humor. The bad news is the subways have been flooded and it might be up to a week before they're all working again -good news is many of the stations will no longer smell like urine,

Once upon a time Halloween was a much scarier holiday. For any of the purists out there I'd suggest a book of short stories by H. P. Lovecraft.

Like Mardi Gras and Carnival, Halloween is a big celebration before a long season of depredation. Tomorrow is November and the beginning of cold, short and miserably damp days. It's that unpleasant season where everything tastes like pumpkin and everyday is filled with the anxiety of Thanksgiving Dinner with the whole family or Christmas shopping.

One nice feature about Halloween it's a day when even an ugly guy has a chance for a date.





Part of Halloween will always be a children's holiday. It's difficult and maybe even morbid to explain to a child that all things in life are passing. Much the same as you can't tell a little child that the world does have real monsters in it, people who are criminally violent and sadistically unbalanced. So we tell little children tales about the Big Bad Wolf and teach them never open the door for strangers.







Tonight I do plan to go a party. There will be a psychic there. I'm told he's very good but pretty much a skeptic, probably because a I knew as so called psychic back in New Jersey. She was as fake as a three dollar bill -but very entertaining.

Happy Halloween. May today be everything you want it to be.