Here at work we had our Hallowe’en social hour yesterday afternoon. I supplied the music; unfortunately we didn’t have the bandwidth to play this over the internet. Hopefully you do. So here’s a halloweenish mix of thirteen tracks including music by Andy Forray, Bauhaus and Body Odor.
Warning: This mix contains three covers of a certain classic vampire song, plus the original. Yup, four versions of the same song. It’s my favorite song in the whole world, and I personally can’t get enough of it. All four versions are pretty awesome, and somewhat different, but consider yourself warned.
Unfortunately people noted the Halloween decor in our office wasn’t quite up to the level of years past.
That’s because our ever-attentive administrative assistant is back in the hospital. I don’t know whether to call it a relapse or complication or what, besides which I don’t really want to air someone’s private medical details in this venue. All I want to say is that everybody here misses her, and we all hope she makes a speedy recovery.
Personally, even though I miss O—, I wouldn’t miss the ostentatious, over-the-top, faux-creepy decorations. That sort of conspicuous consumption is really not my style. Halloween is the number two biggest holiday after Xmas in terms of spending, mostly on candy and plastic junk manufactured on the other side of the planet. Meanwhile, it seems to me the essence of what make Halloween cool gets more obscure with every passing year.
When I trotted out my old essay on this subject last year, I garnered the following comment:
The crapification of holidays and perversion of the origins, sadly, is not limited to Halloween. Not even close.
The permanent adolescence of the American adult may have something to do with it. When we were kids, this was a kids’ holiday. Now it’s adult.
But that’s not quite my point. I never thought of Hallowe’en as a kids’ holiday. If anything, I was objecting to how it’s been turned into kiddie fare. Don’t get me wrong, I think kids and everybody should be able to groove on the spooky vibes emanating from All Hallow’s Eve. But that very spookiness is increasingly attenuated by the drive to sanitize the holiday and capitalize upon it.
Yeah, Christmas too. Bah. Boo. Boo hoo.
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