Posts Tagged ‘Halloween’
Cindy on October 29th, 2010
Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.” — Julia Cameron
At our house, Halloween weekend is always a celebration of creativity and make-believe, whether we’re stirring up a batch of Hell’s Kitchen Chili or putting the finishing touches on our costumes. Which makes it the perfect time to introduce you to Doug’s brand-new CD, “Professor Pandemonium’s Cabinet of Wonders.”
As Doug likes to explain it, his album is a musical variation of an old curiosity cabinet — a wild assemblage that could just as easily belong to a mad scientist. Crack open the cover of the CD and you’ll discover 16 catchy tunes that are classified as “steampunk pop.” Like a potion from the medicine wagon in the Wizard of Oz, the whole mix is a little hard to describe. Start with the Beatles “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and add equal parts Ray Bradbury’s novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Danny Elfmann’s film, “Nightmare Before Christmas.” Like a costume party, it’s pure fun — and highly entertaining.
I’ve always been a fan of the Victorian circus, so right now, my favorite song from the album is the dark and mysterious “Pandemonium Ensues.” I keep telling Doug that it ought to be included in the soundtrack of a Dr. Seuss film — it’s that atmospheric and cool. But not all the tunes are Halloweenish. “Just Be Friends” and “There Is No Time” are pretty mainstream, each with a lovely hook that stays with me. “Let Monkeys Rule” — which has its own video on YouTube – is pure political commentary on how our inability to get along is endangering our world and thwarting our own progress.
OK, I’ll admit I’m slightly biased. And five years of piano lessons didn’t make me a music critic, by any stretch. But this is my husband’s newest endeavor and I’ve got bragging rights. In any event, I’m the luckiest woman I know — married to such a creative guy who’s full of surprises. For reviews and information about the new CD, as well as a glimpse inside the professor’s cabinet, visit Professor Pandemonium’s Cabinet of Wonders. — CL
–Top photo of Douglas La Ferle (a.k.a. Professor Pandemonion) in his laboratory by Cindy La Ferle–
Cindy on October 22nd, 2010
Bring forth the raisins and the nuts-
Tonight All-Hallows’ Spectre struts
Along the moonlit way.”
~John Kendrick Bangs
Anyone who’s known me for a while knows that I’m crazy about Halloween. Like many Baby Boomers, I harbor a ridiculously fierce nostalgia for the holiday. What else would you expect from someone who counts watching The Addams Family on TV as a treasured childhood memory? Not surprisingly, there are few things I enjoy more than dressing up in a costume and handing out candy to the neighborhood kids.
For years, my husband Doug created an artful “Disney haunted house” landscape — replete with a cemetery and a mummy with glowing red eyes — at the entrance where the kids come to trick-or-treat. When our son Nate grew up and left for college, we toned it down a bit, but the neighbors were devastated the year we were out of town on Halloween and didn’t decorate. So we keep the tradition going as best we can.
Inside, I still dress the house with paper skeletons, pumpkins, and shiny black-feathered ravens. I own a small collection of vintage Halloween decorations, which I display on the living-room mantel in a nest of autumn leaves and a string of orange lights. Even when I’m not hosting a big Halloween bash, friends and neighbors like to stop by for a drink and a few ghost stories (or magic tricks) around the fireplace on Halloween night after the trick-or-treaters head home.
While I’ve never been a fan of blood-and-guts “slasher” films, I enjoy scary movies, especially in October. I prefer classic horror films, thrillers, and ghost stories — Psycho, Rebecca, Something Wicked This Way Comes, John Carpenter’s original Halloween, The Others, The Addams Family, The Haunting, The Shining, Practical Magic, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Nightmare Before Christmas …. you get the idea.
This Sunday, October 24, happens to be our 30th wedding anniversary. After a celebration dinner, Doug and I will be glued to the TV set, watching the premiere of Secrets in the Walls, a Lifetime horror film in which we worked as background extras last fall. If our brief appearance didn’t land on the cutting room floor, you’ll catch a glimpse of us (as a nurse and a doctor) in the hospital scene. Starring Jeri Ryan, the production was filmed in Ferndale and metro-Detroit. It revisits a time-honored theme: a creepy old house haunted by a spirit that won’t let go. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Cindy on October 21st, 2009
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before.”
— Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven
Like the perfect pumpkin waiting for a master carver, Halloween never fails to stir the imagination. Not surprisingly, it’s a favorite holiday among the creative souls in my family. Early in October, Doug and I start raiding attics and local thrift shops for the most outlandish outfits we can jumble together. And every year in September, we start work on a project or two to enter in the Anton Art Center‘s annual Halloween art exhibition.
Running now through November 7, this year’s juried group exhibition is aptly titled MASKED. Both of us have two pieces in this show. Mine play on the theme of Victorian autumn carnivals — a theme that has haunted me ever since I first read Ray Bradbury’s atmospheric novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Since I’ve worked as a writer for more than 25 years, it’s probably no surprise that books and writing-related themes have a hand in my artwork. Here’s a preview of my pieces in MASKED:
“Damn everything but the circus!” was inspired by an e.e. cummings poem of the same title. I’ve always loved the circus — yet find it a little scary, too. This altered children’s board book is embellished with antique circus ephemera, vintage costume jewelry, carnival tickets, stars, scraps, and feathers. While working on this piece, I recalled the time I interviewed a lion tamer from a traveling circus act — one of my first and favorite stories for a local newspaper.
“Victoria Fortune’s Magic Box” (top photo) is a mixed media assemblage crafted entirely of found objects, starting with a large jewelry box from a local thrift shop. I painted the box and trimmed it with old lace and notions, then added the vintage souvenirs I’d been collecting for several months. The idea for this project was sparked by an old (non-copyrighted) photo of a sinister-looking group of Victorian sisters. I was intrigued by the mysterious ambiance of the photo, and imagined that the women were part of an autumn carnival act called “The Sisters of Fortune.” I created a story — and the box — around them. The woman wearing the black leather gloves in the center, Victoria Fortune, was a medium with a gift for prophesy. Her box contains items used for her magic acts and tarot readings at the carnival.
For a look at some of my other art pieces, you can link to my Facebook gallery: Altered Art: Found Objects and Curious Things. – CL
Cindy on April 6th, 2009
“If some people didn’t tell you, you’d never know they’d been away on a vacation.” ~Kin Hubbard
When most people plan a vacation, they tend to scout destinations with glorious beaches, challenging golf courses, breathtaking hiking trails, or first-rate shopping. But I’m an overly domesticated gal with an insatiable passion for homes and gardens, so my idea of a good time is touring historic neighborhoods and landscaped art museums. Luckily, I’m married to an architect who thinks this is even more of a blast than I do.
That’s why we chose Pasadena, California, for our spring break this year. In one week, we struck architectural gold: the Huntington Gardens and Museum; the Gamble House (designed in 1908 by architects Charles and Henry Greene); Frank Lloyd Wright’s glamorous Hollyhock House (in nearby Hollywood), and the cozy Craftsman-style homes of South Pasadena. Another highlight of the trip was eating dinner in a French bistro next to an outdoor cafe in one of South Pasadena’s garden-lush neighborhoods. I felt as if I’d died and gone to Paris.
But nothing topped the thrill (for me) of spotting the various homes used in John Carpenter’s original Halloween. Since South Pasadena could pass for a small town in the Midwest, Carpenter used its quaint neighborhoods for his 1978 film, now a classic in the horror genre. In the photo at the top, you’ll see a young Jamie Lee Curtis strolling past the infamous Michael Myers house in Halloween. In the second photo, left, you’ll see the restored Myers house in its new location (directly across the street from where it had appeared in the film). The house is currently up for sale. That’s me drooling on the front porch, getting ready to steal a peek inside.
And here in the last photo, husband Doug is standing in front of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House, which boasts a spectacular view of the Hollywood hills below. Hopefully, he’s refreshed and inspired enough to keep working on the Wright house he purchased in Michigan last year!
Where are you heading for spring break this year? — CL
Cindy on October 30th, 2008
From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties,
And things that go bump in the night,
Good lord, deliver us! — Scottish saying
Halloween always stirs a delicious cauldron of memories. Baby boomers are a nostalgic bunch, and most of us can recall at least one costume we wore in grade school. Wearing yards of pink tulle and a homemade foil crown, I dressed up as Miss America when I was in the first grade in 1960. And who could forget trick-or-treating in packs until our pillowcases were too heavy to lug around the block? While the holiday suffered a lull in the 1970s, the “season of the witch” now competes with Christmastime as the biggest party season of the year. And with all due respect to religious groups refusing to celebrate it, I never thought of Halloween as inherently evil.
British and Irish historians are also quick to remind us that “All Hallows Eve” did not originate as a gruesome night of devil worship â though I’ll be the first to admit that American retailers, merchants, and film producers are guilty of adding their own mythology. And gore. Regardless, in my view, what most of us seem to enjoy about the holiday is the creativity factor.
Stepping over age limits, Halloween extends an open invitation to play dress-up. It inspires us to raid attics and local thrift shops for the most outlandish outfits we can jumble together. If only for one magical night, it gives us permission to drop the dull disguise of conformity.
For flea-market junkies like me, Halloween is reason enough to hoard pieces of vintage clothing and jewelry that, by all rights, should have been donated to charity ages ago. My husband now refers to our attic as “the clothing museum,” and with good reason. Friends who have trouble rustling up an outfit will often call for help during dress-up emergencies. (“Can I borrow one of your medieval jester hats for a clown costume?” is not an unusual request.) Over the years, in fact, I’ve collected so many crazy hats that we have to store them in a large steamer trunk behind the living room couch. Those hats get the most wear near Halloween, when even the most reserved engineer who visits will try on a pith helmet or a plumed pirate hat and wear it to the dinner table.
And why not? Historically speaking, the holiday has always been a celebration of the harvest, a madcap prelude to the more dignified ceremonials of Thanksgiving.
Halloween’s deep roots weave back more than 2,000 years to the early Celts of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. It was originally known as the festival of Samhain, according to Caitlin Matthews, a Celtic scholar and author of The Celtic Book of Days (Destiny Books). The festival, she explains, marked the end of the farming season and the beginning of the Celtic new year. Lavish banquet tables were prepared for the ancestors, who were believed to pierce the veil between the living and the dead on the eve of Samhain. It was also time to rekindle the bonfires that would sustain the clans in winter.
“In the Christian era,” Matthews writes, “the festival was reassigned to the Feast of All Saints; however, many of the customs surrounding modern Halloween still concern this ancient understanding of the accessibility of the dead.”
And we can thank our Irish immigrants for the jack-o’-lantern, which reputedly wards off evil spirits. This custom evolved from the old practice of carving out large turnips and squash, then illuminating them with candles. The term jack-o’-lantern was derived from a folk tale involving a crafty Irishman named Jack, who outwitted the Devil.
On cool October nights, when the moon is bright and leaves scatter nervously across the sidewalk, a bittersweet chill runs up and down my spine. I like to recall a favorite quote from Ray Bradbury, whose affection for Halloween surpasses even mine: “If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of mystery and wonder.”
And I think of my beloved Scottish grandparents, who left their exhausted farms in the Orkney Islands to begin new lives in United States in the 1920s. I recall the knee-cracking highland folk dances they taught me, and the silly lyrics to their rural old-country tunes. I remember their hard-won wisdom, and how much I still miss their love.
Like my Celtic ancestors, I’m moved to take stock of my own “harvest” — how much I’ve accomplished throughout the year, and how many things I’ve left undone. My to-do list is yards long. There are parts of the world I haven’t seen; stories I haven’t written; debts and favors to repay. I marvel at the mellow beauty of the season, which has always been my favorite, but also feel a little sad that one more year is drawing to its close.
All said and done, I like to think of Halloween as the big good-bye party we throw for autumn’s final weeks. And a toast to the year ahead. All in good fun. – Cindy La Ferle
–A slightly different version of this essay is cross-posted this week on Read the Spirit.–
The photo shows our fireplace mantel decorated for Halloween this year.
________
At our house, Halloween weekend is always a celebration of creativity and make-believe, whether we’re stirring up a batch of Hell’s Kitchen Chili or putting the finishing touches on our costumes. Which makes it the perfect time to introduce you to Doug’s brand-new CD, “Professor Pandemonium’s Cabinet of Wonders.”
I’ve always been a fan of the Victorian circus, so right now, my favorite song from the album is the dark and mysterious “Pandemonium Ensues.” I keep telling Doug that it ought to be included in the soundtrack of a Dr. Seuss film — it’s that atmospheric and cool. But not all the tunes are Halloweenish. “Just Be Friends” and “There Is No Time” are pretty mainstream, each with a lovely hook that stays with me. “Let Monkeys Rule” — which has its own video on YouTube – is pure political commentary on how our inability to get along is endangering our world and thwarting our own progress.
