Halloween

I live in West Hollywood, where Halloween is like a national holiday – arrangements for street closures have been made well in advance and people from all over will come watch the flagrant and the flamboyant, the political and the theatrical,  the absurd and the sublime march along Santa Monica Boulevard, from La Cienega to Doheny. Candy is not an integral part of this spectacle and frankly that's the only thing that rankles me about it.

One year, the Wicked Witch of the West wheeled along the Boulevard with an enormous crystal ball that housed terrorized miniatures – Dorothy, Toto, and the other Oz pilgrims were all cowering on the yellow brick road within her bubble. Another year, there were several Menendez brothers, wearing blood covered v-neck sweaters and conservative haircuts. Then another year, there were groups of huddled Titanic musicians playing desperately as their ship was sinking (or, I should say, as the parade was passing them by).

From the NY Time Magazine

For anyone who grew up near Circleville, Ohio, the possibilities of pumpkin are a measure of one's maturity, one's level of sophistication, the depth of one's world view. There, in a town that would otherwise be unknown, is the Circleville Pumpkin Show -- four days of unabashed Americana that, since 1903, have featured seven parades each year and a range of pumpkin contests to rival the Olympics. The medium is accorded such respect that the farmer who produces the largest pumpkin is considered agriculture's own Einstein. The premier pumpkin carver is accorded an awe worthy of Michelangelo.

And Miss Pumpkin. Well, the real mystery about Marilyn Monroe is how she became an American icon without ever being crowned with pumpkin vines and riding astride the float that looks like Cinderella's carriage, far above the rest of us. There we were: hundreds of June and Ward Cleaver couples, holding the hands of little boys who harbored ideas of planting firecrackers inside jack-o'-lanterns and little girls like me, who were worried about slipping knee socks and the possible consequence of a brisk fall wind under our pleated skirts. We all cheered Miss Pumpkin.

Read article...

The countdown to Halloween is well under way and we are enjoying a few holiday treats! I celebrate Halloween all month because I love it!! I also love mason jars, which goes back to my love of glass storage containers.

And honestly, these couldn't be easier to make and will impress your little Hallow-weenies at home. My boys love anything for Halloween that is remotely gross, which is why the Kitty Litter Cake has always been so big around here. The idea of worms coming out of a pretend grave is also right up their alley.

I wish I could take these to their Halloween party at school, but we are no longer allowed to bring homemade treats. Such a bummer.

You want to make sure your mason jars are washed and completely dried before you begin. I used 1/2 pint wide mouth jars. They are the perfect size.

There’s nothing like Halloween in New York City. New York is home to some of the most artistic and creative people on the planet, most of whom will jump at any opportunity to put on a show. Consider the city’s eight hundred thousand drag queens, who, just to take a trip out to the deli, will put on seven-inch platforms, a sequined butterfly shawl and a two-foot wig. In the weeks before Halloween, the whole city began to fill with a fizzy, randy excitement. Shop windows were crammed with bondage gear, feather boas, broquaded undies and outrageous wigs, and the window boxes of the West Village overflowed with chrysanthemums and pumpkins and squash—all in their final bursts of color before the decay of the winter set in. And all those flamboyant colors; all those sequins, feathers and rubber masks started to bring out everyone’s inner drag queen. And it was no different for the dog people. There are more that thirty dog runs in the city, and therefore more than thirty annual doggie costume parades.

At that point in time (1998) we had just started taking Wallace to the Tompkins Square Park dog run. Each run in the city has its own flavor and “First Run” as it was called (because it was the first in NYC) was known for 1) the youth of its doggie parents (most were East Village kids in their twenties); 2) the number of pit-bull mixes (most of the young doggie parents adopted pits from the ASCPA in the East 90’s, or found them on the streets); 3) the number of dog-brawls that occurred daily (it was a transient neighborhood, with a lot of new dogs); and 4) The legendary First Run Annual Halloween Costume Contest, which drew the likes of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.