Although belated, couldn't let Ray's favorite holiday pass unremarked. This year my nieces and nephews were "Mr. Death," a witch (these two are all set for "The Halloween Tree"), a knight, and a pumpkin. Anyone else who wanted to post and couldn't on account of the board being down (on October 31-November 1 of all times!), now's your chance.

We had a pretty nice Halloween here. I read "The Halloween Tree" the week before and am working on "Something Wicked This Way Comes". I watched my traditional Halloween movie, "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle".

I did notice that we got far fewer trick-or-treaters this year than usual. Is Halloween diminishing in stature? Is it post 9/11 jitters? Bradbury and this web site have sparked a renewed interest (for me, anyway) in the holiday, with a better understanding of it's roots (dealing with death in all that implies), and it's history.

I just noticed there is a new book out that deals with the Halloween holiday and its history. It is called, "Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween" by David J. Skal (close to skull?). It's put out by Bloomsbury. I don't know if it's any good or not, but the description of it (in our paper) is as follows:

"When and why did Halloween become almost a national holiday? David Skal's history of the most marketed holiday of the year (after Christmas, that is) describes the origins of the customs. Some have been changed very dramatically -- and the legends chronicled in this engaging book just might tell us a bit too much about ourselves."

I may just order this and check it out.

One of the things I liked about Bradbury's "The Halloween Tree" was that it looked at the issue of death in various cultures and showed how each culture's focus on death has worked its way into the Halloween holiday. I found the story to be little more than a setting for Bradbury's "teaching" us about the holiday and its roots. Not that the story wasn't interesting, it's just that this book seemed driven more by a pedegogical purpose than to just tell an interesting, plot-driven story.

You've hit the nail on the head concerning "The Halloween Tree." The April 1968 "Psychology Today" interview with Ray and Chuck Jones (who was originally to make the film, before there was a book) makes it evident that the idea of teaching the origins of Halloween far preceded the search for Pipkin. The interviewer said as much and it may have been her remark which propelled the Pipkin plot. You know, the real "turkey" holiday now is Thanksgiving. From a Native American standpoint, it's totally politically incorrect. Also, the anti-Christian element in the country is most unhappy with it. It used to be (30 years ago or more) that stores would put up Halloween displays, then Thanksgiving, followed by Christmas. Even the Macy's parade was at least on Thanksgiving. About 20 years ago, Christmas started the day after Halloween. Now, the Christmas stuff is up at the same time, if not before, the Halloween stuff, and Thanksgiving is gone entirely! Tim Burton portrayed their inevitable combination in "The Nightmare Before Christmas."

I loved the movie, "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Tim Burton did a great job on it.