Hello once again good folks.

As some of you may remember, I am a writer with my own e-zine (electronic magazine) on my site. I've been away for a while due to a move. And it's that time of year again: time for the annual If - E - Zine (tm) Special Halloween Edition!

I am posting this here because as fans of Mr. Bradbury I know we must all have and inkling of interest, if not a ravishing love, for Halloween. I have pasted the themed editorial below to share my thoughts on Halloween.

Thank you, Mr. Bradbury, for putting into words the universal feelings of Halloween.


Editorial
by Charles Shaver

Halloween is a great thing of pulp. For the last two years running those hauntings of the soul that comes with this time of year has blossomed a bit late. Usually the dying time of Fall begins to get its fingers into me in late Summer. But I've yet to forget the love and light and laughter and magic of the death and passing seasons and the old, great Samhain as his mighty scythe bears down upon us, harvesting our souls for his mortal marketing. It is now the Fourteenth of October, two weeks from the wicked night.

At the time that I first began to work on this issue, I was uncertain that If – E – Zine Issue # 7 - this year’s Halloween issue - would really be out in time. We left Hawai’i on July 4th, landing here in Michigan on the morning of the fifth. Within the first hour of being here, the people around us were already talking about how all the world’s problems are derived from the “niggers and chinks” and how we should send them all back to their own countries and nuke the shit out of both the continents of Africa and Asia and that’s the only solution to the world’s problems. Meanwhile, my mostly Chinese sweetheart sat next to me, the both of us having to hear all this filth. I’ve changed since then, become a different person. I’ve reverted to an earlier time of depression and suicide. I’ve caught myself in the spare room of our rental staring into the closet where our guns are kept, half-hidden, wondering what it must feel like. I've also stopped to look at our Tylenol PM, a wonderful sleeping aid, wondering why I don't consider swallowing a half a handful.

But this is meant to be an issue about Halloween and Halloween isn't all sadness and depression and adults-coping-with-reality bullshit. It is about death and mourning and the celebration - or at least the reverence - of the past. It’s fun and innocent and spooky and safe and a howling good time any which way you cut that pumpkin pie. I could write once again what Halloween means to me, what it should mean to us all, but I won’t. I couldn’t add anything to the discussion that hasn’t already been said, and probably put better, by Bradbury or LeGuin or Bradley or any kid growing up anywhere and at any time here in the United States. Hear what they have to say. And ignore the assholes who’d yell about the ills of Halloween or the evils of Samhain. If a religion restricts the fun of innocence and youth and nostalgia then that religion sucks. Tell them Halloween rules.

Halloween is all I have right now. It’s been a great distraction from certain other thoughts about life and death and the reality of my current situation. Although my other usual distraction, which is reading, has been entirely consumed by such things. My mind has revolved around zombies these last few months. I love zombies. Who doesn't? But I think I've been obsessed, if you will, with zombies as of late because the stories they most often tell are so similar to the story of my life now. Zombies are full of death, destruction, and ignorant animal feeding. But that's not the true beauty in most good zombie tales. The true beauty is that zombies make us confront death (let's face it, zombies are death personified). But zombies, as important and wonderful and fun and gory as they can be, they are truly much more of the background, the setting, for the main characters of any zombie story: the survivors. Zombie tales tell us of the human fear of death and shows us as we follow the survivors in their fight against the odds, as they defeat death personified, and ultimately these zombie tales give us hope against hope against that most universal of fears. We can beat death. And we, too, can be survivors.

And so Halloween has been my lifeline. It’s keeping me alive, giving me a goal to work towards, a festival to look forward to, rituals to perform, a small pilot light of hope. Just like those beloved zombies. I’ve already purchased 20 plastic pumpkins, the kind kids collect trick-or-treating candy in, and have strung them up in the trees in the yard to make glorious Halloween Trees. Enjoy Halloween. It’s a celebration of life. And hope.

~ charles, ed.

Embrace death
Know your mortality
And be reminded to live
Embrace life

Remember Ray’s butterfly. It’s important. We need it. You could be THAT butterfly. Keep it safe. Always! Look forward to hearing from you often.

To paraphrase Bradbury: We embrace life when we can accept death. I think that is part of the theme of Halloween. Also a good time to read EA Poe, The Halloween Tree, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and From the Dust Returned,

Hmm, just my opinion, but your essay left a sour taste. Maybe it's the language.