Redartz: Greetings! Yes, time again to turn to BitBA Assembled to provide us all with a suitably inspiring topic for discussion. More specifically, the first noble commenter to step out and offer a suggestion sets the agenda! The field is open, the time is nigh, the podium is yours...
20 comments:
Hi. I'll just throw some possible subjects out there.
What do you like or don't like about Halloween or Guy Fawkes day celebrations, which are just around the corner. Favorite memories? Crazy stories? Aspects you wish would go away?
Maybe the UK gents accidentally hung some one? Could happen?
Maybe an US gent was abducted by a zombie? Could happen?
I think we all love to hear the deep cultural stories of each others' culture so the deeper, more esoteric, more obscure the better!!!???
(Easy on the human sacrifices though, please!)
And of course if any of this feeds into comics, the better!
E.g., the mask image we associate with Guy Fawkes comes to us via the "V for Vendetta" comic so...
And there have been comic / movie renditions of the Ichabob Crane which many associated with Halloween. So...
Easy on the human sacrifices...?
Kiss my axe Charlie, I don't come here to have my peoples cultural practices disrespected. I already get enough of that living among the Britons thank you very much.
You should see the fuss the local council make whenever I start building a wicker man on the roof of my block.
-sean
Charlie, I don't think there's anything about Guy Fawkes Night I don't like, although I am aware that all those fireworks going off can cause great panic amongst people's pets.
I think there's been a north/south split in Britain when it comes to Halloween. I've heard people from southern England claim they'd never even heard of Halloween when they were younger.
However, where I grew up, it was always a thing. I remember us walking around our back garden, in the late 1960s, carrying carved, flaming turnips. Also, I remember our primary school getting us to cut out paper witches, black cats and bats to hang from the ceiling, as well as having us make witches' hats.
When it came to the night itself, we'd bob for apples, try scrying in mirrors and attempt to raise the spirits, with a Ouija board. That last one was my dad's idea. He had an interesting concept of what constituted good parenting.
The least favourite thing about Halloween is trick or treat which, I think, just goes against the British mentality of your home being a place you're never to be disturbed in. Fortunately, like Colin, I've not had any trick or treaters call for well over 15 years. It seems to have suffered the same demise as door-to-door carol singing.
In the 1960s in Scotland Halloween was nothing like it is now. Back then it was almost entirely for kids and we would go out into the streets at night (well around 7pm) dressed up in a handmade outfit (made by your mum) usually a ghost or a witch or a Dalek made from a couple of large boxes with a plunger and colander for the arms” etc (there were no bought costumes back then). You would chap on someone’s door and if invited in you would do a wee turn (a song, poem , joke etc) for some sweets , monkey nuts or if your were really lucky a penny or even a threepenny piece coin. It wasn’t really know as “trick of treating” back then, we called it “guising” as you were in a disguise (i.e. your costume) of course it you were turned away there may have been the odd trick played. on the person that did that to you. At school l there was always a Halloween party preceded by learning the poems of Scotland’s national bard Rabbie Burns (usually the horror based poem called Tam O’Shanter”). The party itself usually involved party games like dookin’ for apples (apples thrown into a tub of water and you had to get one out with your hands tied behind your back using you mouth) or a game involving a strung up treacle bun where again with your hands behind your back you attempted to eat the bun as it swung back and forth usually hitting you square on the face covering you in treacle. In the 1960s we didn’t carve faces into nice soft Pumpkins, these strange things were heard of but never available. No we (well our dads or older males relatives) carved faces into a ruddy rock hard Turnips (or “Tumshie” as it was called back them) to create the Halloween lantern – it must have taken an age to do that. Now Halloween here is just the same as in the US with more adults involved and folk buying their costumes usually now with women dressed as slutty cats and met and superheroes – no originality then again we have Pumpkins far mor civilised. I probably preferred Halloween when I was in my 20s as there were loads of parties in offices and n pubs that were always good fun, but since I was about 35 once my nieces had gown up Ihave had no interest in Halloween at all other than watching a scary movie.
I never really cared that much for Guy Fawkes night, it was nice seeing the bonfires but back in the day it usually led to fires and serious injuries. Its more organised now with spectacular fireworks displays and food at events but they can be so crowded. Any anyway by 5 November I was in Christmas mode.
There were always Halloween and Guy Fawkes night editions of UK comics back in the 1960s -1970s (and to date) that celebrated these two events with some really nice covers and themed stories .. My favourite was when the 30 October 1965 Buster comic which gave away a Guy Fawkes mask as a free gift -I remember that all my pals got the Buster and we went about wearing this mask on 5 M November.
Wow! Interesting stories by the UK contingent! Amazed you had parties for Halloween and also that it included bobbing for apples.
Never had I attended a Halloween party until my late 20s. As kids it was simply: put on the burnt cork to look like a hobo; grab a pillow case; and get as much candy as possible.
Very, very rare to get coins.
At some point in time we also included throwing eggs at cars and houses but that was only for a few years.
Mc Scotty -
Now this is interesting... well to Charlie... lol.
There was a Guy Fawkes mask in 1965 Buster comics? I thought the image we took as proxy for Guy Fawkes was from the V for Vendetta comic book?
Curious to know what the 1965 proxy for Guy Fawkes was!
Charlie, the 1965 Buster Guy Fawkes mask: https://www.bustercomic.com/guy.html
CH: The V for Vendetta mask is a stylised version of Guy Fawkes face. The mask in question from the Buster comic ( and a similar one given away in the 1969 Whizzer and Chips comic) was more a mask based on his face rather than a stylised version. I found a link to this igloo below.
Halloween used to be a big thing in parts of the UK and Ireland, as Steve says though mostly in Northern England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland ( where it originated).Schools in Scotland at least always held parties when I was a kid not lavish stairs but wee events.
Buster link
http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2015/11/50-year-fireworks-flashback.html
Jeez "igloo"" no idea what that was meant to be, ditto " stairs" in last line. Apologies guys.
Charlie, Samhain - one of the four traditional seasonal festival days - marks the end of summer, when the boundary with the Otherworld is at its thinnest and the Aos Si find it easier to come into our world.
Those dodgy Christian clerics started trying to take it over by moving All Hallows Day (All Saints Day) to 1st November around the 8th or 9th century (in the Eastern church its still just after easter).
I think it became less important in England in the 17th century once 5th November became a thing, and being prods it gave them a less Popish date for having their bonfires.
In Lewes (Sussex) they have big celebrations to this day where they burn an effigy of the pope as well as Guy Fawkes. I went there once - it feels a bit like the town's been taken over by a joint convention of the Orange Order and Ku Klux Klan convention! Seriously, take a look -
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2018/nov/05/lewes-bonfire-night-parade-in-pictures
There was more Catholicism up north in England in the olden days - Guy Fawkes was a Yorkshireman - so maybe thats why Halloween remained more of a thing in Steve's neck of the woods?
-sean
Here in BC Halloween was the second-biggest night of the year for kids, second only to Christmas Eve.
The season started with the selection or creation of a costume, a viewing of Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin, often followed by a party at school or somebody's (haunted) house, and then came the thrilling night of jack o lanterns and trick or treats followed by fireworks and actual firecrackers, exploding everywhere.
It was actually pretty scary as a little kid...
When I was a teen later in the mid-seventies my friends and I developed our own twisted tradition of Halloween: roman candle fights. We would smoke a bunch of pot, sometimes enhance everything further with a handful each of magic mushrooms, and then head off to either the local graveyard or a quiet clearing in the local woods. Four or five guys, spread out about twenty feet apart, and then light them up and fire at each other.
We had a strict rule of NO HEAD SHOTS (that wasn't always strictly followed).
It's pretty amazing in retrospect that no one was ever seriously hurt. From time to time someone's hair was set on fire, but nothing ever more serious.
The best fight came I think in 1979 when it was my turn to buy - - I bought twelve-ball roman candles each for my four friends, and (unbeknownst to them) a twenty-four ball candle for myself. So when they'd all shot their full wad, heh heh, I was only half-done. Just getting warmed up.. Heh heh run you little suckers, RUN...
(From that point on the purchasing of the candles was closely supervised by all)
Great topic, Charlie; and fascinating stories all! My Halloween, in the heartland of Indiana, was pretty typical, and much like V Mark's. When I was little, my Mom bought me a costume (earliest Halloween memory is parading around school in a Casper the Friendly Ghost costume in Kindergarten). Later I made my own, usually a ghost. One year I did a fair job as a mummy, strips of cloth kept trailing off me all evening. Usually went trick or treating with friends, and came back with plenty of goodies (but like Charlie,never any money). And like Charlie Brown, I seldom got invited to Halloween parties. But unlike Charlie Brown, I never got stuck with a bagful of rocks.
Nowadays Halloween is an excuse to sit all evening watching classic monster movies (and Simpsons Treehouse of Horror) with my wife. And eating candy that we seldom get trick or treaters for...
Hiya,
Well, I'll be going up to our family home to hand out treats for the first time in two years and I just finished the preparations.
Don't want to spend a ton of time on props for the yard so I got those holiday spotlights to train upon the house.
Did get several pumpkins and will carve them next week.
Have several boxes of frito lay treats to hand out plus whatever my sister provides.
Comic books for the kids who can read.
Rubber Duckies for the really young kids.
Loud whistles for the older ones.
Ear plugs for the parents who are walking the kids around.
And something new this year. A contest to celebrate the return of Trick or Treat.
Any participants will automatically get a HoHo for their bags and, depending on how well they do, a soda and extra large candy bar.
And all they have to do to get their name into the drawing for the grand prize, a ninety ounce bag of chocolate bars, is finish one piece of candy.
Said candy is from Taiwan and is made from what is called, by some people, to be the "King of the Fruits."
I'll let you guys do the work on this one.
Seeya,
pfgavigan . . . putting the 'Trick' back into 'Trick or Treat'.
Steve and McScotty
Thanks for the links to Buster's Guy Fawkes masks! Awesome stuff.
It's clear that V for Vendetta from 1982 is modeled on Buster's masks from 1965.
That said was Buster's modeled on a contemporaneous painting of Fawkes?
Also, I find it super cool that Buster offered Guy Fawkes "Bangers" the week after the masks in 1965!
https://www.bustercomic.com/banger.html
There are a few paintings and engravings from the time of the gunpowder plot that show Guy Fawkes and the others with that iconic hat , beard rtf which I assume all further images of the man are taken from.
Interesting fact although Fawkes' aim was to end the Protestant monarchy line Guy Fawkes was actually born a Protestant.
Apparently Guy Fawkes said he wanted to "blow the Scottish king and his court back to Scotland".
Remember, remember
The fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot...
AH Halloween, when finding that one house that gave away full size candy bars was liking striking oil!
When using your Little League Baseball uniform would save the day when all else failed.
When getting one of your parents extra large pillow cases seemed like a good idea, tho impossible to fill.
When hesitating at the house that always out did themselves to scare the kids!
The night before, "Devil's Night" in my area, as a teen toilet paper, soap and eggs were the accoutrements of choice. What a scoundrel I was!
Killraven - our biggest Halloween faux pas was swiping eggs out of our fridge and launching them at the houses behind us.
The block behind me was all woods and sand. And living so close to Lake Michigan you only had to dig a few feet down in the sand to hit water. It was an oasis for a child growing up... truly.
Then they put in houses and we extracted revenge.
Unfortunately, the eggs I swiped were hard boiled. Broke a few windows, lol.
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