Halloween on 6th, the masses, the masques, the religiousity.

Yesterday afternoon Lauren came to meet me for lunch and remarked that she wanted to do Halloween “big”. Well the biggest, that I know, is the Halloween parade / mill-about on 6th street, so we launched a bid to make the scene in the early afternoon.

We headed to the seasonal Halloween headquarters on South 35 and Stassney ( in the derelict husk of a forgotten Albertson’s ) and looked through the mostly picked-over costumes. Lauren found a very cool pixie outfit with wings and upon seeing a cape and a wand I knew that I would be evil professory Severus Snape from the Harry Potter universe.

A few hobby shop trips later we had gold ribbon for her hair, a Slytherin emblem for my cape we had our outfits together. We headed down to the festivities around 9. As usual there were a lot of people, not much room, and a lot of fun costumes. Lauren and I were photographed a few times ( I’m sure it’s more her than me ) and we made a couple circuits between the blocked off sections of the street, me flashing my Harry Potter light up tip and sound effects wand every few steps.

We saw some amazing costumes: someone on stilts looking like the grim reaper ( 10 feet tall it’s an imposing force out of spiritus mundi ), rococo Sun King style costumes made out of paper ( think of the towering wig styles of 18th century France! ), a toilet or two, many zombies, and even a few Republicans! ::Shiver::

Towards the evening’s end the style of dress moved out of the scary and into the ribald. The ass cheek ratio moved steadily up as the pre-soaked crowd joined the fun: naughty cops, naughty fire fighterettes, naughty waitresses, naughty nurses, naughty construction workers, naughty nuns, naughty genetic researchers, naughty mayors, naughty … well, yeah, you get the idea, naughty occupations.

About the stroke of the witching hour Lauren’s feet starting complaining about the heels she was in and we headed westward up the street, back home.

I will add that in the middle of the street there were some evangelical preachers yelling on and on about how people who worship death ( Hallow’een revelers I take it ) will find their souls forefeit until they find the bridge to life, Jesus Christ, etc.

Exqueese me?

Christians disparaging people who focus on celebrating death and the non living flesh. I could be wrong, but key tenets of a Christian existence are turning the other cheek, denying the present needs / urges of the flesh, not minding your conditions because you’ll get your heavenly reward. And doesn’t the doctrine of transubstantiation mean you’re eating the flesh of Jesus?

I just thought it showed a certain lack of depth of understanding and appreciation of the real messages of his mystery cult.

( I fully grant that different sects take the death cult focus with more or less seriousness. I’ve discussed this before with respect to “The Passion” )

So this yahoo was yelling right in my left ear about brimstone and fire this and death cult that the only pithy thing I could come up with was:

“Science not bull….!” which got a good bit of laughter.

austin