There’s a reason why we every year we do that “resolution” thing at the new year. It has to do with hope. The turn of the new year is a false sense of new beginning. But it’s one we love to embrace. It’s proof of the enduring human spirit and our attachment to hope. Every…
Because spring masquerades with us Because friends continue to report I can’t breathe Because although my heart drags Daffodils design to have their way. Because spring upholds its wretched promise to us Because friends scrabble to apologize If I’d only known Because passing sorrow remembers my shape Regardless of my shrinking wardrobe. Fill up the holes, the advice calls. Plug up all the places the…
Got to hit the road and try to find My kind of America. It’s out there Somewhere: not too crowded, A farmer’s market weekly At the time of day convenient for Both the workers and the farmers. People reading books. Bike lanes and Sidewalks and garden boxes Where brown and white Mix happily as a…
Another meaty metal body Dangles in midair. Barely seems Suspended; perhaps the Fog holds up its mass and All the lives within. Autopilot disengaged we Route around the weather Rather, we watch La La Land On matchbook screens and Clutch our dancing coffees While Dan the Man takes Berth around a storm maker. I pull down the…
Hold this kitten, would you, While I trick you into Reading poetry. Whoops! Now you’ve done it, Got yerself all intellectified With words in stacks. Poetry, you decry! Save me! Not those tangled up knotted Ideas in shapely stanzas! Look out! She scratches. Still Got her claws. They frown on Hacking off cat digits these days. Ahhh,…
If you think about it, you and me “regular” people rely heavily on the super-bravery of other seemingly-average folks. I call these people “small business superheroes.” In the town where we live, a new little brewery, Fairfield Craft Ales, just opened. It’s literally down the block from also-break-now-behemoth Two Roads Brewing Company. Colin and I went…
Ten years ago I lived on Delaware Road in London. Colin had gotten himself half-addicted to internet poker (mostly because he understood the algorithms) and I, in an attempt to connect with him in on his online poker island, suggested writing a couple’s poker blog. It was adorable… called “Poker Sweet Home: Married to the Flop”. It…
We’ve got two lives: one we’re given and the other one we make, And the world won’t stop, and actions speak louder Listen to your heart, and your heart might say Everything we got, we got the hard way. –“The Hard Way” Mary Chapin Carpenter Chapin’s song “The Hard Way” was released on the album “Come…
Life is wild. Though… It is sometimes hard to see it. Especially since life can masquerade as being quite mundane. Get up. Go to work. Go to bed. Go to work again. Make food. Eat food. Wash dishes. Make food again. Laundry. Laundry. Laundry. Even the most thrilling parts of life – like taking a…
We are all lightning rods, conduits for that which the Universe wants born into this world. What energies did you channel this year? — While day 2’s post I sang my song of multitudinous life, there’s a hidden secret to what drives my writing. When I am writing, I am “in the zone.” It is…
It’s all too easy to put off loving where we are until everything is perfect. What can you love about where you are now? Blergh. If I were a weather man, that’s how I would describe the weather today. Cold, damp, rainy, grey. It’s all about the view. I look out my window and what…
All of life is a thing marked and used.This is the island where my mother is still living. There is not a great deal of the “normal” here. We are just a bunch of hangers on. For those of us here, we are eating off the breadcrumb trail from whence we came. There is a lot…
I can remember one of the first really scary movies I saw.
It was “The Giant Spider Invasion.” That classic 2-star fave came out in 1975. Which means someone in my family let me see that film when I was FIVE! If I recall, it was at the drive-in.
For years and years afterward, I literally RACED up the steps of our split foyer home, anytime I was caught alone on the lower level. Just beyond the doorway, I was sure a giant spider was lurking, ready to pounce.
I love the big, unreasonable scares of Halloween. I love that feeling underneath my heart, the pit of doom in my stomach. I love the ghoulish decor and horrifying costumes. I love “Modern Family”‘s special, and all the other Halloween themed fun.
I take a pass on new fangled “safe” fun, like Trunk or Treat, or going for a spin with the kids in their costumes around the mall. The street where you live may be scary place: the mall is 100 times scarier.
I’m intrigued by those who have a distaste for Halloween terror and frights. Whatever its roots — whether in pagan history or Christian hallows — life itself is terrifying. It’s filled with war, cancer, ebola, racism, rape and major league worship of criminals. There’s bullying, mean girls, political machinations and just plain natural catastrophe. Some days, a zombie apocalypse seems like it would be an anti-climax.
I guess that’s why I love Halloween… it’s the day the dead, the weary, the twisted, the frightened, the entombed, the maniacal — finally getting a chance to feel free.
Here’s a few of my favorite Halloween videos. Enjoy:
Andy, going through the Haunted House:
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From Shaun of the Dead, greatest zombie film ever.
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The deluge came out in the general direction of Ridgefield artist Randi Jane Davis this past weekend at City-Wide Open Studios. Her painting (above), called “Three Blind Men” (in private collection) wasn’t the only wonderful piece of work I’d seen that day. But it was the one that reignited my feelings about aloneness. So Ms. Davis…
Two flights, five burgers at the Atlanta TGI Friday’s airport location. A bag of gummy Lifesavers, and of course, the real lifesavers: four headsets, an iPad and two iPhones with digital movies. One hour’s drive, and we are home. By home, I mean. HOME. Not Iowa, the place I grew up. I mean: here. Connecticut.…
