And he has shaped it as a babe that is to nurse and he has made two eyes of glass

[sovay]

Our neighbors are decorating for Halloween. This means giant inflatable ghosts, mummies, pumpkins, green-faced witches, vampire Winnie-the-Poohs, snowglobes full of mylar bats, et cetera, several of which glow at night and all of which are tasteless to the nth—yards full of this stuff, it's unbelievable. It makes me want to put up Halloween decorations of my own. Cornhusks, dog skulls, knots of old ribbon, branches of turning leaves. You know. Normal things.

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[papersky.livejournal.com]

My downstairs neighbours have decorated the outside of their apartment, and the garden, and the entranceway, with tasteless weird Halloween stuff. This includes something I've never seen and which completely freaked out my friend Gill, childrens' legs apparently disappearing into (or emerging out of feet first) the ground, using jeans and shoes that look as if they've been recently outgrown by their kids. Squick. Do you know what these are supposed to be about?

I have thought about adding to them with normal things... or eye of toad and etc, but as everything is festooned with white fake spiderweb, and as they have tasteless light-up ghosts, I think they'd vanish. Also, sorry, but it isn't Samhain for weeks.

Last year at about this time I came back from Mike Ford's funeral to find a toy gravestone on the lawn. I wasn't amused, and did actually say something to communicate my distress to my neighbour, who refused to move it on the grounds that the children like it. It's there again this year.

Every time I brush past the ghost hanging by the front door and the lights come on and it sings at me, it reminds me of Auden's:

"The lights must never go out
The music must always play
Lest we should see where we are
Lost in a haunted wood
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good."

Because I get it, death, yes, the death of the year, and we too will die in time and some have gone before us, but is all this obsessive playing with the bright and plastic images of death's kingdom not a little too shrill?

[sovay]

This includes something I've never seen and which completely freaked out my friend Gill, childrens' legs apparently disappearing into (or emerging out of feet first) the ground, using jeans and shoes that look as if they've been recently outgrown by their kids. Squick. Do you know what these are supposed to be about?

I have no explanation: I've never seen them. But I imagine it's only a matter of time.

Because I get it, death, yes, the death of the year, and we too will die in time and some have gone before us, but is all this obsessive playing with the bright and plastic images of death's kingdom not a little too shrill?

This should be reprinted somewhere more people will read it than on my livejournal.