Shaping Halloween

Leave a comment

Halloween is the favorite holiday of many.  I suspect the reasons differ widely.  Although the church played a role in the development of this celebration, it didn’t dictate what it was to be about.  It was the day before All Saints Day, which had been moved to November 1 to counter Celtic celebrations of Samhain.  Samhain, as far as we can tell, wasn’t a day to be scared.  It commemorated and placated the dead, but it wasn’t, as it is today, a time for horror movies and the joy of being someone else for a day or a few hours.  There isn’t a preachiness to it.  Halloween is a shapeshifter, and people love it for what it can become.  If December is the month for spending money you haven’t got, October is the month for spooky things.  Halloween is the unofficial kick-off of the holiday season.

For me, it’s a day associated with dress-up and pumpkins.  Both of these bring back powerful childhood memories.  The wonderful aroma of cutting into a ripe pumpkin can take me back to happier times.  I remember dressing up for Halloween as far back as kindergarten.  I could be someone else.  Someone better.  It was a day when transformation was possible.  I’m probably not alone in feeling this, although I’m fairly sure that wasn’t what was behind the early use of disguises this time of year.  I’ve read many histories of Halloween and they have in common the fact that nobody has much certainty about the early days of its inception, so it can be different things for different people.  Even within my lifetime is has moved the needle from spooky to scary, the season of horror movies and very real fear.

There’s a strange comfort in all of this.  A knowledge that if we can make it through tonight tomorrow will be somehow less of an occasion to be afraid.  It is a cathartic buildup of terror, followed by the release of being the final girl, scarred, but surviving.  And people, from childhood on, enjoy controlled scares.  Childhood games from peek-a-boo to hide-and-seek involve small doses of fear followed by relief.  The future of the holiday will be open to further interpretation as well.  As a widespread celebration it is still pretty young.  And like the young it tests its limits and tries new things.  At this point in history it’s settled into the season of frights and fears in the knowledge that it’s all a game.  I wonder, however, if there isn’t some deeper truth if we could just see behind its mask.

Halloween, Disney Style

Leave a comment

I really don’t spend much time on social media.  It’s literally just a few minutes a day, half an hour at most.  I’m too busy to spend more.  I tend not to join groups because, well, I don’t spend time there.  One group I did join on Facebook is for Halloween fans.  I believe that’s where I heard about the movie Halloweentown.  I was surprised that, as a fan of Halloween for pretty much all of my life, I’d not known about this 1998 movie.  Watching it, it became clear why not.  It is a Disney television movie.  In the nineties we didn’t have television (a few channels from a snowy aerial at Nashotah House) and certainly didn’t subscribe to the Disney channel.  While the movie failed to penetrate my consciousness, it went on to start a franchise.  Once I heard of it, I decided I should see it because I’m interested in the darker side of Disney.

Television movies, with their comparatively small budgets and limited viewerships, don’t have the finished feel that theatrical films possess.  This is the story of a family of witches, three kids and a mother, living in the human world.  The children don’t know they’re witches.  Then when their grandmother visits on Halloween, they sneak into the eponymous Halloweentown with her.  This is where witches and other monsters live because humans fear them.  The “monsters” mostly consist of obvious humans wearing masks and makeup.  There are a few mildly frightening moments as the evil Kalabar tries to take over the human world by persuading his fellow monsters to join him.  But this is Disney where threats are gentle and good fairly easily defeats evil.  While the movie isn’t even as scary as Hocus Pocus, some people watch it to get in the Halloween mood.

One thing that I’ve noticed about many movies that try to capture the autumnal feeling while being shot in California, is that they miss the more dramatic temperate shift in seasons.  This annual outdoors Götterdämmerung resulting in the colorful dying of leaves and the surrender of summer to the inevitable chill to follow is integral to my experience of Halloween.  In fact, one of the few criticisms I’d make to John Carpenter’s Halloween is that Haddonfield, Illinois was shot in Southern California.  Other movies make a similar gaff.  I’m always on the lookout for movies that manage to emulate that Halloween feel.  The film that perhaps does this best, in my experience, is The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, shot in Canada and Maine.  I’m still searching, however, for my own Halloweentown.

Booking Halloween

Leave a comment

I’ve met several people who say that Halloween is their favorite holiday.  One of the (likely commercially-driven) realities, however, is that not many nonfiction books on Halloween exist.  I mean the kind with a known publisher behind them, the sort that have been vetted.  My recent book, Sleepy Hollow as American Myth has a chapter on Halloween in it, and I’ve often considered writing a book on the topic.  Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life is an edited collection brought together by Jack Santino.  It is one of the (few) academic books on Halloween that I hadn’t read.  Although I learned a lot from it, it suffers that inevitable trait of books that are assemblages of essays: they are uneven in focus, scope, and execution.  Santino is known for a couple of influential articles on Halloween, so editing such a book seems a natural development.

Some of the essays in this book were quite helpful to me.  The problem with drawing together anthropologists, however, is that they have discrete regional as well as thematic interests.  In some ways this is very appropriate for Halloween.  The holiday, as most holidays, has regional variations.  Reading about how it’s celebrated elsewhere, or elsewhen, gives you an idea just how lacking it is of any kind of “top-down” authority.  For all of its variations, Christmas has a somewhat “canonical” narrative (although this isn’t the full story).  Halloween grew from folk traditions and when the church got ahold of them it tried to focus them on All Saints Day, and later, All Souls Day.  But Halloween and it adjutants comes the day before All Saints, thus allowing the varied influences of the day to come to light, if they can be found.

The part of this tradition that I’ve always found disturbing, highlighted in this book, is the pranking.  I suppose that growing up poor, the idea that someone could damage your stuff when it’s really what you feel you need to survive, is quite distressing.  A light-hearted prank feels less insidious, but reading what some regional celebrations in North America included made me realize why many local authorities have tried to contain and control celebrations.  Nobody wants to lose everything due to a thoughtless prank.  Trick or treat was sometimes trick and treat.  I recall being in a crowd in England celebrating New Year’s.  Some partiers threw lit firecrackers into the crowd.  My only thought was to the damage or injury this might cause.  Halloween is that way, however.  And it is likely impossible to write a book that captures it in its fullness.

Painting Sleepy Hollow

Leave a comment

Not being an art critic, I’m in no place to analyze John Quidor’s The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane.  Having written a book about Sleepy Hollow, however, there are a few things I might point out.  I should begin by noting that this post was spurred by a jigsaw puzzle.  Normally I only work on said puzzles around Christmas time.  Several years ago friends told us about Liberty Puzzles.  They’re made of wood and are heirloom quality.  My wife took the hint and she generally orders one, on behalf of Santa Claus, each year.  We have a few now but since we only do them once a year (and usually only one of them at the time), I had forgotten that we had a Liberty Puzzle of Quidor’s painting.  The original is located in the Smithsonian and I really didn’t discuss it in my book.  The painting is dated 1858, almost forty years after the publication of Irving’s tale, but while Irving was still alive (he died the next year).

John Quidor, The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The painting is correct in displaying a pumpkin that isn’t a jack-o-lantern and it presents one of the obvious difficulties of painting a nighttime scene.  The painting is fairly dark.  One of the benefits of working on a puzzle like this is you look closely at the scene.  My first thought was that it seems odd that the lightest part of the painting is Gunpowder’s rump. Next is the path.  The path draws the viewer’s eye back to Gunpowder and an understated Ichabod Crane.  I realized that the lighting is meant to reflect the moon’s rays, as the orb is just peeking through the clouds at the upper left.  And, of course, Quidor was not painting from real life.  On the right lie some small buildings, including the Old Dutch Church.  The Headless Horseman blends into the dark, which is exactly how Irving describes him in the story.  There’s no bridge, however, at least not yet.  All of this matches the wording of the legend.

Quidor painted mostly scenes from Washington Irving’s works.  Having been born in Tappan, during Irving’s lifetime, that makes sense.  He was also painting before the Disney cartoon came out.  One of the cases I make in Sleepy Hollow as American Myth is that the image most Americans have of the story comes from Disney.  The painting has no sword, and indeed, neither does Irving.  The one dramatic effect Quidor allows is the raising of the pumpkin before the bridge.  That takes place later in the chase.  In a sense this painting is perhaps the most authentic visual interpretation of Irving’s story before it made the transition to celluloid.  It’s puzzling.

Naming Sleepy Hollow

Leave a comment

Local history has always been an interest of mine.  Although I’ve never lived in Sleepy Hollow, my book on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is due out this week.  I try to keep an eye out for further information on the region.  Christopher Skelly’s The Origin of Sleepy Hollow: The Name and the Village, an Untold History appeared after I’d submitted my manuscript to McFarland, but I wanted to read it regardless.  A new father living in Wisconsin at the time, I was not aware of the name change in 1996.  I do remember looking at a map after we’d moved to New Jersey and seeing, for the first time, the name Sleepy Hollow along a route we planned to take to a point further up the Hudson.  I remember thinking, “I didn’t know there was an actual place called Sleepy Hollow.”  Well, that may have been because prior to 1996, there wasn’t.

This self-published account of how the name came about is valuable local history.  Not exactly belles-lettres, it nevertheless begins at the earliest Dutch naming of the area as the Dutch version of Sleepy Hollow.  By the time Washington Irving wrote his story around 1819, the area had already gone by several names but the village of Tarrytown was well established.  And, over time what was vaguely called Sleepy Hollow by the Dutch became North Tarrytown.  I learned here that the haven, or harbor on the Tappan Zee that was first called some version of “Sleepy” had been the victim of landfill so that a railroad could be put in.  The author is clear that the “Hollow” is still visible if you know where to stand and look.  He also explains the motivations behind changing the village name that began in 1988. 

One things I learned in my own study of ancient history is that place names tend to be remarkably resilient.  European settlers ignored much of the indigenous nomenclature, but did adapt many examples of it.  Our species needs to reference where things, or other people, are over very large distances.  We know where Edinburgh is, even if we live in Australia.  Names are important.  Personally, I’m glad that some citizens of North Tarrytown decided to change the name of their village to Sleepy Hollow.  And not just because I have a book coming out on the topic.  I’m sure the change has boosted tourism immensely, even if that wasn’t the initial motivation.  It’s nice to know that the change was actually back to the first Dutch ideas about the place.  And that a visit to Sleepy Hollow is possible because of one influential little story.

Dead, Not Sleeping

Leave a comment

A Nightmare in New Hope is a fairly intimate space.  The owner told us that the collection will change and grow, given that he’s still collecting.  Having a particular interest in Tim Burton’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow—having a book (ahem) on the subject coming out soon (cough)—I was particularly anxious to see what props they had.  To make sense of this it helps to have seen the movie, but you’ll catch on, even if you only know the Disney version of the story.  There were three main items from the movie that they have on display.  One is the wax seal used for the Van Garrett will, used as the movie opens.  The seal is quite large.  Of course, movies substitute props from time to time, blended by celluloid magic.  CGI doesn’t leave as many tracks.

The second artifact is one that wouldn’t have occurred to me to have even existed.  This was the animatronic horse’s head for Daredevil, the Headless Horseman’s mount.  There are a couple scenes in the film involving horse acting, and I’d just assumed that trained animals were used.  Being up close and personal with this artificial head, a couple thoughts came to mind.  One is that right next to it, it’s quite obvious that it’s artificial.  The second thought was just how much thought and effort goes into a big-budget movie.  For a few seconds of a close-up horse head, this model had to be constructed and used and then set aside.  I asked the owner about how such things were acquired, and he noted that production companies don’t keep everything.  He also noted that movie artifact prices have skyrocketed.  Both because horror is now popular and because CGI, as noted, doesn’t leave tracks.

The third, and most proudly displayed Sleepy Hollow piece is the Headless Horseman’s sword.  This appears in the movie far more often than either Daredevil’s head or the wax seal.  One of the aspects of Washington Irving’s story I discuss in Sleepy Hollow as American Myth is that the Horseman’s weaponry changes over time.  I won’t say more since, like museum owners, those who write books hope that they well sell a few copies.  I’ll be revisiting A Nightmare in New Hope from time to time.  For the items on display, I’d seen probably 90 percent of the movies, and a few of them I’d discussed in some detail in either Holy Horror or Nightmares with the Bible.  Of course, the Sleepy Hollow book is forthcoming (ahem).

Good Hearts

Leave a comment

If you’re looking for more religion-based horror, you might try the 1987 film Angel Heart.  As I’m discovering quite a bit lately, I could’ve used this one in Holy Horror as well.  The religious elements are pretty hard to miss, beginning with the protagonist’s name, Harold Angel.  (Hark the, any one?)  A private detective, Angel is hired to find a missing person for a Louis Cyphre.  His search takes him from New York (where a guy keeps a pistol in a Bible (there’s maybe an entire book in this trope), down to New Orleans.  First he meets Cyphre in the back room of a black church but soon he starts getting chased out when he starts to uncover any clues.  Time to head to the Big Easy.

In New Orleans he finds all kinds of occult practices taking place.  And the folks are none-too-friendly when he starts making mention of the guy he’s after.  He ends up witnessing a voodoo ritual and complains about the bad religion he encounters.  The big reveal indicates that there’s been a case of mistaken identity.  Louis Cyphre (Lucifer) has actually been setting an elaborate trap all along.  The portrayal of the Devil as a sophisticated gentleman isn’t new, of course.  There is a scene where Angel and the Devil are in a church and Angel, being a detective, uses inappropriate language.  Lucifer (not yet revealed as such) has to remind him a couple of times to watch his tongue while in a sacred place.  Satan is more pious than Angel.

The movie has multiple issues, but it has become a cult film over the years.  Like many others that I’ve discussed on this blog, the entire plot draws its horror from religion.  Angel has a difficult time with the non-Christian worship he witnesses.  But really, it is the Christian Devil that’s the antagonist here.  Quite often in movies like this, fear of other religions is based on the supposition that Christianity is correct.  That’s been a broad American trait for centuries, and it gives horror room to run.  The idea of a generic Christianity (which is probably what most Christians hold to) overlooks the doctrinal differences, often quite significant, between denominations.  This particular avenue isn’t much pursued in horror films, at least in my experience.  Interestingly, like Cat People (1982), it places this religion-based horror in New Orleans.  There’s plenty to explore in that connection as well.  Angel Heart is not a great movie, but it can lead in some interesting directions; a holy sequel may be necessary.

More Rats

Leave a comment

I’ve asked other survivors of the 1970s if they knew that the Michael Jackson hit “Ben” (his first solo number one recording) was written about a rat.  Most had no idea.  The song is the theme for the sequel to Willard, namely, Ben.  Now, I have a soft spot for seventies horror movies.  Before the days of streaming I repeatedly looked for Willard in DVD stores and never did find it.  I eventually found it on a streaming service and even wrote a Horror Homeroom piece on it.  One winter’s weekend with not much going on, I finally got around to seeing Ben.  Neither are great movies, but I’ll give them this—people in my small hometown knew about them.  Everyone I grew up around knew that “Ben” was a song from a horror movie.  In case you’re part of the majority, Ben is the chief of the intelligent rats who turns on Willard at the end of his movie.

An incompetent police department and other civil authorities can’t seem to figure out how to exterminate rats when they begin attacking people.  A little boy, Danny, has no friends.  He is apparently from an upper-middle class family, and he has a heart condition.  Ben finds him and the two become friends.  Danny tries to get Ben to lead his “millions” of rats away from a coming onslaught, but for some reason Ben decides to stick around and nearly get killed.  In the end, badly injured, Ben finds his way back to Danny.  Cue Michael Jackson.  It really isn’t that great of a movie—the number of scenes reused during the tedious combat scene alone belies the pacing of a good horror flick.  I felt that I should see it for the sake of completion.  Check that box off.

It’s a strange movie that ends up with viewers feeling bad for the rats.  They’re not evil, just hungry.  They do kill a few people (poor actors, mostly) but it’s often in self defense.  The best part is really the song, and the premise behind it—boy meets rat, boy falls in love with rat; you know how it goes.  Michael Jackson famously loved horror movies, and as many of us have come to realize there’s not much not to like.  This movie is pretty cheesy (with the rats attacking a cheese shop, but only after an unintentionally hilarious spa scene) but it has heart.  And it has a fair bit of nostalgia for those of us who grew up in the seventies.

Shivering Vampires

Leave a comment

When casting about on free movie streaming services, you occasionally stumble across something odd.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I’ve been favoriting vampire movies the last few months.  I’d not really heard about The Shiver of the Vampires, perhaps because it was a French movie, or perhaps because there are just so many vampire films out there.  Well, it had the desired monster in the title, and it was free (costing only a few commercials).  As might be expected for a European movie, there’s a bit of nudity involved.  A fair amount of that is appropriate for vampire films, it seems.  This one involves a newly married couple going to visit her cousins who live in a castle in the country.  These cousins are groovy vampire hunters, but unbeknownst to her, have become vampires themselves.

The young couple arrives to be told that the cousins have died, but they are welcome to stay.  Soon, the vampire that turned them shows up and begins visiting the bride.  The groom is slow to catch on that there are vampires involved, although he fairly quickly finds out that something’s the matter with his wife.  Then the cousins show up alive.  Well, technically, undead.  They don’t reveal themselves as vampires, but their cousin, the bride, is being turned as well.  The poor groom sees odd rituals being enacted, and a couple of familiars decide to help him destroy the vampires in the hopes of rescuing his wife.  Stakes, crucifixes, and sunlight are all effective against these vampires, but they don’t seem especially evil.  In fact, there’s a kind of self-loathing among them.  The ending isn’t exactly cheering.  

A little shy on depth of story, the film does feature an impressive castle and some strong seventies vibes.  Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on the movie refers to the familiars as “renfields.”  This term, derived from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, was one I’d never come across before.  Renfield’s Syndrome now seems to be preferred to Clinical Vampirism, although neither has much scientific standing.  “Familiar” is, of course, a term adapted from the witch craze of Early Modern Europe.  Vampires need a living helper since they are vulnerable in the daytime.  The director of Shiver, Jean Rollin, was known mostly for his vampire movies.  They’re not easily found, at least at this point, on streaming services.  Shiver has an arthouse film feel to it and it makes me curious about how vampires cross cultures, even if the results are a little odd.  

Book Stages

Leave a comment

Books appear in stages.  All publishers are different.  These platitudes encapsulate my experience in finding a venue for my ideas.  Sleepy Hollow as American Myth has just appeared in McFarland’s spring and summer catalogue.  I haven’t seen the proofs yet, but I suspect I will before too long now.  What’s with the spring and summer catalogue?  Well, believe it or not, books are seasonal.  Publishers go by seasons.  For many academic publishers there are two seasons: Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter.  The timing of certain books may fall in a specific place within those seasons but many academic books are aimed at classroom adoptions so early spring and early autumn are the most popular times.  It’s no coincidence that academic conferences also cluster around the semester system, the big ones being either autumn or spring.  Academics have a migratory instinct.

Personally, I’m hoping Sleepy Hollow will be out in late summer.  I don’t have any control over that, but it’s about then that normal people’s thoughts start turning toward falling leaves, long nights, and monsters.  Every year there’s a day in August when I step outside and literally smell autumn in the air.  As a kid seasons seemed like something as rigid as a biblical law: spring was March through May, summer June through August, and so forth.  The older I get, the more I realize how negotiable seasons are.  The Celts celebrated the start of spring in February.  Yes, there are lots of cold days yet to come, but the early signs of spring have begun.  For early risers, we finally start to observe earlier sunrises.  (These technically start around January 10, but they’re slow getting out of bed.)

You might think the ideal season for a book on spooky stuff, like Sleepy Hollow, would be timed for release in the fall/winter cycle.  Not necessarily.  Both Holy Horror and Nightmares with the Bible hit the market after Halloween.  Normal people’s thoughts had shifted to Thanksgiving.  I’m pleased that Sleepy Hollow will be released a bit earlier.  Summer is ideal for Halloween-themed books.  And yes, I devote a chapter to Halloween and the Headless Horseman.  They are closely related.  So I was glad to receive McFarland’s spring/summer catalogue and find my book on page two.  I don’t have a publication date yet, but I’m looking forward to being part of the discussion about one of my favorite ghost stories of all time.  Speaking of which, it’s almost time to begin gathering firewood for next winter, or at least it will be in summer.  And it’s not that far away.

Still Sleepy

Leave a comment

One thing I quickly learned when beginning work on Sleepy Hollow as American Myth was that the story hadn’t really been studied too much by those with academic training.  There are some exceptions, of course.  Another thing I swiftly picked up is that many people who wanted to write on the legend chose the method of publishing the public domain story with a variety of annotations, essays, and other additions, to make a salable book.  Often these are self-published and not always immediately obvious to the researcher as to whether they contain anything important or not.  I had not run across Christopher Rondina’s Legends of Sleepy Hollow: The Lost History of the Headless Horseman until well after my manuscript was submitted.  I found it in the bibliography of a ghost-hunter version of Sleepy Hollow that wasn’t even published by the time I was going into production.  (It doesn’t even have an ISBN.)

I do have to say that Rondina’s variety of this composite genre isn’t bad.  He includes Washington Irving’s story and expands it with an introduction, and brief chapters considering any historical background that there may be.  He also adds a chapter on modern media of the story that includes one television adaption that I failed to find for my book.  Interestingly, after I’d written the manuscript I discovered Joe Nazare’s similarly annotated version, also with a number of the media I’d analyzed in it.  I’d actually corresponded with Nazare earlier, having discovered his website.  Not wanting to discuss what my book was about until after I sent it in (others have more time to write, perhaps, than I do) I didn’t mention our common interest and didn’t discover his annotated version until it was too late to include as a conversation partner.

Self-publication has perhaps become inevitable since standard publishing is difficult to break into.  And the internet gives anyone the ability to self-publish without too much effort.  It does, however, make doing research a bit more difficult.  I determined early on that I could not review every annotated version of Irving’s story.  I selected a few of the most promising and moved on.  Both Rondina and Nazare had interesting things to say about the tale, and it’s a pity that they weren’t discoverable until after the fact, at least to me.  I like to give credit where credit is due, but any ideas that seem similar to these two sources in my book will have to stand as examples of convergent thinking on the part of fans of the “Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”  I know there are many other fans out there and I hope they find the resources they need to understand the story just a bit better.

This Is Halloween

Leave a comment

He was probably trying to impress his wife with his wit.  I was in a department store—a rarity for me.  I was wearing a mask, because, well, Covid.  As this guy, older than me, walked by he said “Halloween’s over.  Take off your mask.”  It bothers me how politicized healthcare has become, but what bothered me more was that it was only October 20.  It wouldn’t even be Halloween for another 11 days.  What had happened to make someone think Halloween was over so early?  Yes, stores had switched over to Christmas stuff by then.  In fact, I wandered into another store where Christmas carols were playing.  Capitalism seems to have wrenched the calendar out of order.  We’re tired of All Hallows Eve before it starts.  In fact, just the day before we’d gone out to a pumpkin patch to get our goods and the carved pumpkins are now showing their age.

If that little exchange in the store had been in a movie, it would’ve been a cue for me to transform into some big, scary monster.  Of course, Halloween is what it is today because of relentless marketing.  And a handful of nostalgia from people my age with fond childhood memories of the day.  For some of us, however, it is a meaningful holiday in its own right.  It makes us feel good, even after we’ve grown out of our taste for candy.  It is significant.  Christmas is a bit different, I suppose, in that there is nothing bigger following, not until next Halloween.  Besides, Christmas is supposed to go for twelve days.  The fact that Halloween is a work day makes it all the more remarkable.  We have to work all of this out while still punching the clock.

I had really hoped to be able to get to Sleepy Hollow this Halloween.  Sleepy Hollow as American Myth tries to make the case of how that story and Halloween came of age together.  It is the iconic Halloween story, what with ghosts and pumpkins and all.  And the month of October is spent with scary movies for many people.  This month I’ve posted about horror movies every other day, pretty much, trying to connect with my audience.  If that is my audience.  I tend to think of Halloween as a community.  Those of us who, for whatever reason, think of this as our favorite time of year.  A time when perhaps we don’t feel so stigmatized for liking what we do.  A time that we’re not hoping will shortly end so we can get onto the next thing.  It may have been meant as a joke, but I wasn’t laughing.  Happy Halloween!

Ichabod’s Body

Leave a comment

Maybe you’ve noticed this.  When Halloween comes around, the Headless Horseman and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow reemerge.  There’s a reason for that, and I discuss it quite a bit in Sleepy Hollow as American Myth.  Right now there seems to be quite an interest, or maybe I’m just noticing it more.  For example, a local theater where we saw a Poe performance last year is offering a Headless Horseman show this year.  Articles have recently been appearing on Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow movie, given that it was released 25 years ago—online discussion, however, is often eclipsed by the Fox television show by the same name.  And before it switched over to Christmas decorations, Michaels had its share of Sleepy Hollow merchandise.  Halloween and the Headless Horseman go together.  (Read the book to find out why!)

One of the tchotchkes I picked up at Michaels was Ichabod Crane’s tombstone.  In the many renditions of Washington Irving’s legend, Ichabod is treated as the protagonist of the story.  Although Tim Burton’s movie wasn’t the first to have Crane survive, besting the Horseman, the old wives’ tales, according to Irving, had him spirited away by the Horseman.  That’s why I found his gravestone so interesting.  The dates on it (1787–1857) indicate, at least according to this recension, that he died at seventy, surely not the victim of the attack that took place around the turn of the century.  If you’re not familiar with the original story, Irving set it “some thirty years since” the 1820 in which the tale was published, putting the events around 1790.  Burton shifted this to 1799, partially, I suspect, because that was two centuries before the release of his movie.

I do wonder where the maker of the Michaels tombstone got their information.  According to their reckoning, Crane would’ve been but three years old in 1790.  Of course, the story never tells us his age.  Since it is intimated that he relocated and became a judge after dabbling in politics, all of which would seem to indicate that he was a somewhat young man at the time of the tale.  To make Sleepy Hollow scary, though, having Crane cut off in his youth would seem to be more in keeping with the spirit of the season.  Of course, Sleepy Hollow is a legend that has become mythic through its many retellings.  Enough of them that someone could write a book about it all (ahem).  And this is the time of year to ponder it.  

Seasonal Poe

Leave a comment

The more I read of and about Edgar Allan Poe, the more convinced I become that he wasn’t as associated with horror in his own mind as he has become.  As one of the earliest American writers, he has become the icon of those who wrote on the dark side.  His contemporaries—Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville—did as well, but it was Poe who became iconic.  On a recent trip to Michaels to take in the seasonal ambiance, Poe’s presence was difficult to ignore.  I wasn’t prepared to shoot a photo-essay (I’m not sure how they feel about such things in a store, in any case) so I didn’t photograph all the pieces.  “The Raven” is frequently referenced, with typewriters with the poem emerging and large, ominous black birds about, but Poe himself also appears.  There are, of course, painted busts of Poe.

But Halloween has grown more whimsical over the years.  Arguably for my entire life it has been primarily a children’s holiday, but many have noticed that those of us who grew up with Halloween have retained adult interest in it.  Part of this is no doubt commercial since the captains of industry have learned people will spend more on Halloween than any other holiday except Christmas (I do discuss this in my forthcoming book).  And indeed, the Headless Horseman appears quite a lot as well.  Irving, however, isn’t there on the ground.  Poe is.  The whimsical part comes through in showing the humor of the season.  For example, although Poe is shown in the noble bust format, he’s also portrayed (fully clothed) on the toilet.

Finally, there were figurines of a fanciful tombstone of Poe.  They even got the dates correct.  Now, there’s more to be said regarding the comparison with Irving.  You can find the Headless Horseman on the toilet as well (along with Dracula).  You can find the Horseman in bust format as well.  When it comes to tombstones, however, the fictional Ichabod Crane shows up alongside the nonfictional Poe.  That casts a certain light on Irving’s most famous story.  I’ll save that for another post, however, since authors are expected to repeatedly plug their books.  I left Michaels strangely reflective.  Poe-themed merchandise is fairly typical any given year, but since we’re having our first Halloween party in some years, and since I’ve been exploring Poe’s range as a writer, this clear abundance of Poe as an icon gave me pause.  As if I were coming within view of the melancholy house of Usher. 

Under Construction

Leave a comment

It’s fascinating, watching a book taking shape.  Just yesterday I noticed Sleepy Hollow as American Myth is now up on McFarland’s website.   And yes, it’s on Amazon too.  Go ahead and preorder!  (It hasn’t made it to Bookshop.org yet, though.)  I have to say the feed to Amazon was much quicker this time than it was with The Wicker Man.  That book took several weeks to appear, probably because it was with a UK publisher.  Yes, it does make a difference.  Now the trick is to try to get people interested in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow again.  I’m thinking I ought to join Historic Hudson Valley.  They might be interested in such a book.  It is, in a sense, right in their back yard.

The thing about writing a book is that you come to suppose other people are interested in your obsession.  I know that Sleepy Hollow is deeply embedded in American culture.  I also know that some of the fandom began to die down when Fox’s Sleepy Hollow went off the rails.  Most analysts suggest, with good reason, that the show failed when it began foregrounding white characters and writing Americans of color into the background.  A great part of the appeal was the melting-pot aspect of the cast, no doubt.  In the book, however, I suggest a somewhat different reason for the decline.  It’s one I’ve seen no one else suggest.  I’m hoping that we can both be right.  In any case, that was the fandom that got this book started.

You see, I had written my first popular culture article on the role of the Bible in Sleepy Hollow.  That article, published in the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, led to the book Holy Horror.  I was already thinking about a project around Sleepy Hollow then, but I had a couple more books to finish first.  I’m excited about this one because it marks a move away from publishing primarily about religion to publishing primarily about a story.  There’s still religion there, of course.  We have the Old Dutch Church to pay mind to, but there’s even more about the Headless Horseman, and Ichabod Crane.  And so much more!  Sleepy Hollow as American Myth was a lot of fun to write.  I’m not sure when the book will be out, but I’m hoping next year.  Maybe if I can generate a little excitement around this Halloween—it is closely connected with the story, as I explore—there’ll be some interest next time.  Until then there are still plenty of steps to be taken.