It’s that time of year again. The air is chill, night comes more quickly than before, and ghosts roam out with ghouls in search of things that go crunch in the night. And by that I mean Nestle’s Crunch, along with bite-size Snickers, miniature Snickers, and full-size Snickers. Here’s hoping your share of the loot this year does not contain a lot of apples and sugar-free gum, and you can instead gorge on Milk Duds or SweeTarts or Peanut M&Ms, as suits your tastes.
It is also that time of year when I have to explain that I have no Halloween postcards to show off.
See, although there are plenty of people who collect the postcards of Christmas or St. Patrick’s Day or the Fourth of July, those tend to be a little diffused. There are LOTS of symbols of Christmas, and collectors tend to go for one part or another: they collect Santa Clauses or Snowmen or children opening gifts. The Fourth of July may be flags or Uncle Same or fireworks, and St. Patrick’s Day may involve sentimental scenes of Ireland or comical Pats and Mikes in bars or shamrocks.
But Halloween is SCARY, and artists toss off their restraints with spooky cats and pumpkins and witches with cauldrons. The colors are bright, and artists go for impact, so demand is high for these. So are prices. These do not come to me in the job lots I deal with
I do have black cats, some of which look pretty sinister.
And there are monsters aplenty on land who do not rely on October 31st to look dangerous.
Sea creatures have always struck our ancestors as dangerous.
And even our happy-go-lucky fishing cards carry terrors from the deep.
Some of which belong in Halloween visions or nightmares.
More land-based critters can be sinister while going about their daily jobs as well.
Even the noble wild rabbit can seem dangerous in some of its rarer versions.
And no good Halloween movie festival would be complete without a few examples of animals whom science has turned into something else. (All of those of you who saw this and wanted to make a joke about T&A, shame on you for knowing such an old naughty phrase,. That will cost you one Hershey bar—WITH almonds. Pay your fine in the basket by the door.)
As long as we’re speaking of themes the horror movie festival should not be without, let us not forget invoking the Other World.
This zombie picture comes from the era when the poem about the “pansy faces” was still current. (When our flower language dictionary gets to the letter P, we will discuss some of this word’s history, but the poem was talking simply about flowers, and so is this zombie dream.)
As for this chap from the Sixties, he is clearly a refugee from some B-movie monster show.
So, as we have shown before, it IS possible to discuss Halloween and postcards without actually having any Halloween postcards to show off. (For some terrific bursts of orange and black, go Google “vintage Halloween postcard” and see what sorts of things you will probably never be able to buy from me.)
Blogsy Babbles 