Ghost Upon the Floor

This is my attempt at an Edgar Allan Poe Jack O'Lantern. I slipped twice on his nose and made it far too small. But I nevertheless trudged ahead and finished him, and here he is. Carved on Halloween 2009.

Just saw this over at The Halloween Tree, one of Google's Banner decorations for the past 2009 season, and it tickled what I like to refer to as my "Halloween bone." A lovely, charming little snapshot of what the holiday means to me.

It's a shame I didn't get to see this when it was up and being used. Check out more banner designs over at The Halloween Tree here.
'

Pumpkin Rot is one of my Halloween inspirations on the web. I know I never would be able to create something even close to the simply beautiful and breathtaking work that the artist has created here... if you have not yet seen the 2009 pictures yet, get thee to Pumpkin Rot right now and behold them.

It's finally here! All the jack o' lanterns are carved, the decorations up, John Carpenter's "Halloween" playing... And outside it's dreary, rainy, windy and wonderful. I am, however, trying to figure out how to put Spirit Halloween Vampire teeth on that come with no instructions. Perhaps that will be a future blog post... but no negativity today!

Wishing you and yours a wonderfully wicked and spooky All Hallow's Eve!

At Margaret Hamilton.

I was thinking the other day about why we love Halloween, and how that love began in childhood and strengthens for many of us through the years. And I thought of how perfectly these two pieces, Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Alone" and Tim Burton's 1982 short animated film "Vincent," illustrate that childhood love, that bent, for the dark.




Alone
By Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.