Category Archives: Halloween

Nov 01 2022
Day of the Dead, Halloween

Hallowtide

All Hallow’s Eve leads us into Hallowtide: All Saints Day on the First of November, All Souls Day on the Second, and all the days beyond to Martinmas on November 11. This is the time each year when we most remember our beloved dead.

I don’t know what my earliest recollection of Hallowe’en is, but I know that I have loved it since I was a child, and I have not outgrown that excitement. The understanding, too, that Hallowe’en ushers in a time of remembrance is also something I have long understood, thanks mainly to the observances that were part of this time of year for my family each late autumn. Always on the table at Hallowe’en and Ognissanti is a penitential dessert from Puglia, the region in Italy from which my grandparents hailed. The dish, called ciccecútte,  is something we eat just at this time of year, which is probably why we understand, from early on, that it is special. It’s made from cooked wheat berries, pomegranate, roasted almonds, and chocolate, covered in vincotto, spiced with cinnamon and cloves. It is a most earthy taste, reminding us of things below, rather than above. It is a dessert that handily calls to mind Persephone’s journey below the earth each autumn and winter, a ritual dish one eats to be in communion with all that rests below the earth.

Besides the pumpkins and the cornstalks, the costumes and the masks, this is what I love about Hallowe’en. And so I beg your forgiveness for the fact that I’ve not even begun your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for November. I’ll get it out to you as soon as I can. But it’s not today, and it may not be for quite a few days. If the calendar was ready for you, here’s what it would say for these first few days of the month:

November 1: All Saints Day (All Hallows)
Hallowe’en ushers in this day honoring all saints. It’s also Samhain, the Celtic New Year, bringing us closer to winter.

November 2: All Souls Day; I Morti; Dia de Los Muertos
These old and sacred celebrations keep us connected to those who have left this world.

November 11: Martinmas
The traditional close of this annual time of remembrance.

COME SEE US!
Our next pop-up market is this Saturday, November 5, from 3 to 9 PM: It’s the Dia de Los Muertos celebration here in Lake Worth at Hatch 1121, which is at 1121 West Lucerne Avenue. You’ll find our ofrenda on display inside Hatch, and we’ll be outside showing most all of our handicrafts from Mexico. Next to us will be my mom showing her Millie’s Tea Towels: each one is embroidered by hand by Mom. Free entry, live music. This community Day of the Dead celebration is great fun. Sorry, we will not be showing at Florida Day of the Dead in Fort Lauderdale this year.

ADVENT CALENDARS
Now’s the time to order Advent calendars and candles! Our calendars are all from Germany; our candles are from Sweden and the UK. Click here to get to our online catalog!

The CONVIVIO DISPATCH for HALLOWE’EN
Folks subscribed to our sister publication, The Convivio Dispatch, which is a more story-focused publication delivered as an email in your inbox, received yesterday our annual Convivio Dispatch for Hallowe’en, which this year was a mystery called “Trembling the Web of Wyrd.” As my gift to you, click here to read the tale. If you like it, please consider subscribing. It’s free and my dispatches are few and far between, trust me… so there won’t be a lot of clutter in your inbox; just an occasional good story.

 

Image: Our Jack o’ Lanterns this Hallowe’en. Seth’s is the toothless one.

 

Oct 28 2021
Day of the Dead, Halloween

Mysteries Abound

Hallowe’en approaches and the Days of the Dead that follow: All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Dia de Los Muertos, I Morti. These have always been some of my favorite days of the year, ever since I was a kid. My excitement is all too apparent this year in all the events––virtual and otherwise––I’ve got in the works this week and next. Here’s my official invitation to you to be part of as many as you wish. Here they are:

The Convivio Dispatch for Hallowe’en
Writing an annual story for All Hallow’s Eve has become a long standing tradition of mine. If you are subscribed to my other writing project, the Convivio Dispatch from Lake Worth, then you’ll be receiving it as a gift via email in the next few days––perhaps Thursday, in the very witching time of night, or Friday, or even Saturday. It all depends when on when I think it’s done. And it’s almost there. This year’s Convivio Dispatch for Hallowe’en is a gently ghostly story… and certainly more mysterious than spectral. It’s about my favorite local celebrity, who lived and died here in Lake Worth many decades ago. To receive the story in your inbox, click here to subscribe to the Convivio Dispatch (you’ll also get to read a sample from a few Hallowe’ens ago). You can always unsubscribe your story arrives (though it would surely break my heart).

Book Arts 101: Autumn Spell
I filmed a 45 minute video earlier this week: me in a casual ramble, featuring some of the spookier and more mysterious items at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts, where I work. It’s a fun visit, filled with fascinating artists’ books and paper engineering and a bit of poetry, too, and some books that you may not think of at all as books. Fascinating, eye opening… and more than a little mysterious. Click here to watch.

Stay Awake: Bedtime Stories for Kids & Sleepy Adults
My newest project for the Jaffe Center for Book Arts is a online bedtime stories project, and it launches today! Our first story is performed by master storyteller Jonathan Kruk, who brings us his abridged version of Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Jonathan’s version is called The Misadventures of Ichabod Crane, and it was filmed at Sleepy Hollow’s Historic Old Dutch Church. I really think you’ll love it; it’s really well done! And if this series interest you, I’d love to hear from you. We’re looking for sponsors for future Stay Awake stories, as well as readers and writers and storytellers. I’m so excited about this, and this first episode is just excellent. Click here to watch.

Real Mail Fridays Halloween Social
Also as part of my work at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts, I host a weekly virtual letter writing social every Friday from 2 to 5 PM Eastern. This week’s social just happens to have a Hallowe’en theme with a soundtrack that is all autumnal and a bit mysterious, too. We have a small but loyal group each Friday of folks from the US and Canada, and though it’s billed as a letter writing social, the people who show up do all kinds of things. Friday you might be carving jack o’ lanterns or making candied apples or haunting a house. What you do doesn’t matter to us as much as your company. We give you time to work on your projects, accompanied by a distinctive soundtrack, and once or twice an hour we break for a little chat. It’s amazingly heartwarming, and you can come and go as you please. Click here to join in. The Zoom link you’ll find there is the same each and every Friday.

Dia de Los Muertos Lake Worth Beach
It’s our first public appearance in a year and a half: we’ll have a booth, like we always do, at Lake Worth’s annual Dia de Los Muertos celebration on Saturday, October 30 from 3 to 9 PM outdoors at Hatch 1121, the art center between Lake Avenue and Lucerne Avenue just west of City Hall and the railroad tracks. Click here for more details. We’ll be in the Hatch courtyard with a booth filled with our traditional artesanías mexicanas!

Florida Day of the Dead
A few nights later, on All Souls Night (November 2), we’ll be at the Day of the Dead celebration in Fort Lauderdale. We’re not sure yet if our tent filled with artesanías mexicanas will be at the start of the event at Huizenga Park, or if we’ll be at the Craft Crypt at the end of the procession… but we’ll be there somewhere, and we won’t be hard to spot! Click here for more details.

I think that just about does it. If you’re local, gosh it would be nice to see you. We’ll still be masked and cautious at these two local events but for sure smiling widely underneath our masks. And whether you’re local or in some distant land, connecting with you via the Convivio Dispatch for Hallowe’en is one of my greatest pleasures. Especially if it helps you, too, tune into the mysteries of this time of year as the nights deepen and as the things of this earth focus their attention on gathering in. If you don’t hear from me here again until after All Hallow’s Eve… then to you and yours, I wish you a very happy Hallowe’en.

John

 

Oct 31 2020
4 Comments
Halloween

Enter Hallowe’en

Hallowe’en! It’s late as I write this, past midnight, and we’ve just finished watching Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas. Haden, the Convivio Shopcat, who had spent the evening atop the bookcase in the print shop, has a way of knowing when movies are over. She strolls in usually as the credits are rolling, which was the case tonight, and she leapt up on the desk during the haunting Nightmare instrumental music, making Seth and me both shriek at the same time. She likes doing that, too. The film rolled from credits to DVD bonus feature, and we got to see something we had never seen before, even though we’ve had the DVD for years: the short film of the original Nightmare Before Christmas poem that Tim Burton wrote, narrated by Christopher Lee, and Haden stayed to watch some of that, too, and there, above, is the photograph Seth snapped, and now here we are, you and me, at this late and witching hour. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This is a Hallowe’en house if there ever was one, and Haden, I think, appreciates the pumpkins and the orange lights, orange like she is. She revels in that warm orange glow. Once Seth hangs the black paper bat mobile from the pendant lamp above the kitchen table, as he does each Hallowe’en, she will revel in the bats, too, and we will, no doubt, find her often on the table, beneath them. The bats that dangle low will brush her ears on occasion, making them twitch, which only reminds me of the poem Hist Whist by e.e. cummings and its line about “little twitchy witches and tingling goblins.”

As holidays go––and you know me, I love them all––Hallowe’en is one of my favorites. I remember every costume I wore when I was a boy: astronaut, scarecrow, Charlie Chaplin, hobo. The hobo was an old standby. When we couldn’t figure out what I would be, Grandma would start to sewing patches on my CPO coat, Mom would put a beard on me with makeup, and we’d pull a crushed hat from the closet. Then off I’d go, trick or treating. And maybe we love Hallowe’en so as adults because it is filled with vibrant memories like this.

We’ve got a busy few days ahead as Hallowe’en ushers in All Saints Day and then, on the 2nd, All Souls Day: Dia de Muertos. Our time of remembrance of those who have come and gone before us continues through to Martinmas on the 11th of November. I’ll write more about these things as they unfold. For tonight, though, a simple wish for a warm and spirited Hallowe’en. And if you’ve not received this year’s Convivio Dispatch for Hallowe’en (it would’ve come to your inbox as an email late last night), I’ve figured out a way you can read it without being a subscriber. It’s magic. All you have to do is click here.

Happy Hallowe’en from all of us at Convivio Bookworks: Seth, Haden, and me.
John

 

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