Sunday, Oct. 17, 2004
5:46 p.m.
Pixie forgot about me yesterday, which is sad, but OK. I e-mailed her about getting together Hallowe'en weekend, but I haven't the slightest idea what we might do. Trick-or-treating is out quite entirely, mostly because we come from the last generation to really understand it.
Oh, yes, I speak from experience. My last two years of high school I gave out candy. I was greeted by children so bundled into coats that it was impossible to guess that they were anything more than perhaps the Michelin Man, but were apparently either a princess or a Jedi knight(depending on the sex of the child).
Invaraibly, each child would hold up their plastic Wal-Mart bag in perfect silence. Behind them on the sidewalk their mother is crooning, "What do you say, Honey? What do you tell the lady?" The kid looks bewildered for a minute and then goes: "Thank you?" The candy given to them, they turn around and toddle out.
Whatever happened to the joke? Whatever happened to saying "Trick-or-Treat?" Whatever happened to the witches, ghosts, zombies and scarecrows? There's just nothing scary about a princess and a Jedi knight is only scary when the knight in question is a twenty six year old at a Star Wars convention. I suppose all the old fashioned fears are being left behind for brand new ones. Why be scared of ghosts when you could be scared of learning witchcraft from Harry Potter? Why be frightened of the dark when you could be worried about who the other people on the Internet are? I guess kids today have their priorities all sorted out.
At the moment, it seems to be extremely popular to be afraid of clowns. While I do not doubt that there are those who have a real phobia, and I can understand why the exaggerated features of a clown can be scary, I do not understand why every punk kid who shops regularly at Hot Topic says they're terrified of clowns, especially as that's the store from which it is possible to buy the t-shirt that says "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me", from The Simpsons (and I grant, that particular clown is gruesome).
Ubu, which closed today, was done as a circus, all the actors are dressed as clowns. At the Saturday night show, there were two little girls at the show that Melisa, one of the actresses (who incidently has a five year old son) paid a lot of attention to. It's a very interactive show and kids are much more willing to participate than grown-ups are. Anyway, after the show I heard one of the girls telling the people who brought her that she wasn't afraid of clowns anymore because all the clowns in the show were nice, and she was glad they talked her into going. I think if the show accomplished nothing else, it succeeded because that girl got something incredibly good out of it. That's what theatre should be all about.