Just some thoughts. . .

Greetings from your fearless shipping manager.   Driving into work today I was gripped by the usual festive mood that envelopes me every October.   As the leaves change color and the temperature drops, my thoughts often turn to the dark origins of Halloween.  As a teenager, I first learned about the festival of Samhain, the druids and all that other good stuff that fans of the macabre revel in every October.   And for some sick, twisted reason, that history fascinates the heck out of me.    As I drove by some roadkill, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Roman practice of haruspicy where practitioners would divine the future by inspecting the entrails of dying animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep and poultry.   Gruesome. . .yes.   Fascinating. . .absolutely!!  Can I get an amen?!!  Tied in with that practice was anthropomancy or the divination of the future by inspecting the entrails of dying men and women.   Anyway, I don’t mean to bore you with a history lesson but merely to genuflect on the dark origins of my favorite holiday.   Whenever October rolls around, I feel a morbid enchantment consume me, the falling leaves look brighter to me, the clouds look whiter, the crisp October air seems crisper and the roadkill seems. . .well, deader.  

 And, naturally, I’ll break out my favorite movies and music for the month of October.  Yesterday, as I filled orders and folded shirts I put on the Halloween soundtrack followed by the  Halloween 2 soundtrack and, finally, the Halloween 4 soundtrack.   My neighbors in the office space we rent probably hate my guts because of the volume at which I blared the Halloween theme but I don’t care.   At some point this month I’ll sit down and watch Halloween 1 through 5, probably more than once because I’m that much of a geek. 

Presently, I’m reading Bare Bones: Conversations on terror with Stephen King.  It’s a great book, filled with interviews King has done over the years including the ever popular Playboy interview.  If you’re looking for a good read this month you might want to check that one out, King’s viewpoint is definately unique and reading his interviews is just as entertaining as reading his prose.  

Anyway, I’m going to sign off for the night.  Thanks for reading my rants and thank-you for supporting Fright-Rags.  ‘Night, gang.