Not once in the twenty plus Halloweens I’ve lived in this Upper East Side brownstone have any Spidermen, Batmen, or little sparkly princesses knocked on my door, trick or treating. Nor have I ever seen any costumed kids canvassing for candy on my block. And why should they? They get far richer pickings over on the commercial avenues of Lexington and Third, where they speed walk from store to store collecting sweets in bulging shopping bags that drag their little shoulders down.
A few of my Manhattan neighbors, however, can always be counted on to uphold the Halloween spirit. Somewhat competitively, they festoon their buildings with jack-o-lanterns, black, plastic crawly things, blow-up characters, tons of dried corn husks and enough sprayed-on cobwebs to reach Saturn. With their enormous bony mitts and diaphanous, tattered shrouds, my favorite spooky, but chichi skeleton ghosts (shown here) make fitting companions for these Halloween passages:
- Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing; Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. — Edgar Allan Poe
- Everyone is a moon and has a dark side, which he never shows to anybody. — Mark Twain
- Her smile was the grave and her eyes the elevator to hell. I put out my hand. She knew what I was. — Bill Shields
- My candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open… — Mary Shelley
- Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud. – Sophocles
- Just like a ghost, you’ve been a-hauntin’ my dreams; So I’ll propose… on Halloween. Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like you. — Classics IV
- One need not be a chamber to be haunted; One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing; Material place. — Emily Dickinson
- Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things, which escape those who dream by night. — Edgar Allen Poe
Leave a Reply