See the Pumpkin in the Dark and the Pain in Its Eyes

[vovat]

So, let's see. I guess I should start this last weekend, when we went to the Creamy Acres Night of Terror in Mullica Hill, New Jersey. We'd done this for the past few years, and it was pretty much the same. There are four different events that they arrange one after the other: a hayride, a corn maze, a house with psychedelic clowns where 3-D glasses enhance the visuals, and a haunted house. It's kind of weird that they still call them hayrides when I don't think I've had one that involved actual hay in years. That's probably a good thing, but they still use the name. I always have trouble finding the way through some of these things. While kids seem to get through them just fine, I have to make the actors break character to show me the way. Last year, I ended up wandering backstage at the clown house. We were close enough to the people in front of us that it didn't happen this time. That's still my least favorite part, though; I know creepy clowns are all the rage these days, but they just don't strike me as appropriately Halloweeny.


On Wednesday, we attended another event that was basically the same as last time, the Great Jack O' Lantern Blaze in Croton-on-Hudson, near Sleepy Hollow. It's always impressive, but it no longer has as much novelty.

I believe the model of New York City was new, though.


Then, on Friday, we saw Robyn Hitchcock in Montclair with Tavie and Ade.

It was just him solo; apparently Emma Swift, who performed with him the last few times I saw him, has been taking a break from singing. It was mostly on acoustic guitar, and I noticed he did a lot of finger plucking, something I've only recently learned how to do. He played harmonica on "Olé! Tarantula," and mentioned how much he liked hearing recordings of Bob Dylan concerts where he'd switch and test out different harmonicas.

He also did two John Lennon songs as it was the evening of John's birthday, and he mentioned that "Somewhere Apart," which he played on piano, was his attempt to write a Lennon song. For "Victorian Squid," about the repression of the Victorian era (which Robyn admitted was mostly mythical anyway), he mentioned bathing-machines, which I actually knew about from Alice in Wonderland and The Hunting of the Snark. And with "Sinister But She Was Happy," he talked about how Donald Trump never seemed happy, as if part of him knew how terrible he was and wanted to escape, and contrasted him with the Joker. That's definitely something I noticed about the former President. He was kind of a hedonist, but never really gave the impression of LIKING any of it; it struck me as entirely performative. Anyway, other songs I remember him playing were "Flavour of Night" (on piano), "Chinese Bones," "Vibrating," "Madonna of the Wasps," "Cynthia Mask," "Saturday Groovers," "I Often Dream of Trains," "Adventure Rocket Ship," "I Pray When I'm Drunk" (appropriate since the show was in a church), "Mad Shelley's Letterbox," "I Saw Nick Drake," and "Queen of Eyes." After the performance, I bought a copy of Robyn's illustrated book of lyrics and the live CD of I Often Dream of Trains.


We ate at a diner afterwards, and I was somewhat fascinated with the kids' menu. Such places will often give the children's meals names of cartoon characters, but they often end up really confusing, either because I don't know what the character has to do with the food or I do but it comes off as disturbing. I mean, I get the connection of the Little Mermaid to fish, but Ariel was horrified that humans eat animals she was friends with, so I wouldn't say it's entirely appropriate. And I hope Disney doesn't see that illustration. Was Mickey turkey just because the words sound similar (T-U-R-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!)? We got a ride to Jersey City, but it still took us forever to get back to Brooklyn, due to all the late-night maintenance and service changes. Yesterday, we saw The Many Saints of Newark at the theater, and I've already written about that. I would like to mention that the hot dogs at Alpine Cinemas are surprisingly good.