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- Sat, 21:06: Maybe there should be another Halloween in the summer, for lighter costumes.
- Sat, 21:44: RT @bridger_w: As appealing as dying on Halloween sounds, I imagine it's a bit like having your birthday on Christmas
- Sat, 21:56: I hear Geico sponsored a new Halloween special, "The Night Dracula Saved 15% on Car Insurance."
- Sat, 21:57: RT @P0TUS: If there is any justice in this world, at 2am every tweet sent in the previous hour will be retweeted.
Nov. 1st, 2015
Ghosts of Halloween Present
Nov. 1st, 2015 11:42 amYesterday was Halloween, and we even got an extra witching hour thanks to the switch back from Daylight Savings Time. Well, technically, that hour was part of All Saints' Day, so maybe it should have been used for honoring extra saints. I like Halloween, but yesterday turned out to be a bit of a let-down for me. I didn't bother putting together a costume, as I figured no one would see me anyway. Since we did go out to Manhattan, however, maybe I should have. It does still kind of depress me to see people hanging out with their friends. Then again, overhearing some of them makes me remember that I probably wouldn't get along with most people. At least I still have Beth.
I'll tell you more about what I did yesterday, but first let's go back to the previous Saturday, when we went on a haunted hayride in southern New Jersey. We'd been on this one before, and it's one of very few left in the area. There's one in Mullica Hill that seems to be popular, but there are six different attractions there, and you presumably can't get a ticket to just the ones you want. I'm really not interested in zombie paintball, but would feel it was a waste if I were to pay for it without doing it. The following day, we took the dogs out to Batsto Village, which isn't Halloween-related. We did get to see a lot of fall foliage, though. On Thursday, Beth and I visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for the second time, and the Brooklyn Museum for the first. The museum has a combination of ancient artifacts and more modern art, as well as several rooms set up as they would have been in different historical periods. ( Click here for pictures. )
Yesterday, we went on a ghost tour of the Manhattan financial district, hosted by a guy with a strong Long Island accent. He was apparently an actor, so I'm not sure how much of that was his actual voice and how much was put on for the role. This particular tour actually emphasized history over ghost stories, although there were some of the latter. A woman who belonged to the tour company would occasionally show up in a witch's hat to add a weird flavor. Our plan was then to see a midnight showing of A Nightmare on Elm Street at the Sunshine Theater at Houston and Forsyth, but we had several hours to kill before it started. We were originally going to eat at a Friday's in the financial district, but their prices must have been about twice as much as they were at other locations, so we abandoned that idea. We considered just getting pizza, but there was a restaurant in Little Italy that drew my attention because it apparently had good bread. It was also pretty expensive, but that's to be expected for such places; and the lasagna I had was really very good. Finally, we saw the movie, and while Beth has been a fan of the franchise since her childhood, it's the first time she saw one on the big screen. It was for me as well, but I didn't see any of them until adulthood anyway. We actually watched the last two films in the series (not counting Freddy vs. Jason) on DVD on the previous two nights, and we both prefer Freddy's Dead to New Nightmare. Apparently that's not a very popular opinion among fans. Anyway, there was a good showing at the theater, and what I found notable was how much people laughed at Nancy's mom, especially at what a drunk she was. Hey, you wouldn't find it so funny if were YOUR mom!
I also might as well say something about the most recent Treehouse of Horror Simpsons episode. It had some good jokes, but it seems like the earlier ones tended to have more solid stories. Sideshow Bob is always amusing, and although that segment was based more on the show's mythology than on any horror property, Beth pointed out the similarity to Re-Animator. In those films, Herbert West looked kind of like Elvis Costello, whose song was played in the Sideshow Bob bit. Also, they had someone teaching The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock in both that and It Follows. Probably not intentional, but interesting coincidences considering what we'd watched recently. Homer as Godzilla was largely just a less funny reissue of Homer as King Kong, although the riff on expensive remakes of movies that people liked partially BECAUSE they were cheap was amusing. We'd seen the kids with superpowers before as well, but apparently the segment was specifically a parody of a found footage film I'd never seen.
I'll tell you more about what I did yesterday, but first let's go back to the previous Saturday, when we went on a haunted hayride in southern New Jersey. We'd been on this one before, and it's one of very few left in the area. There's one in Mullica Hill that seems to be popular, but there are six different attractions there, and you presumably can't get a ticket to just the ones you want. I'm really not interested in zombie paintball, but would feel it was a waste if I were to pay for it without doing it. The following day, we took the dogs out to Batsto Village, which isn't Halloween-related. We did get to see a lot of fall foliage, though. On Thursday, Beth and I visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for the second time, and the Brooklyn Museum for the first. The museum has a combination of ancient artifacts and more modern art, as well as several rooms set up as they would have been in different historical periods. ( Click here for pictures. )
Yesterday, we went on a ghost tour of the Manhattan financial district, hosted by a guy with a strong Long Island accent. He was apparently an actor, so I'm not sure how much of that was his actual voice and how much was put on for the role. This particular tour actually emphasized history over ghost stories, although there were some of the latter. A woman who belonged to the tour company would occasionally show up in a witch's hat to add a weird flavor. Our plan was then to see a midnight showing of A Nightmare on Elm Street at the Sunshine Theater at Houston and Forsyth, but we had several hours to kill before it started. We were originally going to eat at a Friday's in the financial district, but their prices must have been about twice as much as they were at other locations, so we abandoned that idea. We considered just getting pizza, but there was a restaurant in Little Italy that drew my attention because it apparently had good bread. It was also pretty expensive, but that's to be expected for such places; and the lasagna I had was really very good. Finally, we saw the movie, and while Beth has been a fan of the franchise since her childhood, it's the first time she saw one on the big screen. It was for me as well, but I didn't see any of them until adulthood anyway. We actually watched the last two films in the series (not counting Freddy vs. Jason) on DVD on the previous two nights, and we both prefer Freddy's Dead to New Nightmare. Apparently that's not a very popular opinion among fans. Anyway, there was a good showing at the theater, and what I found notable was how much people laughed at Nancy's mom, especially at what a drunk she was. Hey, you wouldn't find it so funny if were YOUR mom!
I also might as well say something about the most recent Treehouse of Horror Simpsons episode. It had some good jokes, but it seems like the earlier ones tended to have more solid stories. Sideshow Bob is always amusing, and although that segment was based more on the show's mythology than on any horror property, Beth pointed out the similarity to Re-Animator. In those films, Herbert West looked kind of like Elvis Costello, whose song was played in the Sideshow Bob bit. Also, they had someone teaching The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock in both that and It Follows. Probably not intentional, but interesting coincidences considering what we'd watched recently. Homer as Godzilla was largely just a less funny reissue of Homer as King Kong, although the riff on expensive remakes of movies that people liked partially BECAUSE they were cheap was amusing. We'd seen the kids with superpowers before as well, but apparently the segment was specifically a parody of a found footage film I'd never seen.
