Every Day is Hallowe'en

Today was marred by pouring rain, but I don't mind, because --

Every day is Hallowe'en,
Hallowe'en, Hallowe'en.
Easter Sunday? Hallowe'en!
So's my birthday.

Monsters, ghosts, and vampiresses,
Werewolves with blonde, flowing tresses,
Octo-ladies, pterodactyls,
Christmas bulbs and fire cractyls,

All of them on Hallowe'en,
Hallowe'en, Hallowe'en.
Every day is Hallowe'en,
Just like New Year's.

Easter bunnies tossing knives,
Carollers that prey on lives,
Choirs howling at the moon,
Creatures from the Black Lagoon,

All of them on Hallowe'en,
Hallowe'en, Hallowe'en.
Boxing days are Hallowe'en,
And bar mitzvahs.

Could You Do Any Better?

In Youtube comments, I see more and more often that failed response to criticism, "Could you do any better?" -- as if only Vaughan Williams were allowed to complain about the lack of counterpoint in current film scores, as if only Kurosawa could point out the incoherence of current action sequences.

Yet I never see the obvious flip-side to this argument: "Could you do as well?" Unless you, too, are a film director, actor, writer, or composer, then you have no right to praise films, performances, screenplays, or music. So shut up!

Her Haunting Beauty

In a dream tonight, I found myself in a long, narrow kitchen with olive-coloured walls and a polished wooden counter like a bar. Against the counter stood an equally-extended table, covered with food like a buffet, where people sat and watched a film from the 1970s on a widescreen HD monitor that was hung above the counter. As I walked beside the table, my attention was drawn from the food to the film. The sound was muted, and I had no idea what the film was; I wanted to ask the people there, but they were too engrossed in conversation for me to dare interrupt them.


The film took place in a futuristic, art nouveau train car, elaborately decorated with gleaming wood, brass, and chrome. Every now and then, the scene would shift to camera shots of the passing sunset landscape: a taiga forest where the trees glowed with dazzling neon greens and deep blue shadows. The rocky ground was thick with emerald green moss, and bogs went by with flashes of orange or neon pink. For all of their psychedelic brilliance, the colours never seemed like a photographic trick; instead, they seemed the actual colours of an impossible forest.

The lead actress in the film, dressed like a 1960s hippie in elaborate shawls, wore a black beret and round, wire-rimmed glasses. She had gentle eyes, a gentle face, and every closeup revealed a haunting beauty that seized and held my attention.

Only after I woke up did I realize: the actress had been my last girlfriend.