Thread: Why Halloween Matters - an editorial by Lesley Bannatyne

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Give it a read, I found myself nodding in agreement through the whole piece.

http://www.iskullhalloween.com/why_h...n_matters.html

Thanks for that Chris!! That is a wonderful piece.

Yup. Can't argue with that. Always stunned but the folks who miss the creativity element of the holiday. Thanks Chris!

I have to agree (seemingly with everybody here!), that's a great editorial. Lesley Bannatyne's a great author who's books I've enjoyed reading. If you haven't yet read her work, might I suggest "Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History" as well as "Halloween Nation". The former is a great read on the history of our holiday, the latter is a treatise on it's modern cultural impact. Reading her work you get the feeling that she really is one of us.

thanks for posting that piece. i too agree with it. halloween78, i'll have to check out thjose books

Lesley is one of the best advocates for Halloween out there. I've talked to her a few times, and she even gave me the following blurb for my book THE WATCHING. Needless to say I encourage people to pick up any of her books for a great read on the holiday, whether from a modern or historical perspective.

"Kiss your cozy Halloweens goodbye. Melniczek creates a tense, off-kilter world where vengeance and loss drive characters to the brink and a seemingly endless array of imaginative horrors boot them into the void. Not for the nervous."

Hey Paul, nice tease for your book!

Wonderful piece! Thank you for sharing it, Chris.

I'll certainly be looking into those books, Halloweeny.

And Paul, what a great show of support!

Ophelia

Yeah, she was very kind offering such a cool blurb. Did any of you happen to see the History Channel special "The Real Story of Halloween?" It aired last year for the first time, and featured several commentators including Lesley and fellow Halloween author Lisa Morton. I'm hoping to catch up with Lesley at a Halloween convention in 2012. She definitely qualifies as one of the top Halloween historians around. And Lisa is pretty close too.

I am quiteglad to have had the chance to read that. Thanks very much for posting it. I get really cranky with articles/essays, especially on the internet, about Halloween because so many of them are either anti-Halloween rants based on erroneous religious interpretations of the holiday and its origins or they are superficial treatments of the holiday that often emphasize the commercial aspects above all others. Lesley Bannatyne did a fine job of acknowledging the commerical, nostalgic and socio-psychological aspects. Very, very cool stuff.