Howard Hughes and the Great Pumpkin
Nov. 1st, 2007 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastThe trick-or-treaters were sort of a bust this year, which means we're stuck with loads of tooth-rottingly sweet, mass-produced, injection-molded high-fructose corn syrup. We get fewer trick-or-treaters every year. Don't know if it's the pernicious influence of evangelical Xtianity or just lazy kids (or lazy parents), but it's a tad disheartening. Me and Byron and Spooky sat on the front porch last night, drinking pumpkin ale, and when all was said and done, we'd aided in the dental undoing of maybe a dozen kiddos. We were prepared for maybe ten times that number. Spoot.
The Second Life Samhain ceremony, on the other hand, went off rather well. It was strange, to say the least, conducting a sabat in a virtual environment. I'm not sure what William Gibson would have to say about it. At some point, I said something to Byron about the irony of practicing a Nature religion in cyberspace, and he unhelpfully pointed out that, in the end, all the materials that make up a computer — from silicon to various plastics to copper and so forth — that it was all just "dirt and rocks." On the one hand, I could not disagree with the reductionist logic, but on the other... Well, regardless, thanks to those who came. In the end, I opted to do the ritual semi-skyclad, with a very fine black cloak, but nothing at all underneath. And no trees had to perish for our enormous bonfire (as long as you don't consider all the trees destroyed directly or indirectly to produce information tech and computers and Second Life and so forth). There was something genuinely magickal about the thing, though, and I have now brought Wicca to New Babbage. It went so well I suspect I will also be conducting a Yule ceremony behind the Abney Park Laboratory. Oh, and on November 5th, you can bet there will be another bonfire at Abney Park, as there is an effigy of President Asshole which must be roasted ever so slowly.
Here in RL, we set out apples and cakes (and a little dry cat food) and ale on our altar.
Entries may be spotty until Saturday or Sunday as our two house guests are incoming — Jada from Little Rock and Garland from Birmingham. I will be very pleased to see old friends, but I am so totally not ready for house guests. And I need to wash my hair, and help Spooky straighten up the place a bit more, so I suppose I should go. Jada will be here at three, and I still have eye boogers. But the coffee has just arrived, and the platypus doesn't look too grumpy, so there's hope.
The Second Life Samhain ceremony, on the other hand, went off rather well. It was strange, to say the least, conducting a sabat in a virtual environment. I'm not sure what William Gibson would have to say about it. At some point, I said something to Byron about the irony of practicing a Nature religion in cyberspace, and he unhelpfully pointed out that, in the end, all the materials that make up a computer — from silicon to various plastics to copper and so forth — that it was all just "dirt and rocks." On the one hand, I could not disagree with the reductionist logic, but on the other... Well, regardless, thanks to those who came. In the end, I opted to do the ritual semi-skyclad, with a very fine black cloak, but nothing at all underneath. And no trees had to perish for our enormous bonfire (as long as you don't consider all the trees destroyed directly or indirectly to produce information tech and computers and Second Life and so forth). There was something genuinely magickal about the thing, though, and I have now brought Wicca to New Babbage. It went so well I suspect I will also be conducting a Yule ceremony behind the Abney Park Laboratory. Oh, and on November 5th, you can bet there will be another bonfire at Abney Park, as there is an effigy of President Asshole which must be roasted ever so slowly.
Here in RL, we set out apples and cakes (and a little dry cat food) and ale on our altar.
Entries may be spotty until Saturday or Sunday as our two house guests are incoming — Jada from Little Rock and Garland from Birmingham. I will be very pleased to see old friends, but I am so totally not ready for house guests. And I need to wash my hair, and help Spooky straighten up the place a bit more, so I suppose I should go. Jada will be here at three, and I still have eye boogers. But the coffee has just arrived, and the platypus doesn't look too grumpy, so there's hope.
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Date: 2007-11-01 07:22 pm (UTC)That's good. I was sorry to miss it. Oh, well, maybe the next one . . . I'm so tired of saying things like that every Halloween.
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Date: 2007-11-01 08:46 pm (UTC)~Jacob