There is a pattern. . .
Nov. 1st, 2007 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasFirst, you have The Other -- that which is from the other world, eerie, eldrich, weird.
Then you have people who notice that the time is like that, and use it to let loose their own chaotic side.
Then society notices this time, and finds ways to tame it, and channel it -- to let the channeling of chaos be directed into less-destructive means -- perhaps there is destruction, but it is a lesser level of destruction.
Society keeps working to lessen and lessen that destruction, and it becomes ritualized.
And then it becomes commercialized.
What is Hallow'een? Why are all the costumes nowadays pre-made, and slutty? Why can you not give out homemade goodies for trick-or-treating? Why do you give them out at all? And why, in more and more neighborhoods, are there no trick-or-treaters, and what does "trick-or-treat" mean, anyway?
First, you have the night of the cross-quarter day when the veil between the worlds is thinnest -- a delicate day, a careful day. One where one must be very careful about what one says or does.
Or you have the night of the Winter Solstice -- the darkest night of the year -- a day full of threat, and yet also promise -- a day sacred to the deity in charge of Revenge for the Romans, celebrated with feasts. And celebrated as the birthday of the human manifestation of the Christian God, and celebrated as a birth-and-death day of many other gods, as well. Also a perilous time.
And people notice that day, and respond to it -- but you have a second response: instead of spending the day being careful, you spend the day being as careless as you can.
Somehow, teenage males always seem involved in this step. And alcohol. Alcohol and teenage boys. These days -- and nights -- of peril and danger become days and nights of mischief and revelry.
"Revelry", by the way, is far from a completely pleasant idea. The word "revel" comes from the same root as "rebel". These are nights of danger in the most physical, brick-to-the-back-of-the-skull manner, as much as from the spirits which also form a danger.
And yet -- there is benefit to them, as well. "Rebel" and "revel" come from the same root -- and it may be that having the one inoculates against the other. Besides, entirely quashing these things never works. So you channel it.
Sure, it may be that there is a riot, a rebellion. But what if you formalize that rebellion? Elect a King and Queen of Misrule? Instead of having the drunken mob break into the houses and steal your food and drink, they stand outside and yell for you to bring it out to them. Yell? Perhaps we can do better, and make them SING for their figgy pudding and wassail bowl. Or, perhaps, instead of simply destroying your property, they'll give you a fair chance -- they'll offer you a deal -- if you don't want them to play pranks, such as setting your fields on fire, or putting your wagon on your roof, they'll give you a chance to bribe them. They'll offer you the choice: trick, or treat.
And as they get more formalized, they get less dangerous. Less terrible. They become for younger children -- not the drunken mobs of teenagers, but elementary school children.
We decorate a tree. Because the children enjoy it -- and we tell them stories of a jolly fat man who brings toys. Oh, sure, I guess if he divides people into good and bad, I guess he makes judgments, too, but we don't think about that. EVERYONE must be good, right?
And we've ritualized it to the point that we all know what to expect. It's ritualized to the point of being standardized. And, if it's standardized, then can't it simply be bought, rather than made? It's more efficient that way.
Just as the Fair Folk are a proud and terrible race, not to be named less they notice you and take offense, and yet fairies are little more than butterflies with human faces. How can Titania and Tinkerbell be of the same race? But we control our ideas, shrink them, make them less terrible.
What is an angel? I saw a quote once: some person wrote a book in which they claimed that everyone has a guardian angel, but many times, we overlook them.
And the quote asked, how the HELL is it possible to overlook an angel? An angel is a Messenger of God -- the problem with an angel isn't in OVERLOOKING it -- it's in not having the composition of your soul blasted to nonexistence by the inherent power of the radiant Glory of the angel. Angels can just about tone their existence down to the point where exceptional humans can SURVIVE an encounter with one -- NOTICING them isn't usually an issue.
How do you get from there to the idea of a cherub that you could, y'know, MISS?
We take the frightening, awesome things, ideas, and times of our life. And we make them safe. Christmas is a time for family, and presents, and not a time for overthrowing the social order and slaughtering the right in their beds and stealing their things. New Year's Eve isn't for getting drunk in public -- it's for the wonderful First Night celebration, with artwork, puppet shows, and fireworks. Halloween is for children dressed up like goblins, and not the real ones. And not even dressed up as real goblins, but dressed up as Willem Dafoe dressed up as Norman Osborn dressed up as the Green Goblin. And they trick or treat during daylight hours, since our government has so kindly extended Daylight Saving Time to make sure that they don't even need to experience the night during All Hallows' Night.
But.
There is only so far we can go. And we've gone too far. And that's why this one is bursting at the seams.
All that which we have repressed, pushed back, turned our clocks against -- it's all still there. And these times of year still touch it. We in Boston are fortunate in that we won the World Series and therefore were able to spend October 30th screaming and dancing through the streets, drinking, and watching our heroes dance Irish-influenced jigs through the streets of Boston, to Dropkick Murphys' music. That helped us.
But not the rest of you.
Why are there no non-sexualized costumes for women?
And why are there starting to be sexualized costumes for GIRLS?
What are we repressing, and where is it oozing out through the seams?
Then you have people who notice that the time is like that, and use it to let loose their own chaotic side.
Then society notices this time, and finds ways to tame it, and channel it -- to let the channeling of chaos be directed into less-destructive means -- perhaps there is destruction, but it is a lesser level of destruction.
Society keeps working to lessen and lessen that destruction, and it becomes ritualized.
And then it becomes commercialized.
What is Hallow'een? Why are all the costumes nowadays pre-made, and slutty? Why can you not give out homemade goodies for trick-or-treating? Why do you give them out at all? And why, in more and more neighborhoods, are there no trick-or-treaters, and what does "trick-or-treat" mean, anyway?
First, you have the night of the cross-quarter day when the veil between the worlds is thinnest -- a delicate day, a careful day. One where one must be very careful about what one says or does.
Or you have the night of the Winter Solstice -- the darkest night of the year -- a day full of threat, and yet also promise -- a day sacred to the deity in charge of Revenge for the Romans, celebrated with feasts. And celebrated as the birthday of the human manifestation of the Christian God, and celebrated as a birth-and-death day of many other gods, as well. Also a perilous time.
And people notice that day, and respond to it -- but you have a second response: instead of spending the day being careful, you spend the day being as careless as you can.
Somehow, teenage males always seem involved in this step. And alcohol. Alcohol and teenage boys. These days -- and nights -- of peril and danger become days and nights of mischief and revelry.
"Revelry", by the way, is far from a completely pleasant idea. The word "revel" comes from the same root as "rebel". These are nights of danger in the most physical, brick-to-the-back-of-the-skull manner, as much as from the spirits which also form a danger.
And yet -- there is benefit to them, as well. "Rebel" and "revel" come from the same root -- and it may be that having the one inoculates against the other. Besides, entirely quashing these things never works. So you channel it.
Sure, it may be that there is a riot, a rebellion. But what if you formalize that rebellion? Elect a King and Queen of Misrule? Instead of having the drunken mob break into the houses and steal your food and drink, they stand outside and yell for you to bring it out to them. Yell? Perhaps we can do better, and make them SING for their figgy pudding and wassail bowl. Or, perhaps, instead of simply destroying your property, they'll give you a fair chance -- they'll offer you a deal -- if you don't want them to play pranks, such as setting your fields on fire, or putting your wagon on your roof, they'll give you a chance to bribe them. They'll offer you the choice: trick, or treat.
And as they get more formalized, they get less dangerous. Less terrible. They become for younger children -- not the drunken mobs of teenagers, but elementary school children.
We decorate a tree. Because the children enjoy it -- and we tell them stories of a jolly fat man who brings toys. Oh, sure, I guess if he divides people into good and bad, I guess he makes judgments, too, but we don't think about that. EVERYONE must be good, right?
And we've ritualized it to the point that we all know what to expect. It's ritualized to the point of being standardized. And, if it's standardized, then can't it simply be bought, rather than made? It's more efficient that way.
Just as the Fair Folk are a proud and terrible race, not to be named less they notice you and take offense, and yet fairies are little more than butterflies with human faces. How can Titania and Tinkerbell be of the same race? But we control our ideas, shrink them, make them less terrible.
What is an angel? I saw a quote once: some person wrote a book in which they claimed that everyone has a guardian angel, but many times, we overlook them.
And the quote asked, how the HELL is it possible to overlook an angel? An angel is a Messenger of God -- the problem with an angel isn't in OVERLOOKING it -- it's in not having the composition of your soul blasted to nonexistence by the inherent power of the radiant Glory of the angel. Angels can just about tone their existence down to the point where exceptional humans can SURVIVE an encounter with one -- NOTICING them isn't usually an issue.
How do you get from there to the idea of a cherub that you could, y'know, MISS?
We take the frightening, awesome things, ideas, and times of our life. And we make them safe. Christmas is a time for family, and presents, and not a time for overthrowing the social order and slaughtering the right in their beds and stealing their things. New Year's Eve isn't for getting drunk in public -- it's for the wonderful First Night celebration, with artwork, puppet shows, and fireworks. Halloween is for children dressed up like goblins, and not the real ones. And not even dressed up as real goblins, but dressed up as Willem Dafoe dressed up as Norman Osborn dressed up as the Green Goblin. And they trick or treat during daylight hours, since our government has so kindly extended Daylight Saving Time to make sure that they don't even need to experience the night during All Hallows' Night.
But.
There is only so far we can go. And we've gone too far. And that's why this one is bursting at the seams.
All that which we have repressed, pushed back, turned our clocks against -- it's all still there. And these times of year still touch it. We in Boston are fortunate in that we won the World Series and therefore were able to spend October 30th screaming and dancing through the streets, drinking, and watching our heroes dance Irish-influenced jigs through the streets of Boston, to Dropkick Murphys' music. That helped us.
But not the rest of you.
Why are there no non-sexualized costumes for women?
And why are there starting to be sexualized costumes for GIRLS?
What are we repressing, and where is it oozing out through the seams?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
We can make our own non-sexualized costumes, you know
Date: 2007-11-01 05:36 am (UTC)Of course, you could make a case that what I was wearing really wasn't a costume, but just my own vintage wardrobe. In my experience, when I wear some of my vintage pieces, they really are costumes, and it doesn't have to be Halloween for me to dress up.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 06:28 am (UTC)May I post this to
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 09:10 am (UTC)I think you're talking about vents. If you don't have a vent for pressure to escape the whole system can blow. (Being an engineer sometimes means you view even Faerie through the most prosaid metaphor.) And it can be a vent in either time, as in Samhain and Saturnalia or in place. America was founded as a system with a vent: the Younger Sons, the ones who don't fit in, the ones who needed a bigger scope could light out for the territories, enabling the stability of propriety in the society they left behind. (What an odd sentence: Service and Twain and an ending that sounds like WS Gilbert. Sorry.)
What happens when you lose those temporal or geographical vents is that pressure on the whole system increases, and you start seeing leakages if you're lucky and explosions if you're not. So far I see leakages, but they're increasing: misbehavior both in terms of violence and sexuality in times and places where they would previously have been unthinkable, or at least kept tightly hidden. Wilderness encroaching on civilization: when bears are penned into too tight and area and food becomes scarce, they start showing up in back yards. Similarly with humans, and with the uncannier side of our natures.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 11:32 am (UTC)Yes.
There is a tendency too, for us humans - I don't know if it's only Americans or not, it might be - to think of ourselves as separate from nature. That "nature" is this thing "out there" and that we're better than it, or worst than it, but never actually a part of it. We dumb it down to or we say it's not understandable at all, and forget that we're inextricably natural too and therefore whatever we say about it applies to us as well.
When you cut a living thing from the matrix in which it is embedded two things happen: it dies, and then it rots.
Of course, I am discussing a philosophical severing here, but I think that the metaphor holds.
We leave no room for wildness in our lives - even with kids we've engineered our play areas until there is no risk of ever breaking an arm, and then to top it off, we take away their recess.
How can a person know what a boundary is if they cannot press up against it? How can they break through to a new place, if they are never even allowed to know what a boundary is - or if they think that everything is safe and engineered just for them?
I don't know what to do about it. I am a landscape architect and try to slip in a bit of danger and wildness where I can, before it gets value-engineered out, and I hope that it works at least sometimes.
N.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 12:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 12:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 01:00 pm (UTC)One of my favorite bits in Hodgell's _Godstalk_ (a funny, scary, intelligent heroic fantasy) is that the temples are built to contain the gods--that is, to keep the gods out of the rest of people's lives.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 01:33 pm (UTC)You mention the Winter Solstice above, which I'm sure you know is roughly December 22 and is part of the Celtic-Semitic-Roman mess that is Christmas.
What's being repressed by society at large is fear of sex and fear of death. So fear of life and death. Fear of everything. Welcome to America - 9/11 is hiding under your bed!
On the other hand my daughter was dressed as a wee little ghostee and fearfully approaching the spooky front steps of darkened houses. For her Halloween was alive and well, but she's 4, after all.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 02:03 pm (UTC)Why are all the costumes nowadays pre-made, and slutty? .... Why are there no non-sexualized costumes for women? And why are there starting to be sexualized costumes for GIRLS?
For that matter - men and BOYS are being sexualized with odd views of what their bodies "should" be. Have you seen the "muscle chest" costumes they now sell? I heard an interview on NPR with a manager of a Hallowe'en store. When asked if she thought this was a bad idea, that it would give "fat little boys" a bad body image - or worse, have them feel that they don't have to watch what they eat and exercise because they can just put on a "muscle suit" - the manager answered that, no, it was fine for little boys to wear these costumes because they are of super-heroes and super-heroes have muscles! I know, though, that the "muscle chests" are sold separately, not as part of a super-hero costume. Now middle-aged men can don the muscles over their paunchy bellies and look just as slutty (in my opinion) as if they were wearing a Pirate Wench or French Maid costume.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 02:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 03:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 05:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 05:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 05:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 05:31 pm (UTC)Thong Woman
Look and Choose for Thong Woman Compare Top 5 Popular Sites Here
www.suaXXXXeker.com
Modest Slips for Girls
Modest full slips for teens, girls and toddlers
www.modXXXXips.com
(urls redacted, the second one's easy anyhow)
Trick-or-treat
Date: 2007-11-01 05:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 05:38 pm (UTC)So, ahem: 9/11, if you will, has nothing to do with 9/11.
You asked what is being repressed; I said modern America is afraid of sex and death (and what else is there?), and I tied in the totally irrational fear behavior that masquerades as a response to 9/11.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 05:58 pm (UTC)The most disturbing reoccurring "sexy" costume last night was "Sexy Mad Hatter." Murrrr? Who even comes up with these things?
Personally, I went as a captured dark fairy, with real iron shackles on my wrists, and people had to lead me around so I wouldn't run off. I spent all night trying to make my friends' offers, and they kept seeing the tricks. Damn shackles.
I felt comfortable there, because the costume, like costumes of old, protected me from whatever was lurking in the corners, because no one wanted to mess with a dark fairy, captured as I was.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 06:49 pm (UTC)Tinkerbell was a common fairy so named because she mended the other fairies pots and pans. She is jealous and foul mouthed, too. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 07:11 pm (UTC)I find Peter Pan one of the most disturbing characters in children's literature. He's a true sociopath. And Tink is Harley Quinn to his Joker.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 08:37 pm (UTC)I guess some NYers had some of that ol' Halloween death chaos anyway. No one's died though. Just some blood for the gods.
N.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-01 09:42 pm (UTC)Re: We can make our own non-sexualized costumes, you know
Date: 2007-11-02 01:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-02 03:49 am (UTC)The answer, then, is to be the Other all the time.
(or, failing that, because we're only human - haphazardly and unexpectedly, whenever the hell we want.)
Re: There is a pattern. . .
Date: 2007-11-02 05:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-05 03:46 am (UTC)2. I started making my own costumes as soon as I was old enough to get help with the sewing. They included a unicorn (whole damn thing made of fake fur, I was not cold that year), Groucho Marx, Lythande (the reprise of which got me second place in a con costume contest one year), and various other strange things. There are photos somewhere, I'm sure.
3. Want to know what we're trying to repress? It's whatever is currently popping back up twice as vividly.
4. I think part of the whole slut-costumes-for-women thing is the desire to contain sexuality in accepted forms for the culture, and also to contain female power in accepted boundaries. It's kind of like a purposeful reversal of the old forms of Misrule, that were more likely to blow apart the usual gender categories during liminal times. In this culture, there's a kind of desperate shoring up taking place, an encouraging of women into female drag and men into male drag. It's a standard-issue symptom of cultural anxiety around this sort of thing.
5. Death anxiety is there too. I think that's a pretty complex system these days, though; you could write books about how that's being sublimated and where it re-emerges.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-05 06:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-05 07:21 pm (UTC)The Age of Exploration in Western European culture was, perhaps, the fifteenth century (Henry the Navigator) to the early sixteenth century. But colonization didn't really start happening until the early seventeenth century, perhaps fifty to a hundred years later.
Perhaps, in the modern world, things would go faster, but I'd expect a generation to go by from exploration to colonization.
Still, I suppose that's just an argument to start working on it earlier and faster.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-14 04:52 am (UTC)