Night of the Laughing Dead
October 27, 2005

When I was a kid, Halloween was big deal, second only to Christmas in the official kids handbook of top 10 events. This was long before adults co-opted the celebration into an all-night Bacchanal of sex, drugs, booze, and masquerade, more like a mini-Mardis Gras of indulgence than a kid-friendly night of spooks and sugar highs. In my day, it was all about the thrill of getting to go out after dark (when we were really little), and, in later years, finding a really cool costume. And, of course, there was all that candy.

In my earliest memory of Halloween, I'm walking down the street with my brother Steve. He's in the tiger costume he wore for several years. I think I'm dressed as a bunny; I seem to remember a wire hanger on top of my head, holding up the ears. I must have a mask cutting off my peripheral vision; all I see is the back of my father loping along in front, his white T-shirt floating above us like a beacon in the shadowy dark.

Later childhood costumes were more extravagant. In fourth grade, I was a Geisha; we got a black wig with a top knot from somewhere, and my mom painstakingly applied my make-up; where I'd heard of Geishas, or what I thought one was, who knows. The next year, I found a plastic Jackie Kennedy mask at the dime store (it was 1962). I borrowed a blue sheath dress and a pillbox hat from my Aunt Jeannie, and trick-or-treated with my girlfriends, the twins. Unfortunately, my fantasy of Camelot glamour eroded when all the neighbors thought I was their mother.

Everybody participated in Halloween in those days. One neighbor ladled hot cider out of a cauldron in the driveway for thirsty trick-or-treaters; another handed out fresh-popped popcorn in little red-and-white striped bags. One place had such an elaborate set-up in the front yard—tombstones, fake cobwebs, moaning and groaning piped out of hidden speakers, remote-control spiders rappelling down from the porch rafters—that I was afraid to walk up to the front door by myself. But being afraid was the best part, and the squealing was all in fun.

These distant rituals seem prehistoric in this jittery era of bogus anthrax scares and color-coded security alerts. Death is no joke these days, as the news from Iraq, and New Orleans, and Southeast Asia keeps reminding us. Yet, the inevitability of death, one way or another, drives us humans to create ceremonies to acknowledge, even honor Death as the last act of Life.

Halloween gets its present name from the early Christian calendar, the eve of the All Hallows, or All Saints Day (honoring the sainted dead), November 1st, followed by All Souls Day (where the vast majority of non-saintly dead get their turn), November 2nd. In pagan times, before the Church imposed its agenda on the seasons, this was one of those uncanny quarterly times of the year (like Beltane/May Day, and Midsummer) when the human world and the Otherworld intersected, and fairies, witches, and the souls of the dead were thought to be hovering nearby. Treats were left out for the dead, not out of fear, but as a promise to remember ancestors and loved ones.

These days, we ferry our kids to "safe" neighborhoods to receive their hermetically sealed, sanitized packages of commercial treats. But the ancient ritual of honoring the dead continues with Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, imported from Mexico. Dating back to the Aztecs, it's popular here in Santa Cruz, where, dead or alive, we love a good party. Altars are set up to honor the returning dead, piled with photographs, flowers, and whatever goodies the dear departed enjoyed in life, along with sugar skulls and the skeleton figures that symbolize the season. Dia de los Muertos skeletons aren't meant to creep you out; they're pictured laughing, drinking, surfing, getting married, or enjoying countless other earthly activities as a way of making the concept of death more user-friendly. Think of the raucous party-animal skeletons in Corpse Bride, having a blast in the afterlife while the living eke out their staid grey existence above.

Once again this year, a community Dia de los Muertos altar has been erected in the atrium of the Museum of Art and History. I usually drop by sometime in the season to place on the altar a photo of my dad and Jeannie, swigging champagne together at my wedding, along with a single yellow rose, the flower Daddy always brought me on special occasions. He was a veteran poker-player, so one year I left him four Kings out of a deck of cards (although he was such a cagey bluffer, he could win with a pair of twos). Art Boy once painted an ofrenda around a snapshot of the beloved grandmother who taught him magic tricks.

We like to think of our loved ones near enough at this time of year to enjoy the celebrations honoring them. Death is only serious for the living, and no one we know of has actually crossed the border from the Otherworld to tell us what it's like. Let's hope they're all having too much fun.

(Visit the Dia de los Muertos altar at the MAH for a free family festival of music, arts and crafts, Saturday, 11 am to 3 pm.)