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Halloween - is it just me?


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I like all the paranormal fun of it since I adore fantasy, sci-fi, and paranormal genre stories anyway. This is just a time of year when it's okay for everyone to say they do too. Plus, people LOVE to be scared, as evidenced by the stories throughout history that prey on the fight or flight center of the brain. As far as pumpkin spice, though, I think all the blame for that belongs to Starbucks. Bah. 

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I love Halloween and fall and everything to do with it.  The colors, cooler temps, fall food.  I unashamedly love anything with pumpkin spices in it.  Cia is right that Starbucks started the whole "pumpkin spice latte" trend, but those spices have been used in fall foods for ages.  

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There are a lot of "new age" Wiccans who have spurred a bigger interest in All Hallows Eve (Halloween) and its co-celebration of Samhain. That and the movie A Nightmare Before Christmas.

 

As for the pumpkin spice thing, it has been done to death but if you're a cook it kind of makes sense. The things that are coming into season such as butternut squash, acorn squash, corn, pumpkins, etc blend beautifully with cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. 

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11 hours ago, northie said:

I'm with you, Sasha. I enjoy writing scary stories, and I don't mind eating themed biscuits and such, but generally? Yeah, I don't get it either.

Oh northie, I knew I could rely on you :)

 

thanks for the feedback guys, and the cool southwestern halloween traditions, that's kind of cool.

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I never cared for it. I'm not a big fan of scary/paranormal in general. I think I went trick or tritting only once with friends when I was a kid (plus i hate wearing costumes)

But I noticed a degrease of interest the last couple of years in France. No more shelves full of costumes at the stores, and no pumkin flavor everything (pumkin are for soup/purée and that's about it) and only a couple of kids at the door (we jump right to christmas) 

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Halloween is actually seeing a bit of a comeback of sorts. It was becoming a forgotten holiday. Christmas being the one that everyone/every business are already preparing for. Aside from all the pumpkin based foods I am glad to see it coming back. Although, back when I was a kid we had to work for our candy - there was no such thing as designated Trick-or-Treating stops. We actually had to go door to door and people were generally happy to see us coming down the sidewalk. It used to take us all of the 7 - 9pm to get our sacks full of candy. Now it takes all of about 30 minutes to drive to your designated spot and get in line and just get the candy when it is your turn... 

 

But anywho, I've always liked dressing up. With kids it gives me a reason to do themed costumes. :D

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In the Bay Area, The Castro used to be the place to go on Halloween (and even the weekend before the Holiday – because they spent so much effort on their costumes they needed to show it off more than just the one night!) – in costume, of course. They used to shutdown several blocks to traffic, including Market St. But more and more non-costumed heteros started showing up to gawk and cause problems. There were a few shootings by out of town troublemakers before the event was shut down for good.  :–(

 

I remember eating at The Patio Cafe back in the ‘90s. Suddenly, a guy in a blue gingham dress and a shepherd’s crook ran into the restaurant and yelled, ‘I’m Little Bo Peep and I’ve lost my sheep!’ And then he ran out again! Everybody had been startled into silence, but then we all started laughing when we realized what had happened.  ;–)

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On 10/7/2018 at 2:51 PM, Sasha Distan said:

It's October, and the world seems to have gone orange-pumpkin-scary-ghost crazy.

In the US (and possibly Canada), the pumpkin-everything is probably more related to Thanksgiving. Canada’s Thanksgiving is today and US Thanksgiving is at the end of November. Pumpkins are not just associated with Halloween.  ;–)

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I love Halloween. Like, all of October is Halloween to me. Mostly, I think this is because I'm still kind of a goth at heart, and I just love everything spooky and weird, and Halloween is the best time to express that without people thinking you're crazy. I mean, Halloween actually wasn't a thing here in Norway at all until a couple of decades ago when it slowly started to seep in. At that point, I had already been exposed through various media, including novels I liked, and jumped straight on the bandwagon. Again, goth. Spooky and weird is my jam.

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We can’t conquer the entire world with our army, so we’ll do it more subtly. We’ll export our culture through our movies, music, and food. We’ll convince you to buy iPhones, Mochachino Grandes, Big Macs, California Rolls, and pizza! Muahahaha!  ;–)

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6 hours ago, droughtquake said:

We can’t conquer the entire world with our army, so we’ll do it more subtly. We’ll export our culture through our movies, music, and food. We’ll convince you to buy iPhones, Mochachino Grandes, Big Macs, California Rolls, and pizza! Muahahaha!  ;–)

 

You so did not invent pizza. :P 

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17 hours ago, Thorn Wilde said:

Yeah, but so has every other country. Norwegian pizza is Norwegian.

And just wait until someone decides to start selling Chicago-style Stuffed Pizza in Norway. It’s not deep-dish or stuffed-crust pizza. Chicago isn’t quite as full of itself as either NYC or LA, so they don’t do as much self-promotion.  ;–)

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9 hours ago, droughtquake said:

And just wait until someone decides to start selling Chicago-style Stuffed Pizza in Norway. It’s not deep-dish or stuffed-crust pizza. Chicago isn’t quite as full of itself as either NYC or LA, so they don’t do as much self-promotion.  ;–)

 

Actually, a lot of pizza shops in Norway sell what they call 'Chicago pizza', but it's kind of not quite it.

 

Mostly, Italian pizza is the popular thing now, though. More and more Italian pizza places cropping up.

Edited by Thorn Wilde
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On 10/10/2018 at 6:40 PM, Thorn Wilde said:

I love Halloween. Like, all of October is Halloween to me. Mostly, I think this is because I'm still kind of a goth at heart, and I just love everything spooky and weird, and Halloween is the best time to express that without people thinking you're crazy. I mean, Halloween actually wasn't a thing here in Norway at all until a couple of decades ago when it slowly started to seep in. At that point, I had already been exposed through various media, including novels I liked, and jumped straight on the bandwagon. Again, goth. Spooky and weird is my jam.

 

Halloweird is my fav too, now. Christmas and Easter hold too many sad memories for me now that my family is gone. But, Halloweird and All Souls is a celebration where I feel like they an be with me in spirit. I suppose I am becoming more part of that world beyond than the one I'm in now. I suppose that's why a lot of my stories deal with the theme of life surviving death. Halloween is every day for me.

 

I am also an aging Goth. I'll actually be going to my monthly coven Sabbat tomorrow night (nightclub) to dance again to Bauhaus! :P

 

9 minutes ago, Thorn Wilde said:

 

Actually, a lot of pizza shops in Norway sell what they call 'Chicago pizza', but it's kind of not quite it.

 

Mostly, Italian pizza is the popular thing now, though. More and more Italian pizza places cropping up.

 

I've been seeing more 'authentic' Naples style pizza places cropping up here in San Diego and LA. Pizza Margherita has become the favorite flavor of pizza lately over pepperoni. We have one Uno's for Shytown style, but it's weird it doesn't catch on down here too much. NYC style pizza has held rein here in California for too long and now brick oven 'California' style has replaced that thanks to Wolfgang Puck at Spagos. My NY and Jersey friends keep telling me that I need to move out of SoCal and come to where they are because I'm more of a NY Pizza snob than they are. LOL. I tend to like NY style pies and frequent the 'old' pizza places where I can still get that. I HATE BBQ Chicken Pizza! YUCK!

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47 minutes ago, MrM said:

NYC style pizza has held rein here in California for too long

That’s not necessarily true of the Bay Area.

 

The East Bay has the award-winning, four-location, employee-owned Zachary’s Chicago Pizza (but the Berkeley and Oakland restaurants have ambiance that the two newer suburban locations just don’t have).

PizzaPull_72.jpg

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