Halloween in July August 01, 2024
A week or two ago, I saw something ominous at the grocery store.As I walked from the frozen food section, past the pharmacy, and towards the butter-and-eggs alcove, I spotted a cardboard display for Reese’s candy. Hmm. My eyes fixed on the unmistakab...
Salem’s Unholy Bargain October 31, 2023
The reaper and a spandexed vigilante pose for their mother behind a weathered headstone. Both peculiar subjects are barely a foot higher than the faded monument—by looks, no older than 12. The vibes are dour: Nobody smiles except the adult on the oth...
Everyone Can't Do Everything October 31, 2023
This piece in The New York Times details how Halloween and other holiday celebrations have been canceled at some public schools, under extremely vague equality terms. The best the article can muster is that this action has been taken in the spirit of...
On Peggy Ahwesh’s 'The Scary Movie' October 27, 2023
Staring hard at their own upheld palm is one of the more uncanny things infants do. Mid-play, mid-bath, mid-meal, a baby will come upon her hand as another of the world’s objects to be scrutinized, only this one is attached to her. An adult behaving ...
One Man Has a Surprising Solution to Cancel Culture October 24, 2023
To pinpoint the birth of the cancel culture era one has to go back to shortly before Halloween 2015.A group of Yale deans had sent an email urging students to avoid insensitive costume choices. Three days later, Erika Christakis, the co-director (the...
'Halloween' at 45 October 16, 2023
In 1978, a young man escaped from the psychiatric institution where he had been held for fifteen years, ever since he murdered his older sister as a six year old boy. After his escape, he began a brutal killing spree that left at least four people (a...
Kill Bill Volume 1 Is the Most Tarantino Film of Them All October 11, 2023
She landed at the multiplex this summer like a pink confetti bomb, blithely crushing the patriarchy under one (permanently) arched foot. Two decades before Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, though, Quentin Tarantino lured legions of moviegoers with his own bloo...