Much has happened in the past week that feels catastrophic, if not outright apocalyptic: Hurricane Sandy, the lead-up to the presidential election, the sale of the Star Wars franchise to Disney . . . In a recent blog post, I said that I wanted something cool to happen for Halloween. Instead, a hurricane merged with a cold front to form a powerful hybrid storm that devastated the northeastern coastline and left millions without power. It makes me want to shout "Uncool!", but that would leave me feeling too much like Joey from Friends.
(By the way, in my last blog post, I used the redundant phrase "unexpected surprise", which was due to sloppy editing resulting from me trying to get the post up before the hurricane hit.)
In light of the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey issued an executive order postponing Halloween in his state until today. I am surprised that a governor or any other elected official would have the power to reschedule Halloween. I would think that Halloween would be controlled by some special Halloween Committee, at least three members of which would be required by law to have pumpkins for heads.
Another, perhaps final, Halloween observation is that today I saw that a lot of people have left the Halloween decorations up on the outside of their houses, even though it is almost a week after Halloween. Was this practice common in the past, but I never noticed? Or is it part of a recent societal trend? Or is there a specific desire this year to extend the Halloween season longer than usual to make up for Halloween being overshadowed by the hurricane?
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