Linear Clouds

Linear clouds—that sounds like a jazz album.

A Fun Post-Halloween Activity

Halloween is eleven days behind us.  Yet, while walking around yesterday, I saw that many people still had their porch pumpkins.  Perhaps Halloween has become such an important holiday that we want to extend the Halloween spirit into the first weeks of November, in the same way in which we wish to extend the spirit of Christmas through the end of December.  

Thus, I am providing step-by-step instructions for a fun activity by which one can keep a little bit of that special Halloween magic alive.

1. Assemble a group of a dozen or more of your friends.

2. Provide each member of the group with a dark, hooded robe which will fully obscure his identity.

3. Provide each member of the group with a battery-powered lantern, ideally one with a design reminiscent of archaic candle- or oil-based lanterns.  (Bonus points are awarded if you refer to your lanterns as “lanthorns”.)  

4. Shortly before midnight, congregate in an uninhabited area such as a cemetery or woodland.  Don your robes and activate your lanterns.

5. Emerge from the uninhabited area and walk silently in single file down the sidewalk, holding your lanterns in front of you.  

6. Select a house which is clearly occupied, but whose occupants no one in your group knows.

7. If possible, fully surround the house, or, if prevented from doing so by fences or other obstacles, form a semi-circle in the front yard.  

8. Begin chanting in deep and ominous tones, preferably in Latin.  

9. When the homeowner emerges to question or challenge your group, do not acknowledge him in any way except by increasing the volume of your chanting and the menace of your intonation . . . 

Okay, on second thought maybe it’s better to put Halloween behind us and start looking ahead to Thanksgiving.