Première de deux citrouilles

 Je m'y suis pris tôt cette année, enfin relativement tôt, mais selon ce que j'ai lu c'est le bon temps pour creuser les citrouilles en Jack O'Lanterns. J'ai donc décidé de creuser les citrouilles ce soir, comme ça j'ai toute la fin de semaine pour les apprécier et jusqu'à mercredi soir (inclusivement). Ceci est la première, de la citrouille plus petite. Je voulais un sourire fade comme dans le poème que j'avais appris en troisième année. Elle a peut-être l'air un brin trop bonasse et pas assez démoniaque. Je ne sais pas. Dites-moi ce que vous en pensez.

Pumpkin Ghoulash

This is a quick countdown to Halloween post and another that is about food. I am not the biggest fan of tinned soups, but some companies really make great soups just like the ones you would find at home. I love the ones made by Covent Garden Soup Co. They have a soup of the month, which every October is of course Halloween themed (I mentioned one back in 2008): it is a Pumpkin Ghoulash soup. Notice the voluntary mispelling of goulash. You can even find the recipe on the website. I am plugging it on Vraie Fiction today because it is absolutely delicious. It has just as much if not more carrots and other things as it has pumpkin. But it is a very much a seasonal, autumnal soup. It is hearty and filling and delicious. I love soup when it is hearty. When I have a cold like now, soups such as this goulash give me energy, sooth the pain in my throat and nose and overall bring me back to life. The Pumpkin Ghoulash also gives you two portions of fruits and vegs, which makes it almost too good for the gluttonous nature of Halloween. Still, it is perfect comfort food. And it is made of pumpkin. So it is my Halloween soup and I think I will eat it on Halloween night.

Premier acte de Faust

C'est l'Halloween très bientôt, je me demandais quoi télécharger ici comme musique et je me suis rappelé d'une semi-tradition que je n'ai pas observé à chaque année, mais assez régulièrement: télécharger un peu du Faust de Gounod. Je vais donc en faire une tradition d'Halloween sur ce blogue. Faust est ici interprété par Roberto Alagna et Méphistophélès par René Pape. C'est une très belle mise en scène.

Halloween donuts

I bought these a few days ago. They were a pound in Sainsbury's (they sell all Halloween desserts for a pound, so it's a bargain). I crave donuts from time to time and those are Halloween donuts, so I had to buy them. Maybe I am a sucker. After all, they are normal, glazed donuts, only with an orange glazing and some chocolate sprinkles.  Their association with Halloween is tenuous at best.

Then again, maybe I am not such a sucker. For one, those donuts are associated to the gluttonous aspect of Hallowen, of which trick or treating is a modern manifestation. Donuts are also associated in The Simpsons's episode Treehouse of Horror IV, where Homer sells his soul to Satan for a donut (you can see a few minutes of the episode here). In a way, he makes a Faustian pact. Now, I can also mention that Anthony Burgess,my favourite author, wrote in a dissertation on Marlowe's Dr Faustus that Faust secretly desires damnation because he wants to experience hell. So every time I eat a donut I think of this episode of The Simpsons, and then of the Faustian pact, and about the appeal of eternal damnation when one is tempted by Satan in folklore...

And I cannot believe that in one post I talked about Marlowe, Anthony Burgess, the legend of Faust, Halloween, The Simpsons in a post about trivial donuts.

Le Diable et moi

Cette illustration est tirée de ce bouquin, elle est je crois d'Erlé Ferronnière. Je l'ai téléchargée parce que c'est l'Halloween bientôt, parce que ce démon est sans doute le Diable en personne, que je parle du Diable ici et parce que ce que je vais écrire, je l'ai appris du livre. Dans le chapitre sur les démons, j'apprend donc que parmi les surnoms de Satan, il y a celui du "vieux Guillaume". Je sais que pour Lucifer, c'est un nom de guerre, mais quand même. J'ai l'un des noms du Diable.

Looking like a vampire

This is tonight's countdown to Halloween post. The picture was taken from this book. I don't look nearly as sinister or as grim as the count, I do not have his old fashioned elegance either, but I sure looks like a vampire. I have a cold see. When I have a cold, it usually starts in autumn and lasts until May. So I look pale, I cough, I sleep badly during weekdays, which means my eyes look very vampiric, bloodshot and all. I look like a Nosferatu all right, or a man who will soon turn into one.

And it might be the case. Vampires, just like werewolves,can become what they are not only by being bitten, but also through indirect means, say being a heathen, an heretic, and excommunicated or... being a werewolf in your lifetime. So I fit the bill. These days, I certainly have the right look.

Pourriture et consolation montréalaises

Ce n'est pas une nouvelle qui m'a fait sauter de joie, mais elle m'a consolé un peu du triste état de ma ville: Gérald Tremblay, cette chiffe molle sans leadership, ce petit minable créationniste qui a réussi à être maire de la métropole du Québec pour trois mandats, ne se représentera pas aux prochaines élections municipales. Il y a quatre ans, j'espérais que les électeurs lui montrent la porte. Ca aurait été la punition appropriée. On se console comme on peut...

One week until Halloween

I am writing here something obvious. But Halloween is an obsession of mine. The official countdown starts on the first of October, but for me it starts in early September, sometimes even before. This year I started reading horror stories from mid-August. It is something I do since I am a child, as thinking of Halloween helped me coping with the end of holidays and the grey days of school. It is a shame Halloween this year will happen on a Wednesday, in the middle of the week, when I am at my most tired and when I usually go to bed early. In many ways, I celebrate Halloween more in the days before than on the night of the 31st. I guess it comes from being an adult. I don't do trick or treat, but I do enjoy it differently, in a more mature way I guess. Anyway, this is a good reason as any to upload a Jack O'Lantern picture. This is the one I made in 2010.

Question existentielle (156)

Mon lectorat de longue date doit savoir que je suis fasciné par la légende de Faust, je pose donc cette question existentielle:

-Contre quoi vendriez-vous votre âme au diable?

Childhood nightmares

So this is tonight's countdown to Halloween post. The picture uploaded is of course taken from this book. A simple pictures, but so sinister. Jack O'Lantern, or someone with a Jack O'Lantern/carved pumpkin as a head (or a mask) offering a gift to a chubby child. But look at what is hiding in Jack's pocket. This picture triggers childhood fears.

I don't remember many childhood nightmares, but those I do are still vivid in my head. My earliest one was of an army of monsters, or at least a pack. There was a humanoid green scales monster, half lizard half ape, with sharp canins and red eyes, the leader of the band, and his wolf-like second in command (as big as a bull, black fur, really scary). They were looking for me in the house, I was trying to hide, sometimes they just turned their gaze towards me, and just kept it there, showing me they knew exactly where I was hiding. I also remember dreaming of a witch who morphed into a friendly creature (a fairy or a princess), so she could kiss children and turn them into toads. They had to receive the kiss willingly. I had a few other nightmares with witches. I also dreamt of running away from another army of living dead/monsters that had taken over a village. Older, I dreamt of Dracula after reading the novel. Another little anecdote which I mentioned before, very interesting: my brother PJ once dreamt of a bogeyman, but the nightmare was so good that we discussed it at lenght all day, he draw the monster, a mix of Count Orlock and a serpent man if my memory serves me well, and we hoped he would dream the sequel the next night. Sadly it didn't happen. And you, what are/were yours?

Halloween à l'école primaire (souvenir)

Photo de la citrouille creusée en Halloween en 2010. Il m'est venu en tête un souvenir scolaire un souvenir scolaire datant de ma deuxième année, un souvenir qui me hante: on avait trois citrouilles dans la classe, le gros luxe. Les citrouilles étaient la propriété de trois équipes, on leur avait inventé des curriculum vitaes et des noms. On avait voté pour les noms. Je ne me rappelle pas exactement, mais comme citrouille est un nom féminin en français et comme les filles étaient majoritaires, les citrouilles avaient été baptisées des trucs comme Fleurette, Jeannette, Charlotte, Poufiasse (heu, non, pas Poufiasse, ça c'est moi qui a l'esprit cruel et mal tourné). Enfin bref, des noms dégeulasses et mignons. Quand l'Halloween était toute proche on en avait fait... de la confiture. Pas des Jack O's, de la confiture. Je me rappelle avoir trouvé ça moyen comme goût, bien que maintenant j'en mangerais rien que par nostalgie. Pour la petite histoire, on avait coupé les citrouilles nous mêmes en petits morceaux, avec des couteaux. Ce qui avait entraîné bien des coupures et des doigts ensanglantés. On vivait dangereusement à l'époque.

A pumpkin

This is this Sunday's countdown to Halloween post. I was not sure what to blog about exactly. I have been struggling with a horror story that is not really coming up, to my great disappointment. I have been wanting to write something like my take on the Jack O'Lantern legend (see here and here), but you might have to wait next year. I decided to go the easy way and simply upload the picture of a pumpkin, one that would make a perfect Jack O'Lantern. This is a pumpkin from one of uncle's garden (on my dad's side). It was taken by my cousin. I mentioned her in a French post yesterday, where I uploaded on Vraie Fiction another of her pictures. She had shown them on Facebook in an autumn album. My cousin is lime me, I think, very much into autumn. And this picture is so beautifully autumnal I had to upload it here. I also wanted to show how talented she is.

La gentrification de Chicoutimi

À titre de préambule, on n'a pas encore répondu à ma question existentielle numéro 155. Je plogue la question pour une autre raison: je pensais à Chicoutimi quand je l'ai posée. J'ai cessé d'y vivre depuis 1999, et encore j'y vivais alors durant les vacances, puis j'y suis retourné pour des périodes sporadiques (sans compter les vacances, s'entend) entre 2001 et 2003. Depuis, j'y retourne en expatrié Et une chose me frappe: la ville s'est gentrifiée. Bien sûr, on peut encore manger gras et Chez Georges est encore populaire (ce ne serait plus Chicoutimi sans LE steak house), mais on y retrouve en plus des endroits urbains et branchés comme Café Cambio, lequel pourrait très bien se situer sur le Plateau Mont-Royal, disons. Lorsque je retourne à Chicoutimi, ça m'étonne toujours un peu, la présence de boutiques bio, de sushi bars, etc. Bon, il y a encore cette horreur de Pacini et d'autres endroits d'un quétaine absolu. Et un maire préhistorique, il va sans dire. Mais la ville s'est gentrifiée. Suis-je le seul à l'avoir remarqué? Ce n'est pas un mal, cela dit ça fait de l'expatrié que je suis un peu un étranger aussi.

A Jack O'Lantern tale

This is my second countdown to Halloween post today. The first one you can read here. This picture I took from this book and drawn by this great artist. Jack looks like Sisyphus on this image, which I think is fitting. The Jack before he gained the latern, I always picture him like this old man, with the lantern chained to him, as punishment. I was looking for another retelling of the legend to post/upload here in Vraie Fiction. I have written my own take on the tale, which you can read here (for part 1) and here (for part 2). I am proud of these posts, of this story I wrote. I am trying to write a Halloween story this year, but I find it quite difficult this time. I hope I can produce something readable until Halloween. Anyway, until Halloween, and as the night is getting closer and closer, I thought I would upload another story of Jack O'Lantern, which I found on YouTube. It was taken from Spooky Maryland. I did not read it and I am not even sure the video is the complete story. But I love the atmosphere. And we need more Jack O'Lantern stories: the soul has been roaming this earth for centuries, after all. In any case, here it is. Tell me if you enjoy it or not.

Une feuille d'automne

L'une de mes cousines (du côté de mon père, la fille d'un de ses frères) est une mordue de la photographie. Photographe amatrice, peut-être même un peu professionnelle. Je dis ça parce qu'elle fait des trucs vraiment impressionnants. Elle est en tout cas très talentueuse. Je ne dis pas ça simplement par fierté familiale. Elle télécharge souvent des photos sur Facebook. Récemment, elle a fait un album automnal qui m'a coupé le souffle (rien de moins). J'ai donc décidé, avec sa permission bien entendu, d'en publier certaines sur Vraie Fiction. C'est un peu pour ploguer le talent familiar, mais c'est surtout pour les partager avec mon lectorat. Je commence par celle-ci, peut-être ma préférée. Une simple feuille en automne.

Evil in the fog

Here is a quick post for my countdown to Halloween, unfortunately I do not have a picture to accompany it. I woke up this morning and it was foggy outside, or at least misty. It disappeared quickly, so I did not have time to take a picture, or I did not take the time. I was too busy awing at the fog.

People know what is the link here with Halloween: the fog is the elements in which many monsters and evil creatures dwell, and is an important part of many horror stories. Ghost appear in the fog, they are themselves etheral and fog like, will-o'-the-wisps lead travellers to their doom in foggy swamps, vampires can become mists themselves. The movie The Fog makes it even a malevolent creature in itself. I enjoyed that one, by the way. It is not nearly as good as Halloween (the plot often gets messy), but I thought it mixed fairly well elements of a classic ghost story with slashers. And it had lots of fog and the atmosphere that comes with it. So today I was looking at the fog and thinking about all the evil that could dwell in it.

Question existentielle (155)

C'est une question existentielle d'une importance capitale, quand on y pense:

-La gentrification d'une ville, d'un village ou d'un quartier est-elle une bonne ou une mauvaise chose?

Musing on ghosts

I bought this decoration at the local sweet shop, which is not closed yet as it was supposed to. It is, however, on sale. They current owners advertised it as "a profitable business", so it might survive. This is the foreword, my post is not about the sweet shop. It is of course part of the countdown to Halloween and this ghost is perfect to accompany the post. I love his crooked teethed smile and the spiders covering his shroud (or his ectoplasm?).

I thought about ghosts recently and their place in the horror folklore and literature. I am in no way expert, but I do have some knowledge and years of studies of literature did give me some analytical skills. So about ghosts... The ghost above might not be as friendly as Casper, he still does not look very scary. At best he looks mischievous. Ghosts are not always hostile to mankind, but most are terrifying, or at least try to be. They predate the horror genre in folklore and mythology, even in tragedy they are plot devices and deus ex machina. In a time of rationalism, when even horror movies often picture psychopaths and monsters from space more often than they do supernatural beings, they still survive: alien abduction might be the modern superstition, but there are still people who believe in ghosts and even think they saw one. I don't believe in ghosts (or in alien abductions), but I do understand the appeal of ghosts: if they existed, they may not prove that souls (or God) do, but they would sure give some kind of credentials to a hypothetical life after death. I think even in the scariest, nastiest ghost story, there is an element of wish-fulfilment.

Horror stories were originally called "ghost stories", whether they had ghosts in them or not. As antagonists, ghosts pose a problem to the writer (and the reader who wants to be scared): in essence, they are exactly this, essence, they are a presence, but are immaterial, thus they do not in theory present a physical threat. They can be repulsively ugly, terrifying, they can scream, have sepulchral voices, skulls instead of heads, they still do not represent a physical threat, for all their malevolence. Of course, this is not quite true: their mere presence can lead one to madness, even suicide. Often they can hypnotise or subjugate human beings and push them to their death. And they can be, at least partially, material. Poltergeists obviously can influence their physical surroundings. Someone like me who read plenty of ghost stories know that many ghosts can take material guises, inhabit statues, the bodies they had in their human life, can take the form of an animal, haunt a tree and so on and so forth. In a way, they are maybe the most inspiring monsters of the horror genre, because they come in all shapes and forms. And I will finish this post with a quote from Robert Aickmam, which I found in The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories: "The ghost (...) reminds us that death is the one thing certain and the thing most uncertain; the bourn from which no traveller returns, except this one."

Blogues et inspiration(s)

Je me demandais sur quoi bloguer ce soir pour mon billet en français. Et puis j'ai vu que Cynthia de Sur un Boeing Bleu de Mer avait blogué aujourd'hui un billet partiellement inspiré de mon obsession sur l'Halloween. Je suis heureux de voir qu'à défaut d'avoir beaucoup d'inspiration parfois, je peux inspirer certains blogueurs, du moins indirectement. Et je vous signale par ailleurs que mon appel à tous à propos de l'oeuvre du diable n'a jusqu'ici qu'été entendu par Loulou. Sinon, mon obsession sur l'Halloween fait des merveilles à Vraie Fiction: j'ai de plus en plus de lecteurs (mes suivants sont maintenant au nombre de 47), de plus en plus de commentaires et j'ai à peine le temps d'y répondre.

Fiendish Fancies (Halloween treats)

This is another quick countdown to Halloween post. It is a trivial one too, I suppose, although it might say something about me and about us, Halloween aficionados. I discovered French Fancy cakes in England, back in my first year here. When I was doing my Master degree, we often had tea before a specialist came to a seminar and there was always biscuits and French Fancies. I have never been a big fan, of this or indeed any of My Kipling's products, but I enjoyed them all right. I have no idea why it is called a French Fancy.

Anyway, during Halloween, they are rechristened Fiendish Fancies, which is a bit silly, but there you go. If you don't know it yet, I have a sweet tooth. I mean I get ravenous for sugar sometimes. My love for Halloween is based on many things, one of them being the scary nature of it, another being the gluttonous aspect of it, in our modern age expressed by the trick or treat ritual. As an adult, I don't go trick or treating, but instead I buy desserts and sweets that are Halloween related. So, while I never buy French Fancies usually, I shamelessly bought Fiendish Fancies on a whim, the moment I saw them in a shop. I think I am a sucker. I took a picture of the box, which is quite cool, and worth a purchase in itself. You cannot see the cakes well, but you can see the sugar content on the bottom left. As I mentioned, I have a sweet tooth.