The Halloween Tree is pure Halloween madness

 I decided to wrap up my enjoyment of Halloween things with Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree. As such things tend to be, it was both worse and better than my memories of past readings.

Published in 1972, it describes the fantastic journey of eight boys as they both discover the origins of Halloween and try and save the life of a friend who is on death’s door. The mysterious Mr Moundshroud takes through time and space to see bits and pieces of how Halloween has come to be framed with each boy wearing a costume that reflects stops on the journey.

And one of the things that profoundly struck me was how their choice in costumes was as much characterization as the boys got. Admittedly, it’s a short book and that’s a lot of characters. They end up being an amorphous blob of boisterous kids who make Henry Higgins look like Holden Caulfield.

Something I seriously misremembered was the amount of historical and cultural information in the book. My memory had filled in complete essays on how different cultures remembered the dead. Nope.

Instead, The Halloween Tree has shadow box images with very little actual didactic content. You get verbal snapshots of scenes. I realized that I was filling in a lot of the details with my own casual knowledge of ancient Egypt or ancient Britain or Notre Dame Cathedral or Dia de Muertos. 

Instead of being educational, Bradbury is fully embracing the phantasmagorical and the Grand Guignol. You have to almost fill in the plot connections yourself as he rushes breathlessly from image to image.

Bradbury’s use of language and imagery has always been on of the his strong suits, pretty much since the get go. But in The Halloween Tree, his use of language was so extreme that it almost feels like he is parodying himself.

And, you know what? That is why it works.

The Halloween Tree is a fever dream of over-the-top and hyperbolic imagery. It doesn’t even try to be realistic. And, if it had, it would have diluted the effect. Instead, the game is a mad carnival ride of scenes and the ride never slows down. It is Bradbury’s profound imagination and skill with language on fire.

I understand it was originally written as a screenplay, which explains how visual the work is. And I haven’t seen the animated movie that was made in 1993, which apparently removed four or five the characters and turned one of them into a girl. It does sound interesting and removing the ‘no girls allowed’ feel of the book would be an improvement.

As an outline, The Halloween Tree shouldn’t work. In practice, it works very well because Bradbury’s mastery of language makes it burn like a thousand jack o’lanterns stuffed with fireworks.

The Three Investigators- debunking ghosts from a junk yard

 It’s really more Halloween adjacent at best but I have gone back to the Three Investigators series for the last few months got decompression reading. The reason that I can even try and tie the books to Halloween is because, man, these teens run into a lot of Scooby Doo hoaxes.

The Three Investigators is a series of juvenile mysteries that ran from 1964 to 1987. Except in Germany. If Wikipedia is to be believed, it never stopped in Germany. 

The protagonists form a classic Super Ego-Ego-Id trio. Jupiter Jones is the chubby super ego and the actual detective of the group. Bob Andrews is the ego. While Jupiter is the intuitive genius, Pete is the other side of the smart guy coin, the methodical researcher. And Pete Crenshaw is the big guy, the id, and I always picture him as Shaggy from Scooby Doo since he’s the first to believe in the supernatural.

In some ways, the stories are more grounded than other kid detectives I’ve looked at. They live in a defined town that is fictional but set in a specific location in California. They have to work and scrounge for money and supplies. And grownups, either negatively or positively, are never useless.

On the other hand, they do have an elaborate hidden secret headquarters in a junkyard and they have access to a Rolls Royce. Which, admittedly, does explain how they can get around California. So there is some definite wish fulfillment going on.

Originally, part of the spin of the series was that the boys were associated with Alfred Hitchcock. In reality, of course, all Alfred Hitchcock did was accept a check for the use of his name. But, honestly, from an entertainment and literary standpoint, that’s the least interesting part of the  books. 

The plots are surprisingly intricate puzzles. Not realistic, oh no, but they are intricate. I did appreciate when part of a solution was glare jolt obvious in one book, Jupiter immediately pointed out. The plots are ridiculous puzzles built on people trying to live like Professor Layton but they don’t talk down to their readers.

One thing I can’t do really is compare these books to either the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, even though they fit the same niche. That’s because those two series have been pretty much adding content for ninety years and adjusting as the times change. I’d have to find books written at the same time as the Three Investigators to make a fair comparison.

I have only read nine of the original forty-three books but I have enjoyed them and I’ll keep on going. The Three Investigators isn’t high literature but it also isn’t junk.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is our son’s Halloween

 In what is becoming a holiday tradition, we watched the Nightmare Before Christmas as a family. 

Honestly, as our kid grows older, I can see some holiday works beings ones that he grows out of. But Nightmare is probably going to be there for the long haul.

I think part of the movies strength is that it doesn’t talk down to the audience or pull its punches. The common denizens of Halloween Town, both their natures and their proclivities, are the stuff of nightmares. The Oogie Boogie Man is right out of the Festival by H. P. Lovecraft.

However, when our son says to me ‘This is Halloween is the Halloween song,’ I think he really nails a powerful part of the movie’s appeal. Outside of The Monster Mash and Werewolves of London (maybe Thriller?), I can’t think of any other Halloween anthems that have really made it into the collective consciousness. (Which still puts Halloween way ahead of Thanksgiving and Arbor Day)

There is a LOT that makes Nightmare work and the score is just one part of it. That said, it’s a musical that clicks even with people who don’t like musicals.

Honestly, I don’t feel like I can do Nightmare justice and I’m sure that no one reading this hasn’t seen it. Probably seen it lots of times. It is a children’s movie I don’t mind seeing over and over again. And I don’t mind hearing our son sing  This is Halloween constantly :D

Board games aren’t scary (and I don’t care!)

 Halloween and monsters and horror are all great themes tor games. They are evocative and appealing. But one thing that board games that revolve around scary things struggle to do is actually be scary.

It’s absolutely not a deal breaker for me. Given the success of the genre, it’s clearly not a deal breaker for anyone else. In fact, it’s such a little deal, I almost never think about it.

The reasons are pretty obvious. The level of abstraction and control that a board game gives you dilutes the fear factor. The act of taking turns alone changes the tempo and adds enough control to make being scared tough.

(That does make me wonder if a horror-themed Escape: Curse of the Lost Temple could be honestly scary. There is a horror version that I haven’t tried. That might work! Real time makes everything scarier)

Honestly, if you want authentic chills down your spine, RPGs and Video Games seem to be the way to go, for opposite reasons. RPGs let you internalize the story while Video Games externalize the story.

And let’s be clear. Excitement is different than fear. Everything coming down to the wire in Arkham Horror is exciting. It’s not scary. But, really, I’ll take exciting over scary.

Even if a board game never gives me a jump scare, it’s still a great medium for Halloween. It’s a theme that everyone understands. And getting everyone at the table on the same page can be what makes a game experience work.

The Gates is a hell of a lot of fun

 I hadn’t realized when I decided to read  John Connolly’s The Gates in the middle of October that it was set at Halloween. Mind you, I’d have enjoyed it any time of the year. 

In a small English town, a boy named Samuel Johnson and his dashchund Boswell see a portal to hell open up. Demons come out, just in time for Halloween, and hijinks and comedy ensue.

Okay, it was impossible for me not to compare The Gates to Good Omens. They both have that cheeky, self-aware tone that resonates with the works of Wodehouse or Jerome K. Jerome. And they both are about biblical-style end of the world.

That said, the differences are significant enough that the Gates stands as its own book. Good Omens has an ensemble cast and a fairly complicated plot. The Gates is clearly centered around Samuel and has a simpler plot. A ton of footnotes about physics but a simpler plot. Samuel  is very different than Good Omens’ Adam. Quirky and a bit nebbish and coping with his parents’ divorce, he’s more developed (but he is the main character so he should be)

And, yes, Good Omens is the better book but it’s a modern classic. That leaves plenty of room for The Gates to still be very good.

I have to note, while a dedicated cat lover, I adored Boswell the dashchund. Neurotic but brave, he demonstrates endless love for Samuel and more common sense than any other character. I cheated and checked to make sure he doesn’t die at the end of the book (spoiler)

The real strength of The Gates is tone and characterization. Plot wise, it doesn’t break any new ground on the idea of kids saving the world. But that doesn’t matter. The voice that the book has and the characters easily carry the work.

Years ago, I read John Connolly’s Book of Lost Things, which is one of the best fairy tale deconstructions I’ve read. After The Gates, I won’t wait so long to read more John Connolly. For instance, the Gates is the first book in a trilogy :D

The 2021 PnP Solitaire Design Contest is refreshing

 Right now, we are in that magical period of the 2021 PnP solitaire contest where all the entries have been entered but the contest hasn’t been judged yet. So you get to look at everything.

(Hey, some designers take stuff down fast)

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2685494/2021-solitaire-print-and-play-contest

Looking at 2021, two thirds of the games I learned were Roll and Writes. Which works perfectly well for me. If time and space are limited, Roll and Writes can be a really strong investment for your limited time and space.

However, I noticed that the ninth Roll and Write contest didn’t excite me that much. To be fair, nine contests over the course of three years is a lot. A lot of content and a lot of games but there can also be some burnout.

And looking at the entries in the PnP Solitaire Contest this year, I’m seeing stuff that peaks my interest and I want to try. Mind you, at the rate I’ve been crafting lately, I may not get to them until next year. (But I have a list!) 

Clearly, despite Roll and Writes being good for me this year, I crave other media of gaming. Which is only healthy. (And maybe I’ll look at that ninth contest with different eyes after a break)

For most of this year, I’ve been writing about what Roll and Writes I’ve learned each month. At least one month, that pushed me to learn more Roll and Writes. Which was great but maybe I should make it a New-To-Me post.

Our household is excited about Animal Crossing DLC

 The one video game that everyone in our family plays is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Which is really a way of saying that I play it too :P My wife and my son are way more into video games than I am.

Anyway, Nintendo has announced the last major free update to the game and the first paid update. I won’t be surprised if it isn’t the last, seeing as how Nintendo is in the business of making money.

There is a crazy amount of stuff being added to the game. If this is how Nintendo is ending this version of Animal Crossing, they are doing it with barrels of dynamite instead of a whimper. I can’t even appreciate all of what’s being added since I don’t know the history of the game, unlike my wife who knows who a lot of the NPCs getting added in are.

But what I wanted to comment on is the DLC that you’ll have to pay for.

It’s basically a whole new game.

A whole new area will be added, an archipelago where you make design and decorate vacation homes for the various anthropomorphic creatures that inhabit the world of Animal Crossing. It is the reincarnation of an earlier game in the series, Happy Home Designer.

I have often compared Animal Crossing to the Can-D and dollhouses from The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch because the world cannot have enough Philip K Dick references. The archipelago expansion, where you have even greater control over the environment, pushes that comparison even further.

If the trailers are to be believed, you will be decorating and furnishing and landscaping with a speed and ease that wasn’t there before. You can make your visions of the perfect getaway digitally real. You go from doing everything by hand to divine power.

Animal Crossing is not part of the video game paradigm where you are an action protagonist. Instead, you are an artistic protagonist. Which isn’t unique but isn’t as common.

Animal Crossing, at its heart, is a detailed, interactive dollhouse. And apparently Nintendo not only knows that but will figure out how to take it up to eleven..