No puritans, no halloween.

Got me another dud of a holiday this week. This week's victim, unlike my fever-induced cancelation of my birthday a few weeks back, is a victim of national culture. Funny, but if you swap out religious fanatics with criminals as your country's ancestors, October 31 becomes nothing to speak of. Just another wonderful spring day. Hardly a touch of supernatural about.

I figured that I could find something holiday-esque in Kings Cross, where revelers would be if they'd be anywhere. But no. Christy and I went down there, and found nothing more than the usual sketchy/scary assortment of drunk jocks, backpacking world travelers, and of course, the showgirls. I took my camera with me, if you care to look at the trip. Sadly, I ran out of batteries in the Czech-Slovac Bohemian bar, Doma, so there is no record of the flaming sugar cube over absinth drink. I figured that would be a certifiably halloween-y thing to do, but it actually felt more french than anything else. Anyhow, without further ado, here is the video.

I love Halloween, and it does make me sad that there were no parties for me to go to and nobody to dress up for. Given that I am no expert on this here holiday, but here I am, in this country that was settled by Britain around the same time America was, and yet there is no fuss about the 'Ween. Here is my oversimplified theory: the States got the religious fanatics, the Scots and the Irish. Meanwhile, Australia got the prisoners, the Scots and the Irish. Hence, take out the puritans, and you have no Halloween. While it may have started as a pagan tradition, it wouldn't have turned into the massive pop holiday it is today without the help of Christianity hating it.

The lesson from this? The best way to kill an evil pagan holiday is to ignore it. And we all know that just isn't the American way.