Hallow-e'en
In today's mailbox:
“Halloween” is a contraction – Hallow-e'en – of All Hallows’ Eve, a holiday observed on October 31, the evening before All Saints’ (or All Hallows’) Day and marks the day before the Western Christian feast of All Saints. In much of Europe and most of North America, observance of Halloween is largely nonreligious . . . Halloween had its origins in the festival of Samhain among the Celts of ancient Britain and Ireland . . . During the Samhain festival the souls of those who had died were believed to return to visit their homes, and those who had died during the year were believed to journey to the otherworld. People set bonfires on hilltops for relighting their hearth fires for the winter and to frighten away evil spirits, and they sometimes wore masks and other disguises to avoid being recognized by the ghosts thought to be present. It was in those ways that beings such as witches, hobgoblins, fairies, and demons came to be associated with the day. . . When the Romans conquered the Celts in the 1st century CE, they added their own festivals of Feralia, commemorating the passing of the dead, and of Pomona, the goddess of the harvest.
Yesterday was the 297th anniversary of John Adams, the second president of the United States, born in Braintree, Massachusetts (1735). He was, arguably, the true “Father of our country” moreso than George Washington, whom he nominated as the first president of the new USA, after having picked Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence.
Yesterday was also the 107th anniversary of Fred Frendly's birth in NYC (1915). He was a hard-headed champion of broadcast journalism, quitting his post as president of CBS News in 1966 when superior executives ordered that a re-run of “I Love Lucy” be broadcast instead of coverage of a hearing on the Vietnam War. It's still all about the Benjamins for the majority of corporate capitalists. I am not making this up.
Speaking of alterntive visions: yesterday was also the 137th anniversary of the birth of “the poet's poet” Ezra Pound in Hailey, Idaho.
And certainly not least, today is the 227th birth anniversary of the poet John Keats, who was born on this date in London in 1795. Among his famous poems is Ode on a Grecian Urn which ends ““Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
In a way, this is the beginning of the end-of-the-year celebrations taking place around the world beginning today and extending to the New Year. May all your celebrations be ones of truth and beauty.