Why Pumkins on Halloween?

It is common practice around Halloween to hollow out a pumpkin, carve a face on it and light the inside with a candle.  But why is this related to Halloween? These creations are usually called jack-o-lanterns and there is a very extensive story behind the tradition.

The "jack" in jack-o-lantern refers to Stingy Jack.  The story goes that he was a somewhat of a bum, always drunk, who liked to play trick on people.  The devil heard of him and wanted to meet him, and see if he lived up to the rumors about him.  One day Jack crossed paths with the devil in a bar.  He trades his soul for the cost of his drinks.  When the devil transformed himself into a coin to pay for the drinks, Jack put the coin in his pocket.  Also in his pocket was a cross preventing the devil from transforming back into himself.  Jack lets the devil out and makes another deal with him for another ten years of life.  Ten years later when the devil comes back for him, Jack had another request.  He asked the devil to climb a nearby tree and get him an apple.  He then put crosses all around the base of the tree, and again trapped the devil.  In exchange for his freedom, the devil said he would not take Jack's soul.  When Jack finally died he was not allowed into heaven for all of the bad things he had done during his life.  He went to the gates of Hell, but the devil honoring his agreement would not take Jack's soul.  Jack asked for one final request, some light to travel back to earth with.  The devil knowing he had won gave Jack an ember from the fires of Hell.  Jack carried the ember in a hollowed out turnip, one of his favorite foods from when he was living.  It is said that he roams the earth with his ember.

The tradition began in Ireland where they would hollow out turnips calling them "Jack of the Lantern".  They started to carve faces into them and placing them near doors and windows to ward off Jack or other evil spirits.  When they immigrated to the United States, the medium changed to pumpkins.  Today it is common to carve out jack-o-lanterns around Halloween.

Trick or Treat

Trick or treat eh? A relatively uncommon phrase on 364 days of each year.  However on October 31 these three word have a way of filling the stomachs of small children with sweets.  People don't think twice about these words anymore or what they mean. What has changed in Halloween sinse its origin?

Trick-or-treating originally started as "souling".  Poor people would go around to the rich houses and would be given soul pastries or other sweets to pray for dead relatives of the rich.  Soon children started to take over this tradition, and instead of prayers they would give some kind of small performance to earn their treat.  This tradition continued but has been greatly altered in common society.

In the nineteenth-century Halloween became affiliated with pranking and the phrase trick-or-treat was coined.  This saying is now very one sided.  If you go out on Halloween night, ring someone's doorbell you won't be denied a treat.  To this extent, the phrase has lost some meaning.  Children of today, who unthinkingly chime these words house after house, would be confused if they didn't receive candy.  They may go complain to their parents, but I doubt that they would actually think to play a trick on someone.  In a opposite sense teenagers will play "tricks" on houses for the fun of it. They know that if they want candy they can go home and eat the leftovers.

These three words are now at the center of a commercial holiday.  Everyone is familiar with the phrase, but if you were to go around in June, July, or even early October and do the same thing, you would get a lot of weird looks.  They are now only associated with the holiday and it is sad how a fun mischievous tradition has been changed.  As Wednesday comes around I challenge you to deny candy this halloween, it might save you some money, and your house will be the scariest on the block.  Maybe you will get stuck cleaning toilet paper out of your trees, but I would bet against it.

Through Biased Eyes

 Fans are everything in the sports world of today.  After all professional athletes are in fact only entertainers.  Many spectators live and die by the success of their team at both the collegiate and professional levels.  This is understandable, but doesn’t excuse poor behavior at sporting events.  This was brought to my attention while I was watching my sister’s division three college soccer game.  It was a reasonable physical game, which is to be expected, but I was disappointed with the spectators on both sides.  They were very vocal with their complaints on both called and uncalled fouls.  Specific individuals on both sides repeatedly voiced their dissatisfaction with the referee quite loudly.  During this I laughed to myself at their opinionated views, which usually had to do with calls involving their children, as most fans were parents.  Not many outsiders come to watch division three soccer.  The center ref was doing a fine job calling fairly both ways.  However, many fans were unable to see this, their eyes clouded by the bias for their team.

I have experience with officiating and know firsthand how annoying and obnoxious parents an fans can be.  A close call that goes their way is a “good call” but that same call that goes against them is cause for complaint.  Baseball is much worse than soccer in this sense.  Balls and strikes are an umpire’s judgment, and they are much more reliable standing directly behind the plate than the fan sitting at an angle fifty rows back.  To make it worse, both baseball and football broadcasters have the ability to digitally chart balls and strikes and view plays in slow motion, and asses the accuracy of calls.  Television viewer see these potential missed calls and then come to not trust the officials.  This leads to accusations against the refs and the officials are put at fault.

No bad call is so significant that it can be given fault of a loss.  No team in any sport plays so perfectly that they can say they would have won had it not been for this or that call.  Spectators need to realize this and also recognize their biases.  So sit down, shut up, and watch the game.  If you feel that your team should have won, well, too bad they should have played better, yelling at the official isn’t going to help.

      

Humor Analysis

I find Jim Gaffigan to be quite funny, and by looking at his techniques we can discover why he is funny.

Gaffigan takes real world issues and applies them to whales as a base for his humor.  He begins by criticizing them for being fat.  This is the base for the rest of his jokes.  His depressed whale noise leads him to debate why whales might be sad.  He lists very shallow reasons for their sadness like being bad at hide and seek.  This springboards into his bit about whales' body image.  Like humans on diets the whale claims that he only eats plankton but  the little fish interject otherwise.  Many people can relate to the diet analogy.  They have felt of seen the difficulties of trying to stick with a diet.  Whether the audience realizes it or not, Gaffigan is taking a real issue and applying it in a satiric way.

"Don't bring up whales around my dad"  He compares whales to controversial issues.  It might not be wise to bring up the economy or Iran around "my dad" but whales, probably okay.  We all know people like this, that will go off at any mention of a certain issue.  In a way Gaffigan is getting us to laugh at ourselves or our family.

Finally he parallels the anatomy of whales and humans.  No matter the context people will always find poop jokes funny.  A serious health problem that grows with age is made hysterical by a reference to a whale who recently visited the Indian Ocean

In a different contexts Gaffigan gets us to laugh at ourselves and the world around us.  We know that body image isn't a funny topic, but can't stop laughing at a fat whale in denial portrayed with a funny voice.

People Watching at the Mall

Here are my accounts from Ridgedale Mall, quietly observing and inferring about people and events that happened around me.

An Indian man is at the Crocs stand buying shoes for his middle school son, who has desires to be elsewhere.  He asks his son questions about the preferences on the shoes, and gets annoyed by the one word responses.  The man talks with the saleswoman about the shoes while the son plays with his. Kendama.  He is balding, early fifties, first generation American, with a good enough career to support a family, but is tired from work.  He wants his son to succeed and will soon be a helicopter parent pushing his child to academic excellence.  They finally settle on a pair and the saleswoman checks them out.  The man starts to leave, the son waits for a moment, distracted, then follows ten paces behind, not wanting to associate with his father.

The mall security guard paces the center rotunda of the mall.  Only a few shoppers ask him questions. He answers them easily with a small gesture in the direction of what they are looking for.  The job is monotonous, and tonight is a quiet week night, the same as any other.  He stops to watch the football game playing on one of the televisions at an electronics kiosk.  There is little interest in either team playing, but it helps pass the time until he gets off work.  He isn't overly excited about his job, but without a college degree he doesn't know where else he could work.  He is neither married, nor has any children. The representative at the kiosk comes over and talks to him.  They know each other, but are not friends.  After making small talk about the game for a minute the sales rep is pulled back to work by a customer. The security guard realizes he should make another round as well.  Suddenly cold, he zips up his jacket with SECURITY printed in large white letters on the back and walks off.

A family of five walks by me into Macy's.  They are going to their Lexus crossover parked outside in the Macy's lot.  The mother and three daughters, all under 10, are dressed nicely.  The mother talks with her oldest about which of her jackets would go best with her beret.  She is a housewife in her mid-thirties who has never worked a day in her life.  Her parents were well off and paid her way through college.  However, she got married right after graduating and never got a job.    She dresses nicely because of the attention it gets her and because she can.  The husband is the opposite.  He works hard, and easily makes enough to support the high standard of living for his family.  He travels a lot and doesn't get to see his girls as much as he would like.  When he is home he would rather be comfortable than look good.  His t-shirt and sweatpants contrast the suit he wears to work every day.  They head home all having enjoyed the night out.

The events told are all true, I have filled in the surrounding details because it's interesting and fun!  Go out and people watch, make up stories about the people you see.