My personal blog as a 'grown-up' Goth and Romantic living in the Highlands of Scotland. I write about the places I go, the things I see and my thoughts on life as a Goth and the subculture, and things in the broader realm of the Gothic and darkly Romantic. Sometimes I write about music I like and sometimes I review things. This blog often includes architectural photography, graveyards and other images from the darker side of life.

Goth is not just about imitating each other, it is a creative movement and subculture that grew out of post-punk and is based on seeing beauty in the dark places of the world, the expression of that in Goth rock. It looks back to the various ways throughout history in which people have confronted and explored the macabre, the dark and the taboo, and as such I'm going to post about more than the just the standards of the subculture (Siouxsie, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, et al) and look at things by people who might not consider themselves anything to do with the subculture, but have eyes for the dark places. The Gothic should not be limited by what is already within it; inspiration comes from all places, the key is to look with open eyes, listen carefully and think with an open mind..

Tuesday 13 October 2015

I've been tagged! 13 Halloween Questions Tag

::The Everyday Goth:: nominated me to take part in this.  As Hallowe'en is my favourite time of the year, this looked like fun. 

1. Favorite Halloween song?
It has to be 'Halloween' by Siouxsie And The Banshees from the album JuJu. I am a big Siouxsie fan, and love how frenetically, chaotically upbeat the song is. It is clear that the narrator's perspective is actually quite unhappy and disturbed, and so the almost-happy-but-broken music the lyrics are set to make it unnerving in the best way. 

2. Witch or Vampire? 
Well, I'm already a real witch of the Neo-Pagan sort - a Wiccan who switched traditions to something based out of various British and Brythonic/Gaelic traditions, so I'll go with vampire! I like the the idea of being some immortal, sensuous, beautiful creature that is also monstrous and deadly at the same time; elegant, classy and impeccably well mannered, but secretly a vile blood-drinking predator that kills to survive in a terribly gruesome manner - it's the duality that appeals to me; sex and death, beauty and monstrosity. 

3. Favourite thing about Halloween?
Probably being able to easily find home décor that I actually like without trawling the internet for hours! The idea of well-made, elegant and non-tacky Hallowe'en decorations appears to be an American thing with many department stores and supermarkets there stocking a wide range of decorations that include things I would certainly have as décor outside of the Hallowe'en season. Sadly, this is not something that occurs much in the UK, where the holiday seems mostly marketed to children and young people, so there are fewer shops carrying items that I would find suitable for year 'round décor. This is beginning to change, though, and this year I have managed to pick up a lot of nice things for my new house! I think I will actually make a haul video for my YouTube account. 

4. Hallowe'en party or scary movie marathon? 
Definitely Hallowe'en party! Each year we host the Grand Annual Vampire Soirée, which is a practically dusk-'til-dawn party with a Romantic Goth aesthetic and plenty of drinkable forms of fake blood, some alcoholic, some not, all vegetarian. Everyone dresses up as a fancy vampire, and we have a lot of fun. I'm also always going to several other parties around Hallowe'en. I don't do big parties much around Christmas and New Year's; just the dinner on Christmas, the Solstice as a religious celebration, and New Year's as time to stay up late at home and have some fizz, but Hallowe'en is a time of year where I turn into party animal. 

5. Skeletons or Zombies? 
Skeletons, without a doubt! My partner and I have a bedroom with a skull theme, with a good few skeleton ornaments around the place, too. I like them as a symbol of our mortality, a memento mori, and because the human body is a beautiful, sculptural, structural thing under all the flesh. Zombies are all rotted, decaying and gross, whereas a cleaned skeleton is much less disgusting. 

6. Favourite Hallowe'en candy?

7. Favourite Hallowe'en Movie?
Tim Burton's 'Nightmare Before Christmas'. I've loved it ever since I was young, and although I didn't get to see it in the cinema when it first came out, because my parents deemed it too weird for me, but I did see it at home, and it was definitely a spooky influence on the younger me!

8. Favourite Hallowe'en costume?
I went as a flaming-maned, black-furred Night-Mare when I was 15, and hand made the entire thing, from the fur-suit to the papier-mâché head and hooves. I looked out of the thing's neck, and wore heels under my hoof construction, and was about 6'6" in the whole thing, maybe taller. I won the school Hallowe'en costume competition and a giant plastic pumpkin filled with sweets that I still had not finished eating by the following Easter... 

9. Favourite Hallowe'en store? 
Hallowe'en-specific stores are not really a thing in the UK. There's a temporary shop in the city in a vacant storefront that sells discount costumes, but it's not something that really interests me because I like making my own costumes, or assembling them out of my usual clothes. I do like the Hallowe'en range that has been in TKMaxx this year, though! 

10. Jack-o-Lanterns; yes or no?
Yes! I, like the Everyday Goth, am clumsy with a knife, so I collaborate with my partner; I draw the design onto the pumpkin with a permanent marker, and he cuts it out. My partner's a nurse so has to deal with enough injured people at work, without needing to fix me, too! He can handle the sharp things, I'll handle the Sharpie. 

11. Bats or Black Cats?
My cat, Kuro Shinigami, being all floopy, photographed by my Dad


12. Is Hallowe'en your favourite holiday?
YES! YES!! YES!!! BEST HOLIDAY! It's Samhain too, which I celebrate as a Neo-Pagan, but the commercialised spook-fest that is modern, Americanised Hallowe'en basically turns everyone Goth for a few days and means there are enough scary movies, skull-chocolates, spooky costumes and funky things I love to keep me stocked and stoked until it comes around again the next year. It's a celebration of all that is creepy, freaky, spooky and kooky. I love it. 

13. Pumpkin Spice Latte or Hot Chocolate? 
Chocolat chaud! Made with proper melted chocolate, milk and cream, and with some praline syrup. 

4 comments:

  1. You perfectly describe what is so amazing about proper vampires!

    The Vampire Soiree sounds like the perfect party!

    I also love skeletons as a memento mori! How strange and complex we are with all our muscles and bones and organs!

    Your cat is adorable!

    The main reason I do not carve pumpkins is the same as yours! I don't want to lose a finger, I kind of need them for typing!

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    1. A tangent on 'proper' vampires; apart from the ridiculous crystalline sparkly skin and stuff like 'vampire baseball', he had the potential to be an excellent creepy villain; predatory because of his vampiric nature, and because he embodied a lot of the worst Edwardian attitudes to women. He's a creep in the human sense of the word as well as a literal monster. If he was human he'd be a rather scary abusive predator, him wanting to /eat/ her only makes him scarier. My main problem with Twilight was not Edward not being a proper vampire, it was him being presented as some sort of dreamboat for all the characteristics that make him terrifying. I tried to read it as Bella being an unreliable narrator that lacks self awareness, or much awareness of her social interactions and other's motives, and is actually whitewashing her own inevitable tragedy, mistaking lust for love, but something about Stephanie Meyer's style couldn't convince me that it was actually a very clever horror, and I think it was directly intended as a romance, at which it fails. I also couldn't finish reading it as I found Bella a very irritating person and disliked reading from her perspective, plus I kept wanting to correct grammatical mistakes and querying the vocabulary.

      The Vampire Soirée will only be an epic party if the new house is ready in time!

      I want to get this anatomical hand model I saw being sold secondhand, but I can't afford it :( My partner has all these medical and anatomy books, and I like staring at the pictures.

      Kuro has actually chilled out a lot since he went to live with my Dad somewhere really quite rural indeed, and is now a much friendlier cat you can actually cuddle without being terribly lacerated :P

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  2. I love your description of the vampire as it closely relates to my own and why I like them so much.

    Your Vampire Soriee sounds the ultimate halloween party

    And the Nightmare Before Christmas is my favorite halloween movie too. I also watch it on Christmas eve :)

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    1. My vampire soirée will only be epic if I get my house ready on time! Urk!

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