Satan Owns the Day
Halloween Vampin' is held at the Ann Arbor Library.
Satan owns the day. Every October exactly six hundred sixty-six children parade through the streets of Battle Mountain, Nevada and the minions of the horned lord gather in the graveyard between giant stone obelisks in an attempt to raise the dead. In the frigid north in Issaquah, Washington, animals are made to dance and sing with black magick. Hundreds of miles away, in a sleepy college town in Michigan, a choice few are fighting back.
Halloween has long passed, candy corn is no longer offered up at receptionist desks around the country, green and red have replaced orange and black, and the streets are safe from ghouls, devils, and sexy cops. What remains? What relics are still preserved? Was the Halloween of 2006 merely another tired repetition of the same holiday America celebrates annually? The answer is a resounding no. The city of Ann Arbor is blessed with a library that not only provides citizens with free, dirty books but also with a variety of programs designed to stimulate the mind and create a fun, safe environment for kids and adults.
Halloween Vampin’, held Monday, October 30 in the Mallets Creek Branch of the Ann Arbor Public Library, pulled out all the stops. During the first of what will hopefully become an annual tradition of Vampin’ events, the library gave students a chance to turn mischievous Devil’s Night instincts toward arts and crafts.
“It was mostly the advertising,” said Cynthia Yuen, a Pioneer Senior who attended the event. Yuen said she was most excited about creating a “Goblin-in-a-jar”, a craft that gave students the chance to trap a live goblin in a tiny glass jar. Jars were decorated with Spanish moss and participants were warned that too much Spanish moss would prevent their jar from closing.
The other project was the creation of, using simple arts and crafts materials, a powerful vampire protection wreath. Communicator journalists were stonewalled when they asked library staff whether the inclusion of crosses in the materials bags indicated a tacit endorsement of Christianity by the planners of Halloween Vampin’. Wreaths were also adorned with garlic, tiny mirrors, and black roses.
Attendance at the event was sparse, only six stayed for the whole of it. The library seemingly expected a larger crowd, having set out over twenty bags of materials. However for the attendees, two of whom came to the event, “because we were bored,” the Halloween of 2006 will be known as “The Miracle on Ice”.
Filed on 12/12/2006