I am a Halloweenie...

...because I'm not a fan of the pseudo-holiday.

This is a day about fear. Inducing it, feeling it, laughing at it and rolling around in it. When I was a kid I noticed that the older kids (like my Dad) thought the fear on the faces of the smaller kids was cute and funny. For them, that was the joy of Halloween. I remember being afraid, and I didn't like that feeling. I'm still afraid as an adult, and I don't like it now. I especially don't like to see it in my kids. I think one of my main functions as a parent is helping them face and overcome their fear, not induce it and laugh at it.

However, it does have its place. As much as it pains me to admit that I have fallen into line with a very current popular craze, I am all about vampires at the moment. I have long loved Anne Rice's vampires, and I especially identify with Louis (the interviewee in "Interview with the Vampire"). I have just finished reading Bram Stoker's "Dracula" and am currently engrossed in an obscure novel from Chelsea Quinn Yarbro called "The Angry Angel" about Dracula and the making of one of the three slaves from Stoker's novel. I don't like Twilight or Sookie Stackhouse, so I hope that allows me to maintain some street cred.

For me the vampire is a great device to deal with the primal fear of death. I can't get enough of a well written vampire novel. Stoker did it perfectly in Dracula by making the undead a mystery to be chased by mortals. Telling the tale in different voices by use of diaries is a great device to pull the reader along. Too much has been written about this novel analyzing it for sexual, cultural, psychological and historical overtones. Fact is, it just rocks.

Anne Rice made her undead appear as human superheros. They have the failings of humans and the superiority of immortality. Their emotions often get the better of them. When they suffer it is usually at their own hand.

Yarbro makes her starring undead character (St Germain) a secular humanistic hero. He has used his immortality to become more rational and decent. He has learned that cruelty is counterproductive to his own survival, he is sustained by the intimacy and love of those he sucks, and yet he continually suffers at the hands of cruel and ignorant humans.