Halloween!

I had forgotten how utterly festive it is in New York, where there are few Baptists around to remind people what a basically satanic holiday this is. For weeks now people have been draping their brownstone stoops with fake cobwebs and putting up pumpkins and skeletons, etc, but it was not until this weekend -- and especially today -- that the full glory of the season maifested itself. A children's Halloween parade starts in the little park near my house in about 15 minutes, but the excitement was already building. Walking Garth past the nearby elementary school, an excited torrent of children and some adults dressed as princesses, spacemen, frogs, witches, etc. streaming by.
"We got candy and no homework!" one excited boy announced to his mother. "All the classes got candy and no homework!"
I also saw my first costumed dog, though I am not sure what he was supposed to be, as well as a grown woman in a skull mask, talking on a cell phone.
I really wished Diane Arbus were here to appreciate it all.
I think the real reason New Yorkers love Halloween is that it's all about being someone else, about reinventing yourself. And what else, really, do people come here for?