Wonderfully Creepy

So it is that time of year again when our minds turn to the darker aspects of life, if only for fun and whimsy. I'll be starting up a regular series here that I've done elsewhere that I call "Wonderfully Creepy." A bit of an explanation:

There's a phrase that I use occasionally. It's not something that I ever thought much about until my wife pointed it out some time ago with a puzzled expression. The phrase is "wonderfully creepy", and I use it to describe all those things which send delicious chills down your spine. I strongly believe that horror is connected in some ways with a sense of awe, with the sublime, and the wonder we feel at the unknown. I've always been interested in this sensation, ever since I was very young. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday, autumn my favorite season. I've mentioned Ray Bradbury often when trying to explain my seasonal fixation. I've quoted the very same passage I'm about to quote, many times before. Hell, it's even been in my userinfo, nonetheless I feel that it's about time to pull that wonderful short bit of prose out:

...that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.

That is the epigram for Bradbury's short story collection October Country and it remains something which resonates with me. It is in some ways the world I try to describe in my writing, a world that I'm entranced with.

So once again I've decided for the month of October I'm going to dedicate most of my efforts to sharing some of these bits of the wonderfully creepy. When I'm not working my arse off at school, writing my new novel, or spending the leftover time with my neglected wife, I'll be working to bring you strange fascinating things that haunt the sunshine state. Stay tuned over the next month for a number of things, some more seasonal speculations no doubt, and of course forays into the Wonderfully Creepy.

In many ways that is what this entire blog has been about, but I suppose my October coverage of the Wonderfully Creepy is just an attempt to make that a little more apparent.

Seasonal speculations

It is heading towards the tail end of September, (and indeed tomorrow is the Autumnal Equinox) and elsewhere in places with colder climbs and higher altitudes the seasons are in the process of shifting. The joke has often been made that Florida does actually have four seasons: Hurricane Season, Love Bug Season, Tourist Season, and Snow Bird Season. However the absence of dramatic visible change (and less visible the further South in the state you get) is something that troubles some of us.

So now is the time of year that I, and others, begin to pine for something a little more tangible. Something a little more like this:



and less like this:



So how can one experience the seasons, the environmental rhythm in a place where the rhythm is so subtle? My good friend Samantha Holloway has been grappling with this question for awhile now. She has a blog called A Year of Living Dangerously Seasonally (for which I owe her an article about seasonal beers, I swear I'll get to it eventually!)

She describes her effort thus:

So I'm just a girl like any other, poorish, white, work in a shop in a tourist area of Florida-- but I want to be healthy and I want to see if I can manage to live a whole year only eating what's seasonal and what's meant to be eaten each month. Starting Jan 1, 2009, I'm going to try my best. Until then, this is where I'm going to post all my facts and sources so I can find them again when I write the book that will encapsulate all I go through this coming year.

Care to come with me?

That is one interesting response, but are there others?

So dear readers (who I hope and speculate are out there), what are your thoughts? Do you have any tried and true methods for observing the rhythm of the seasons? Are there things that mark seasonal change in Florida that I and others are missing? What do you do to get in the spirit of the season? I'm planning on doing a write up and response to this at some point so any comment would be greatly appreciated.