Halloween Web - Vraie Fiction

Another Countdown blogger takes the hot seat today. His name is Guillaume. He's the keeper of Vraie Fiction and he's from the far off land of Canada.

Welcome, Guillaume. Tell us a little about you.

My name is Guillaume (duh!) I am a Quebecker from the Saguenay region living in the UK because I married an Englishwoman. I have a PhD in literature but I do not work in academia anymore.

What was Halloween like as a kid?

This is a big question, as I remember a lot from it, yet it is all blurred. I remember that we started preparing ourselves mentally to Halloween, my brothers and I, since at least the beginning of school. We had a "Halloween game" which was a make belief game where I played the good guy, a sort of Zorro/vigilante specialized in fighting monsters, witches and demons and the big battle was always on Halloween night. I also remember wearing a domino mask for most of the time going trick or treating. We grew up in the city of Chicoutimi, in one of the Northern parts of Quebec (two hours and a half from Quebec City by car), so I remember Halloween nights were generally quite cold and dark.

Do you have any special Halloween night memories?

Again, I have so many of them, but in the end they are quite blurry. I remember the very first time (I think) when I went trick or treating and I was disguised as the Big Bad Wolf. I remember one Halloween night when it was snowing, which I thought felt quite weird. I also remember dreaming about the night, when I was being chased by a mob of monsters and demons, that was scary but actually fun at the same time.

What about favorite costumes?

Well, there's that Big Bad Wolf one because it was my first. It was not a very good one: a witch's cloak my parents bought (but it was real fabric, not plastic, and there was a pretty nice sinister drawing of a witch brewing something in her cauldron on it), a make up of fangs and blood, I looked more like a vampire or a sort of werewolf. or a werewolf-vampire thing. But it was really gory for the time, albeit accidentally so. I must have been four, top. At 18 I also wore a costume of Alex from A Clockwork Orange which I was quite proud of. Will try to find a photo of the Big Bad Wolf one, I think I have it somewhere.

Is there anything special you do to get in the mindset of the season these days?

Plenty. Now that I am an adult, I start preparing myself mentally to the season from August onward (sometimes even late July). I start looking for a change in the air and the trees to see signs of autumn, I start reading horror stories (I made myself a pretty solid collection), then in the following weeks I add layers and layers of seasonal rites in my life: I decorate in October, watch horror movies from September onward almost exclusively, etc. There is plenty of music I listen to that I associate with Halloween, especially Mozart's Requiem, Don Giovanni, then Gounod's Faust, and of course all the theme music and scores from classic horror movies. And well, there are the movies one HAS to watch: Halloween, Trick R' Treat, and I always try to watch at least one Hammer and one very old one in black and white and silent. Oh and I drink Hobgoblin beer and other horror themed beers.

Why do you think we still enjoy Halloween as adults?

Fear is a primal thing that does not disappear when you get older and Halloween is all about playing with our fears and taming them. It is a cathartic holiday that allows us to understand and accept the darker side of human nature, but also rationalize it. And there is the trick or treat, the whole sharing aspect. It is a holiday that truly shows us to love thy neighbours, teaches us to trust them, earn their trust and well, eat, drink and be merry.

Inside the Spookster's Studio

The worst thing to get while trick or treating was Those darn lollipops! And every hard candies in fact. Everything that was slow to eat and hard and often tasted of cough syrup!
My favorite thing to get was Marshmallow coated in chocolate and in the shape of a jack-o-lantern. So perfectly Halloweeny and well, perfect.

Where can people find you online?

I have a Twitter account which I don't use very often, in the virtual world I hang out on my blog Vraie Fiction, which I try to feed daily.

Be sure to visit all the participating bloggers by clicking the link below!