It's that time of year again, when otherwise sensible people spend their weekends trespassing in cornfields, decorating their homes with representations of human remains, and willingly paying strangers to frighten them. Naturally, we've been looking forward to it all year.
This Halloween, we're throwing open the doors of a particularly ill-tempered haunted house, where the gramophone plays to an empty room, the wallpaper conceals something best left undisturbed, and the family portraits have developed some deeply objectionable habits. Elsewhere, Prince Prospero is hosting a lavish masquerade with a rather unfortunate guest list, the cathedrals are filling with strange sacraments, and the local werewolves have once again failed to budget for replacement clothing.
We've also been indulging in the usual seasonal excesses: graveyard dirt, autumn bonfires, sinister confections, questionable pumpkin experiments, and enough Halloween candy to alarm your dentist. Our new hometown of Philadelphia has inspired an especially regrettable act of culinary perfumery involving pumpkin spice and cheesesteaks. We offer no apologies.
There are old favorites returning from the grave, new perfumes of dubious provenance, and a whole assortment of grooming products and claw polishes for making yourself presentable to the living, the dead, and anyone whose status remains uncertain.
Come in, come in. Mind the staircase, don't look too closely at the wedding portrait, and whatever you do, don't accept anything the dumbwaiter brings up.
Happy Halloween, you beautiful creeps.
