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The Veil Between the Worlds is Thinnest at Halloween
Halloween has traditionally been the only holiday that the serious grown-ups hadn’t ruined yet. Not only the ubiquitous horror movies on TV and heightened weirdness in the music on the radio but in the encouragement allowing us to freak freely through the onset of the autumnal season.
From All Hallows Eve to Samhain and Dia de los Muertos, at the root of it all the veil between the worlds is a powerful idea to celebrate and inspire exploration into new and strange avenues of creativity within any medium or artistic discipline.
In 1989, Lou Reed released the track “Halloween Parade” on his New York album. Taken by more than a few of us for something of a sequel to 1972’s “Take a Walk on the Wild Side,” the lyrics reflect upon departed characters who once populated the annual celebration of Greenwich Village Queer culture.
On October 27, shortly before Halloween in 2013, Lou Reed died; while on 24 Cheshvan, 5774, on the predominantly lunar Hebrew calendar, the soul of Lewis Allen Rabinowitz blew through the thin veil and, in Jewish tradition, awaits the World to Come.