So how do you celebrate? Personally, I have a complicated set of rituals I indulge in every Halloween. Takes a while to work up to it though. All month long there are classic movies. Night of the Demon and The Haunting. The Uninvited and Burn, Witch, Burn. Old favorites all of them.

And the night itself? This begins with music. It has to. Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre leads into Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 9, Opus 68. (The Scriabin piece is commonly known as the Black Mass Sonata. If you’ve read Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife, you’ll understand the significance.) Sometimes there's a detour through Rasputina territory. Later, I light black candles and throw white sage on the fireplace. At some point, my battered old collection of Saki stories comes down off the shelf, and I savor Sredni Vashtar or Gabriel-Ernest or Esmé. If friends are present, I read aloud. Sometimes I read aloud even if I’m alone. What the hell? An incantation is an incantation. Eventually, the Tarot cards come out of their old oak box.

I approach these seasonal observations with a fetishistic fervor, not to say a touch of fanaticism, and I’d like to say it begins each year at the stroke of midnight.

But I’d be lying.

Frequently, it’s quite early in the evening as there’s inevitably a party (which more often than not I’m hosting). After all, Halloween is still very much the queer holiday. Doubtless there are rituals that take place later in the evening as well, but I never remember those in the morning.

Mercifully…

* * *

This year I’ve already been blogging and guest blogging and doing interviews all over the place. Here are a few of the highlights:

http://www.uninvitedbooks.com/page21....

http://lisamannetti.blogspot.com/

http://rschiver.blogspot.com/2012/09/...

I’ll add more later. (You have been warned.)