What is the festival of Samhain, and how did it transform into the day now known as Halloween ? While the custom of going trick-or-treating, carving Jack O’ Lanterns, and bobbing for apples is a secular celebration, it was once connected to a traditional activity meant to celebrate the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture. Ancient pagans used this time in order to prepare for winter, taking in the needed supplies for the cold months.

Ancient Gaels thought that on October 31st the borders between the worlds of the living and the dead crossed over each other, allowing the dead to return to live and create havoc with the agricultural products, either damaging the crops or making them sick.

The festival of Samhain would usually involve a bonfire, which attracted insects, and, in turn, bats — perhaps a reason why bats are associated with the festivities. Masks and costumes were worn to mimic or appease evil spirits, thus preventing their attacks.

Eventually, this practice turned into “trick-or-treating,” an activity for children, who make their way from house to house in masks and Halloween costume wigs , asking for candy by using the phrase, “trick-or-treat.”

The custom began in Ireland and Scotland, and then came to North America along with Irish and Scottish immigrants in the 1800s. Within a few decades, the custom transferred to the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It’s also practiced in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

Out-of-town visitors in New York City are usually stunned at the sight of a horseback riders in Central Park. However, horses have been ridden in Central Park ever since it opened back in 1859. Until the mid-1890′s and the advent of mechanical transportation, the best way to get around New York City was via the horse. It was at a stable at Dobbins’ Inn in 1801 that the celebrated thoroughbred horse ‘Imported Messenger’ magnificantly stood around for all to admire, a time when it was common practice to hold impromptu races along the main straightaway for the benefit ot tavern patrons and idling jurists. Though Dobbin is no longer the backbone of the transportation hub, stables their stables dot five boroughs, serving bridle paths in nearby parks.

Hundreds of New York dwellings formerly were used as stables, then later adapted for use as garages and sometimes into living quarters such as the building in Clinton Hill or the corral at the West Side Chelse Piers. Some traces of stables past can be seen in Manhattan like the facade for the Beinecke and Company Stables, located on Great Jones Street, but the real McCoy is still standing on Greenwich Street and West 10th. The Knickerbocker Boarding building can barely be seen in the East Village. Plus, there are still 2 telltale signs of New York City’s equine past that can be seen on West Washington Place near 6th Avenue in Greenwich Village: a hitching post and a bootscraper.

Currently, horseback riding is permitted year around during regular park hours at Central Park. The Riverdale Equestrian Centre in the Bronx offers ‘Riding’ tours of Central Park, which are available through appointment only; then there’s Kensington Stables in Brooklyn; Lynne’s Riding in Queens and Richer Farms on Staten Island. Plus, out-of-towners will see policemen riding on their horses throughout New York’s neighborhoods even around Wall Street in the Financial District, where one can step outside of their hotel and witness policemen riding these magnificant beasts. Even though horses are no longer our a mode of transportation, they still manage to command our attention and capture our sense of nostalgia.

There are some people in the world that we all just imagine have to be from New York. Woody Allen is one, Joan Rivers and Richard Pryor are others, and David Mamet must be a New Yorker himself. He talks fast, in a pretty spectacularly catchy rhythm, and he has strong opinions. He seems like a New Yorker, in dress, in manner, and in his remarkable impatience. Interestingly, he is from Chicago, and maybe most people already know that, but it certainly came as a shock here, and it’s hard to figure out why it was a shock. Going back and looking at the writer and his work, it still makes sense that he must be a New Yorker even though the facts don’t support it at all.

In many of his earlier plays, where moderately successful characters seemed like the types you’d run into outside a New York hotel , people with great ideas and plans, and a whole lot to say. They sounded like people who must be from New York, because they were so smart, interesting, terribly funny, and terribly cynical. New York or Chicago, maybe. The Chicago Mamet has earned the respect, and often scorn, of his peers in his own generation, as well as the ones before and after, because he has a remarkable gift.

It might be that Mamet’s characters are driven by the same hopes and desires that carry so many of us in this city. That makes him an honorary New Yorker for sure, along with the very developed dark side, with a wide array of secret passions, and secret stories, that we can also certainly relate to here. It also probably has something to do with the fact that every time he writes something, it’s produced all over Broadway and off-Broadway, and his TV and film work is so extensive that we sometimes get to hear Mamet speak even when we’re aware of it. And perhaps even more, the two cities have a lot more in common than anyone is comfortable to admit.

I was in Los Angeles in 1991 after having returned to the area from Boston. I had just graduated college and I remember thinking I had the world in my hands. That first year back was really almost magical. My boyfriend Matt was still there and his band was getting gigs in local clubs. He was singer songwriter who also played the keyboards and during my time in Massachusetts he would often complain about his band and their lack of commitment and tendency toward partying. However, the year I returned they all really seemed to have it together and were playing out quite frequently. One night, shortly after I arrived in town I decided to go see them play and they opened up for a band called Mazzy Star.

The show happened in a club I had only been to a couple of times and I can’t remember its name. It was off of Sunset and close to a few local hotels and a deli we always used to go to. That’s as much as I can remember now, but the point is how incredibly great Mazzy Star was. I didn’t even know who they were, well they weren’t all that famous at the time. In fact, I don’t think they were even nationally known. It was right around the time their first album came out and I’m not sure the show was before or after it did. I was blown away though. Oh, and I almost bumped into Hope Sandoval as I was coming out of the rest room. She was just standing there, you know, like a regular person talking to a couple of guys that worked at the club.

So I was walking out of the bathroom and turned back for a moment. I almost plowed right into her when I turned back around and just said, “Oops, excuse me.” She just smiled and shook her head like it wasn’t a problem. Then she turned back to the guy who was talking. I didn’t even know who it was until I sat back down and my friend Sara, who had come with me, told me. I didn’t really think anything about it until later when she was performing. I was stunned. She seemed so small and quiet offstage and dang, she turned into this amazing charismatic singer. It’s not that she was wild or crazy onstage, she just drew in everyone’s attention and had a great voice that I wouldn’t have imagined to come out of her. Yes, that was a great year.

For those who were hoping to hear my review of Echo and the Bunnymen in NYC in November, unfortunately, there is no news.  And no news is not always good news.  In this case, the whole US part of the tour was cancelled, because of tax problems with the band.  So they say.  With front men as cheeky as Ian McCulloch, it sometimes seems like their might be more personal reasons, or maybe just plain bad moods on a bad day.  However, some artists can get away with it.  When the things they create are as magical as their behavior in public can be offensive, we will excuse the tantrums of musicians.

It would even be all right if I had to cancel a reservation at a suite in a New York hotel, as long as I got to see the band.  Those who were lucky enough to be in the small crowd last October could see the Bunnymen at their best, and by all accounts, it was a show worthy of a decade of forgiveness for any time and money lost.  They still have it, so it seems.  Even though I have to say, I’m kicking myself for deciding to take that weekend to visit my cousin in Rockport, so he could test me with his new tattoo job.  It was not a big success, and eventually I will have to return so he can cover up the vampire that looks more like a sick squid after a bad night with robitussin.

Speaking of that, McCulloch has been looking a little down in the mouth himself lately.  But he’s the kind of hero that we can forgive, because when he’s clear, his mouth makes beautiful sounds.  And if it all holds together, and things sort themselves out long enough, we might get a chance to meet in Coachella, which should prove to be one of the best year’s of that festival.  The 80s were coming back, but the new decade does suggest that we’re going to be looking less at Echo and more at reunion tours of the survivors of the 90s.  So it goes.