party

It’s Mr. Dressup, Stay Classy (Halloween)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

When most people think of Halloween, they think of trick or treating, costumes parties, parades, bobbing for apples, carving pumpkins, pranks, haunted houses, lots of monster related activities, and in my case, horror movie marathons as a teenager.

But the thing is that Halloween has history reaching back almost two thousand years. Many believe that it originated with the ancient festival of Samhain, something the Celts practiced every November 1st to help ward off ghosts and other spirits. They would dress up in costumes and light bonfires to achieve the proper ritual.

It wasn’t until the eighth century or so that the Catholic Church decided to change November 1st into a day to honour saints, effectively known as All Saints Day, and it even took on some of the elements of Samhain. Which, a lot of Christian holidays have been prone to do. Incorporate a pagan holiday into its fold, to help the people digest the practice better. But that’s something I could spend more than a whole post unto itself on, so we’ll move on, for now.

With that change over, the preceding night became All Hallows Eve and it was celebrated as such until the Reformation in the sixteenth century.

All Hallows Eve-olution

With the puritanical element introduced, the theology of All Hallows Eve was redefined and the ghosts came to represent evil spirits. After all, many Protestants believe that there was no purgatory, only Heaven and Hell, thusly spirits were demons and incredibly threatening.

As people immigrated to North America in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Irish and Scottish peoples brought their version of Halloween with them, watering it down and assimilating it into the mainstream of secular holidays.

Because of this practice, people focused instead on the symbols and rituals as acts of entertainment, maintaining the elements of fear and acknowledgment of the unknown. When the age of adulthood shifted from 13 to 18, more observances shifted towards children and their development, and thus costuming, craft, and activities became a celebration for them.

Let’s be clear for a second, my dear sweet treats, costuming eventually became the focal point and with that shift towards creativity, the tone of the event shifted to one of creativity and inclusion. It’s kind of amazing when you think about it. Out of the unknown and fear developed an event that celebrates the supernatural.

Which is why you probably shouldn’t dress in racist attire. Yeah, that’s right you thought this was gonna be a informative post, but I twisted it around on ya.

I’m not going to wax a ton of poetic on this but consider avoiding the following before you decided to embark on a party or three this weekend.

  1. Turning a racial stereotype into a costume
  2. Hyper-sexualization of women and hyper-sexualization of male genitals
  3. Mockery of a group of people or individuals

pumkin-bikini-worst-halloween-costumes

There is absolutely no reason to offend or induce harm on others during this holidays, no one wins when you do it, and in fact it reduces individuals into debased identities which they are forced to accept or react violently against. It’s super uncool and perpetuate the flaws of culture without helping us to move forward. But that’s just a theory after all.

Enjoy your weekend friends, and I’ll be back on Sunday with something rather stimulating.

Tim!

A New Theory (Renee Wood, interview preview)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

This moment, we own it.

That phrase, or idea if you prefer, is from a wonderful song called We Own It, as made famous by the poets 2 Chainz and Wiz Khalifa. And it also happens to be the title track in one of my favourite soundtracks from my favourite movie franchise of all time. This song lays out exactly what an entrepreneur and/or creative should be thinking, on an unconscious level, at all times.

About a month ago, I hinted at the possibility of expanding this blogging experience of mine into a different direction, or rather that I was organizing something interesting for all you fine folks. Remember? If not, don’t worry, I’ve got a link that will help jog your memory. (see Space Jam)

Well the time to further peel back the onion has arrived, and I am happy to announce my intentions for the next layer of timotheories. My primary goal with this digital tapestry has been and will remain to be about finding health and happiness within the arts, but why not involve other experts and get their personal insights into specific areas of creativity?

The answer is that there isn’t a reason to stop this, because it’s my party and I’ll share with others if I want to.

So who am I bringing to said party to open things up? Well, I don’t want to give away too much just yet, especially because I want to allow her a proper introduction on a full blown post all her own, but I recently met up with a fantastic lady by the name of Renee Wood. Renee happens to be another Edmontonian with a hunger for community and thirst for the arts. How convenient for me that I had a chance to connect with her over iced coffee and talk about some of her thoughts on her field of interest.

This is a little teaser that highlights part of our interview, just enough to give you a taste. It’s so incredibly awesome, and because you are awesome, I know you will check it out. So ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out.

I especially liked this response in the clip, but I’ll expand upon the idea of habits in relation to risk-taking in the next post.

I guess going for coffee with people [helps] too, I know its a stereotypical one, but I don’t know, when you are talking to people, sometimes they just solve the problem for you, without you realizing that you even asked them the question.

Now I think the next order calls to give you some more flavour on the kinds of interviews that I will be conducting in the future – the plan is to get cool people who have creative interests (music, photography, dance, painting, comedy, theatre, board games, curating, etc.) to focus on a particular topic and then I will vibe with them. The reason for this strategy is that I want to cover a broad range of fields, but I also want to provide a practical set of topics that we can all draw from at any time and use it for growth, whether we are artists, athletes, business people, or whatever.

In other words, concepts like motivation and discipline are cross-functional traits, so that should make sense to anyone and apply thusly.

But what kind of examples do I have in mind, you ask? Let’s do it. Do you have questions about risk-taking? Or are you interested in what it’s like to date someone with a creative background, whether you have one or not? What about artistic siblings, how does that work? Where do you go to network? Seriously, there are lots of avenues to explore dear readers, and I promise it will be fun.

But for now, I’ve pretty much gone to the well in terms of theories, so I will leave you with this verse from We Own It, to ponder over.

What you say? Tell me what you say
Working hard, repping for my dogs, do this everyday,
Taking off, looking out for all, making sure we ball,
Like the mob all you do is call
Catch you if you fall, Young Khalifa

And don’t forget to tell me what you think dear readers. What kind of topics do you want me to cover in the foreseeable future? What kinds of experts do you want to hear from? Leave a comment or send an email. I’ll reply, I promise.

Tim!