Category Archives: Day of the Dead

Oct 28 2021
Day of the Dead, Halloween

Mysteries Abound

Hallowe’en approaches and the Days of the Dead that follow: All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Dia de Los Muertos, I Morti. These have always been some of my favorite days of the year, ever since I was a kid. My excitement is all too apparent this year in all the events––virtual and otherwise––I’ve got in the works this week and next. Here’s my official invitation to you to be part of as many as you wish. Here they are:

The Convivio Dispatch for Hallowe’en
Writing an annual story for All Hallow’s Eve has become a long standing tradition of mine. If you are subscribed to my other writing project, the Convivio Dispatch from Lake Worth, then you’ll be receiving it as a gift via email in the next few days––perhaps Thursday, in the very witching time of night, or Friday, or even Saturday. It all depends when on when I think it’s done. And it’s almost there. This year’s Convivio Dispatch for Hallowe’en is a gently ghostly story… and certainly more mysterious than spectral. It’s about my favorite local celebrity, who lived and died here in Lake Worth many decades ago. To receive the story in your inbox, click here to subscribe to the Convivio Dispatch (you’ll also get to read a sample from a few Hallowe’ens ago). You can always unsubscribe your story arrives (though it would surely break my heart).

Book Arts 101: Autumn Spell
I filmed a 45 minute video earlier this week: me in a casual ramble, featuring some of the spookier and more mysterious items at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts, where I work. It’s a fun visit, filled with fascinating artists’ books and paper engineering and a bit of poetry, too, and some books that you may not think of at all as books. Fascinating, eye opening… and more than a little mysterious. Click here to watch.

Stay Awake: Bedtime Stories for Kids & Sleepy Adults
My newest project for the Jaffe Center for Book Arts is a online bedtime stories project, and it launches today! Our first story is performed by master storyteller Jonathan Kruk, who brings us his abridged version of Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Jonathan’s version is called The Misadventures of Ichabod Crane, and it was filmed at Sleepy Hollow’s Historic Old Dutch Church. I really think you’ll love it; it’s really well done! And if this series interest you, I’d love to hear from you. We’re looking for sponsors for future Stay Awake stories, as well as readers and writers and storytellers. I’m so excited about this, and this first episode is just excellent. Click here to watch.

Real Mail Fridays Halloween Social
Also as part of my work at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts, I host a weekly virtual letter writing social every Friday from 2 to 5 PM Eastern. This week’s social just happens to have a Hallowe’en theme with a soundtrack that is all autumnal and a bit mysterious, too. We have a small but loyal group each Friday of folks from the US and Canada, and though it’s billed as a letter writing social, the people who show up do all kinds of things. Friday you might be carving jack o’ lanterns or making candied apples or haunting a house. What you do doesn’t matter to us as much as your company. We give you time to work on your projects, accompanied by a distinctive soundtrack, and once or twice an hour we break for a little chat. It’s amazingly heartwarming, and you can come and go as you please. Click here to join in. The Zoom link you’ll find there is the same each and every Friday.

Dia de Los Muertos Lake Worth Beach
It’s our first public appearance in a year and a half: we’ll have a booth, like we always do, at Lake Worth’s annual Dia de Los Muertos celebration on Saturday, October 30 from 3 to 9 PM outdoors at Hatch 1121, the art center between Lake Avenue and Lucerne Avenue just west of City Hall and the railroad tracks. Click here for more details. We’ll be in the Hatch courtyard with a booth filled with our traditional artesanías mexicanas!

Florida Day of the Dead
A few nights later, on All Souls Night (November 2), we’ll be at the Day of the Dead celebration in Fort Lauderdale. We’re not sure yet if our tent filled with artesanías mexicanas will be at the start of the event at Huizenga Park, or if we’ll be at the Craft Crypt at the end of the procession… but we’ll be there somewhere, and we won’t be hard to spot! Click here for more details.

I think that just about does it. If you’re local, gosh it would be nice to see you. We’ll still be masked and cautious at these two local events but for sure smiling widely underneath our masks. And whether you’re local or in some distant land, connecting with you via the Convivio Dispatch for Hallowe’en is one of my greatest pleasures. Especially if it helps you, too, tune into the mysteries of this time of year as the nights deepen and as the things of this earth focus their attention on gathering in. If you don’t hear from me here again until after All Hallow’s Eve… then to you and yours, I wish you a very happy Hallowe’en.

John

 

Oct 06 2021
Book of Days Calendar, Day of the Dead

Carmel Valley Pumpkins, or Your October Book of Days

Six days into the month, and here is your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for October. I’d apologize for my belatedness, but you’re probably tired of my apologies. Rather, just enjoy the calendar. Cover star this month: a 1907 oil painting by Evelyn McCormick called Carmel Valley Pumpkins.

And just like that here in Lake Worth, where last week summer was still in charge, now the shadows are lengthening and the days feel lighter, breezier. The air may not be crisp, but it is drier, and that counts for something.

DIA de LOS MUERTOS LAKE WORTH BEACH
So it’s official: We’ll be making our first public market appearance this month since February, 2020. Find us on Saturday October 30 at Dia de Los Muertos Lake Worth Beach, our town’s annual celebration for Day of the Dead. Same place as usual: Hatch 1121 just west of the railroad tracks between Lake Avenue and Lucerne Avenue. Masks are required (and I don’t think they’re talking about calavera masks in this case). This joyous celebration runs from 3 to 9 PM, and although this year it’s being held the day before Hallowe’en, keep in mind this is not exactly a Hallowe’en thing. None of the silly trappings that have befallen our contemporary Hallowe’en: no blood, no gore, no sexy nurses, no horror movies. Dia de Los Muertos, rather, is a celebration honoring those who have come and gone before us and a joyful acceptance of what lies ahead for us all. It is the time each year when I am most proud to be part of this Lake Worth community. Click here for full details. There will be ofrendas, music and dance, and we’ll be there with plenty of our authentic Artesanías Mexicanas!

We’re also teaching our Calavera Prints! workshop this Saturday from 2 to 5 PM at Hatch 1121 as part of the celebration. You’ll learn a simple process to make José Posada inspired linoleum cut prints… a process you can continue at home without a press. We will, nonetheless, have our Nolan Tabletop Press at Hatch this Saturday, along with some historic wood type, to give you an authentic letterpress experience. You don’t need to be “artsy” to do this, and you don’t even need to know how to draw. I’ve got some great tricks up my sleeve, trust me. The workshop cost is $65 and you do have to register ahead of time: click here for full details and to register. The class is limited to 8 properly masked participants.

CHOOSE YOUR SALE!
One last thing for today: at our online Convivio Book of Days Catalog, take your choice this week of two sales we are running. First up: Mom is now 95 years old. Her birthday was on Sunday, and to celebrate, we’re having a sale on her Millie’s Tea Towels line of hand embroidered flour sack tea towels. Save $9.50 when you buy any four of Millie’s Tea Towels (or one 7-day set), and get free domestic shipping, too, when you use the discount code HAPPYBIRTHDAY at checkout. Find Millie’s Tea Towels at the new Linens & Textiles link on our catalog page. Shop here!

And if you need to stock up on any of the other wonderful things we sell, you’ll save $10 on your purchase of $75 on everything in the shop with discount code STREETFAIR, plus get free domestic shipping. Everything means everything! Artesanías Mexicanas for Dia de Los Muertos, sparkly new Advent calendars from Germany, German and Swedish woodcrafts for Christmas, and lots more. Shop here!

Image: “Carmel Valley Pumpkins” by Evelyn McCormick. Oil on canvas, 1907 [Creative Commons, via Wikimedia Commons].

 

Nov 03 2020
2 Comments
Day of the Dead

Dear Friends & Gentle Hearts

As the story goes, when the great American songwriter Stephen Foster left this earth in January of 1864, a scrap of paper was found in his pocket. On it, he had written five words: Dear friends and gentle hearts. They are the last of his words that we have. Of course, not all Stephen Foster’s lyrics have proven politically correct, but then again, an awful lot has changed in the world since 1864, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find, even today, a person who is not moved by at least one Stephen Foster tune or another. Mr. Foster understood longing, and he understood melancholy, and we feel still what he felt then. That is part of the universality of the human experience, and why those five words written on a scrap of paper and stuffed into his pocket have such resonance. Especially now, during these autumnal days when we remember our beloved dead. It is the time of year when our thoughts burrow beneath the earth, just as some animals do, and just as trees now shift their growth toward roots. Firm foundations. We are connected to our ancestors, to our friends and family who have gone before us. We are here because they were here. The tree growing both above and below the earth. The circle that remains unbroken.

This, when you get right down to it, is what these mysterious autumnal days are all about. This is the root of Hallowe’en and its welcoming of All Hallows Day on November 1 and All Souls Day on November 2. These are the Days of the Dead. And while we never stop missing the ones who leave before we do, the thing to remember is that these days are meant to hold joy as well as sorrow. We remember those who have gone, we welcome them back, we keep them close at heart and we keep the channels open, in whatever form fits your belief system. It is not a religious or a secular thing so much as a time of putting things back together: remembering in its purest sense (re-membering: putting the members together again).

The days have been busy. I am sorry for not writing sooner, but I am writing now, on this late night of Día de los Muertos, this Festa di Morti. How two guys who take Stay at Home recommendations about as seriously as is possible (we rarely venture anywhere these days) can be so busy is beyond me, yet we are. But my mom and sister came up for a socially distant dinner on Hallowe’en, and then I taught a Calavera Prints virtual workshop for our local Día de Muertos celebration on Sunday, and here we are today. Earlier this evening, I made pan de muertos: a delicious cinnamon and anise bread, and I got Seth out for a stroll through Hillcrest Cemetery in West Palm Beach just before night fell. No big community celebrations this year, no Dia de Muertos Street Fairs, and we’re so wistful for those wonderful events. But that’s ok. As folks are saying lately: we stay apart now so when we come together again, no one is missing.

A few items of the nota bene sort: Your Convivio Book of Days calendar for November is drastically late. But it will come. And won’t you join me Wednesday at 3 PM Eastern for Book Arts 101? This one is the last in a trilogy of Book Arts 101 broadcasts devoted to the mysteries of autumn, and it will focus on Día de los Muertos. It’s a Zoom event that you’ll have to pre-register for. Sign up here. If you miss the live broadcast, don’t worry, you’ll find the video at the Vimeo Channel of the Jaffe Center for Book Arts soon after the broadcast is done.

Finally, our Autumn Sale continues: $10 off when you spend $75, plus free domestic shipping… that comes to a total of $18.50 off your order. Shop here and use discount code STREETFAIR when you check out. Or spend $50 and we’ll give you free domestic shipping with no discount code required. Shop our traditional artesanías mexicanas for Day of the Dead, traditional advent calendars from Germany, Christmas artisan goods from Sweden and Germany and Italy, Shaker herbs and teas and soaps, and our own letterpress printed books and broadsides, and lots more.

Oh, ok, two more nota bene items: If you did not receive this year’s Convivio Dispatch for Hallowe’en and would like to read it, here it is: just click here. It is one of my favorite Dispatches ever. And since I baked a seasonal bread, perhaps you’d like to, too. Here is our family recipe for Pan de Muertos, published in a Convivio Book of Days post in November, 2017 (that year the monthly calendar arrived in a timely fashion). The bread is easy to make, and so delicious. It’ll be our breakfast in the morning, before we go cast our votes on Election Day. I’m voting for decency, integrity, and respect.

 

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