As everyone knows (or should know), October is the month named in honor of the octopus, and we’re supposed to celebrate cephalopods every day. It culminates in the great festival of Octoween, when all the good children who keep molluscs in their heart are rewarded with sushi, while all the wicked children who think eight or ten arms are too many get surprised by tentacles rising up from the ground to snatch them away to a pelagic doom.*
Whoever carved this is going to get a whole bucket of tako.
*Don’t you dare criticize my mythology!
Way cool, and very unique!
I don’t know if I could handle a whole bucket of the stuff though…
Is there a Nobel Prize for pumpkin carving? There should be. And, hell, practically by definition it’d be a lot more prestigious than the Economics prize…..
Bah! How can I not criticize the silly, brine-addled mythology of Octoween, when everyone knows the One True Holiday is Decemberween:
http://www.homestarrunner.com/xmas2001.html
Ew. Eating tako is like chewing on a shred of tire rubber.
No offense, PZ, but it is.
mmmmmmmm……….tako. If it’s like rubber, it hasn’t been properly tenderized, or it’s not fresh. Oh yeah.. a little salt, a little soy sauce…. YUM!
It culminates in the great festival of Octoween
I’d never connected cephalopods (“Octoween”) to Terry Pratchett (“octarine”) before… it’s all clear to me now…
Let’s cephalocelebrate in October *and* December – everybody (sufficiently geeky) knows that 31OCT = 25DEC.
Dammit, Theo Bromine beat me to it!
Tell me, did you learn this via Isaac Asimov’s “Black Widower” mystery story “The Family Man”, like I did, or is there another source?
I sense a great war brewing, between the cephalopodiphiles who worship at Octoween and the fanatical devotees of the Great Pumpkin.
I can’t tell you the fond memories I have of childhood, watching cartoons such as It’s The Great Cthulhu, Charlie Brown, the terrified final screams of trick-or-treaters coming from the well in the middle of the cellar as suckered, tentacled Lurking Things enjoyed fresh snacks.
Ahh, the witching time. Deck the halls with limbs of cephalopods. (Still quite alive, naturally — it’s ever so much more entertaining for guests that way.)
Alas, so much of the magic is gone now, the cellar floor capped and cemented over, the cephalopods living out happy lives (with much less rich diets) at the marine aquarium; but still, every year, I make it a point to light a black candle in remembrance of He Who Dreams in R’Lyeh.
I intend to be among the very first devoured.
Warren, that just brings a tear to my eyes
You must know that Octoween is a pagan tradition, and the only true tentacled diety is the Flying Spagetti Monster. It is clearly a sin against the True Lord, FSM, to let children believe in this foolish octopus nonesense. While going out and collecting raw fish from all the neighbors is undeniably what most children would love to do, it would be better for their souls to stay at home and contemplate FSM and His Meatballs.
Cthulhu and the FSM are different interpretations of the same thing. Like that blind men and elephant jiggy.
Heaven is Cthulhu/FSM’s stomach, which is massive enough to contain a beer volcano and stripper factory.
Warren wrote:
Particularly the guests who happen to be twelve-to-fourteen-year-old gothloli girls. . . .
Warren wrote:
Particularly the guests who happen to be twelve-to-fourteen-year-old gothloli girls. . . .
Blake:
I assure you, the Tentacled Ones find them delectable as well, if a bit stringy.
You sir, were served stale tako. Do you by any chance live in one of those Midwestern states, far from sources of fresh tako?
A whole bucket of tako? I believe the correct response to that is “domo arigato gozaimas”.
It’s an oldie in Internet years, but you should check out “The Great Old Pumpkin,” by John Aegard, if you missed it first time around.
It’s an Octoween tradition ’round these parts.