Bourgeois Bizzarre: Elmwood October

 

My old neighborhood still holds vestiges of Halloweens past 

in its new gilded interstices

 Miss October in the Elmwood 2015

 Charming seasonal decorations are abundant

 October when the warm colors show in the leaves,

Nothing says Autumn like a humongous banana tree

But this is in fact venerable Russell street

A major trick-or-treat trafficking corridor

 Window on Russell street

Sugar skull faces are huge these days

Middle-aged gals enthusiastically collect all things calavera

  

 Watch what is happening in front of one's eyes

 Elaborate fabrics

 The phatasmagoria of everyday life

They're trying to make him into the Pink Panther

But you can never change a leopard's spots

He has to be born this way

 Children adore zoological masks

 The iron horse has led to a river of tears,

This life can not stand

 The Day of the Dead looms ahead

Opulence has set in hereabouts

All jewels and binoculars

Hang from the head of a mule

 The long-standing Elmwood Stationers

Count on them for a tasteful greeting card

 This was a hardware store for most of my time here

Now its a pricey clothes store 

for wives to get even with husbands

 It's called Therapy

Luxury ice cream

Long lines here even on cold July evenings

Pet headquarters,

Package containing "Bat Dog Costume,"

Because pets love Halloween, don't they?

Recently-arrived swanky hat shop

Sleek, aerodynamic, a hat to put you in the driver's seat,

While you swan around looking like a dork

You could die of cuteness

Even the jewel gets in on the graveyard smash,

One of these hyper-sensitive mind-reading dogs

Norman Bates Bunny replica

Meets Ted Bundy Volkswagen

 In my mediumistic eyes,

The corpse of the middle-class

This was Elmwood Pharmacy

Prescription bottles had typed labels

Ozzie's Soda Fountain was the Elmwood clothesline,

Recently in the news when a busy server shooed away

An Afro cartoonist who walked in a showed a customer a book,

People sometimes peddle in cafes,

But the cartoonist raised a ruckus, the customer was his Euro-wife,

The server was branded racially insensitive and fired,
A community meeting of cheap contrition was duly held

Back at Russell street,

My Punk rock Halloween togs right there

Around by Benvenue

A tradition of extravagant "haunted houses"

Exists on this garden block

Sticker on someone's mail box,

Let's hope, shall we?

Gremlin dog statuette wearing expensive eye-wear

Security device still attached,

The latest deconstructionist fad,

It's either that or google-glass

Tail of the Yak
Long-standing "eccentric" artsy decor shop,
Traditional Oaxacan tea-towel embroidery

8 October 2015