Tag: pumpkins

An older woman's hand supports a young girl's, which cradles a small translucent shrimp.

A Cornucopia of Dystopia: Thanksgiving in the Anthropocene

December 11, 2023

Living in Australia had gotten me and my Laddie off the hook for Thanksgiving travel since 2019, and we expected our recent relocation to Alaska would extend the streak. Then he wound up on a November business trip back to our native mid-Atlantic. With people we hadn’t seen in three years conveniently congregating for the … More A Cornucopia of Dystopia: Thanksgiving in the Anthropocene

Artificial cobwebs strung in a windowframe, hung with tiny plastic skeletons.

Trash or Treat? Escaping the Environmental Horrors of Halloween

October 31, 2023

I entered my office and walked straight into a cloud of bats. Cartoonish chiropterans clung to the walls. Orange crepe shrouded the doorways. A plastic mermaid skeleton with blue nylon hair dangled from the light over my desk. My grinning colleague animated a large, fuzzy spider perched on the cubicle divider. “You think that’s going … More Trash or Treat? Escaping the Environmental Horrors of Halloween