Happy October!

It’s finally October! My favorite month of the year. Not only is it autumn but it ends with Halloween, the best holiday ever.

I love this bit from Neil Gaiman’s short story, October in the Chair (Fragile Things, Harper Collins):

October was in the chair, so it was chilly that evening, and the leaves were red and orange and tumbled from the trees that circles the grove. The twelve of them sat around a campfire roasting huge sausages on sticks, which spat and crackled as the fat dripped onto the burning applewood, and drinking fresh apple cider, tangy and tart in their mouths.

Doesn’t that sound lovely? Now, dear Brooklyn trees please do me a favor and turn all orange-red delicious and get all crunchy underfoot. The stores are full of fat fat FAT pumpkins one of which I plan to bring home with me this evening.

This weekend I watched the BBC/PBS/Royal Shakespeare Company’s version of Macbeth starring Patrick Stewart (what can’t he do? Piccard, Dr. X, Macbeth. The man is walking Genius). It was a modernized version, which normally I’m not a fan of, but this WWII/Stalin-esque retelling was fantastic. Fantastically acted, produced, everything. Check out the Weird Sisters:

Have you ever seen Double Double Toil and Trouble done like that?? As my husband said, it’s Shakespeare meets American Horror Story.

We also watched a similar production of Hamlet starring The Doctor, er, I mean David Tennant which was equally fantastic. Course he is a Time Lord. And next weekend we’ll be lucky enough to see the Globe Players (all the way from London) performance of Hamlet at Pace. Support the Arts, folks. One day it could be gone.

So raise your pumpkin goblets because the only thing better than regular October is a Very Shakespearean October! Cheers!