“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.” ~Edgar Allan Poe
I watched Sleepy Hollow and remembered how my mother used to read us the Washington Irving story. Ah, fond childhood memories of getting the bejesus scared out of me. I love Halloween time.
I’m a little sad for the kids whose parents buy them Tim Burton’s movie instead of reading the original. Sure, it’s still a great story the way Tim tells it. But Johnny Depp is no Icabod Crane. Behold Washington Irving’s description:
He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock, perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.
The story talks a lot about the woman he loved and his rival for her attention, Brom Bones:
He was foremost at all races and cock-fights; and, with the ascendency which bodily strength acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone admitting of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight or a frolic; but had more mischief than ill-will in his composition; and, with all his overbearing roughness, there was a strong dash of waggish good humor at bottom.
Oh, Icabod, you never had a chance. The story leaves the cause of death ambiguous. Was it the headless horseman? Was it Brom Bones? Don’t ask Tim Burton. He’ll tell you a witch did it. Psh. Misogynist. (No, really, I like Tim Burton. Watch the YouTube. It’s good, and it’s got Vincent Price.)
