{"product_id":"haunted-air-9780224089708","title":"Haunted Air","description":"\u003cp\u003eAnonymous Halloween photographs from c.1875\u0026amp;;1955\u0026amp;;truly haunting Americana  with a foreword by David Lynch The photographs in Haunted Air provide an extraordinary glimpse into the traditions of this macabre festival from ages past  and form an important document of photographic history. These are the pictures of the dead: family portraits  mementos of the treasured  now unrecognizable  and others. The roots of Halloween lie in the ancient pre\u0026amp;;Christian Celtic festival of Samhain  a feast to mark the death of the old year and the birth of the new. It was believed that on this night the veil separating the worlds of the living and the dead grew thin and ruptured  allowing spirits to pass through and walk unseen but not unheard amongst men. The advent of Christianity saw the pagan festival subsumed in All Souls Day  when across Europe the dead were mourned and venerated. Children and the poor  often masked or in outlandish costume  wandered the night begging \"soul cakes\" in exchange for prayers  and fires burned to keep malevolent phantoms at bay. From Europe  the haunted tradition would quickly take root and flourish in the fertile soil of the New World. Feeding hungrily on fresh lore  consuming half\u0026amp;;remembered tales of its own shadowy origins and rituals  Halloween was reborn in America. The pumpkin supplanted the carved turnip; costumes grew ever stranger  and celebrants both rural and urban seized gleefully on the festivals intoxicating  lawless spirit. For one wild night  the dead stared into the faces of the living  and the living  ghoulishly masked and clad in tattered backwoods baroque  stared back.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45921755496501,"sku":"ByrdShop_0224089706","price":336.94,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780224089708_4c440f38-1b0e-4515-8416-e8fb0f647a10.jpg?v=1787600222","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/haunted-air-9780224089708","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}