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nDonyou think of people dressed in Goth style, often with black clothes, blacknhair, and black makeup? (Black or dark red lipstick, black eyeliner, and black or dark red nail polish.) Do you think of ghastly ghouls and spooky spirits?nWell, on Bats Day, all that’s part of the Disney experience!
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nEverynyear since 1999, there has been a growing goth celebration at thenoriginal Disneyland in Anaheim, California, growing from 80 people inn’99 to about 5,000 people last year. People come from all over thenworld, including New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, and European countries.nn
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nBatsnDay has also grown in length—the “day” is now three days long,nincluding a special Nightmare Before Bats Day Dinner, complete withnrock music. There are always large-group photos at Sleeping Beauty’snCastle and at the Haunted Mansion, plus photo scavengernhunts!
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nAllnthings Gothic…
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nWhennyou are talking architecture, the Gothic period extends from 1180 tonaround 1500. Buildings became more and more elaborate, with flyingnbuttresses, large stained-glass windows, pointed arches and spires.nThe Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, is a great example ofnGothic architecture. n
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nWhennyou are talking art, Gothic painting is the period from 1280 to 1515,nand it is more naturalistic, or realistic, than painting styles ofnthe past.
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nWhennyou’re talking fiction, Gothic novels became popular in thenmid-1700s, with Horace Walpole’s novel The Castle of Otranto: AnGothic Story. This style mixes horror and romance to produce “a pleasing sort of terror,” and it sometimes includes a dry sort of humornas well, as some Gothic novels make fun of themselves and theirnmelodramatic excesses. Some examples of Gothic novels include MarynShelley’s Frankenstein, stories by Edgar Allan Poe, and thenBronte sisters’ novels Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.nJane Austen wrote what might be the most famous parody of Gothicnfiction in her Northanger Abbey. Gothic literature continuednto be written through the Victorian period, into the late 1800s. Manynconsider modern horror to be an outgrowth of Gothic novels.
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nAndnwhen you talk about Gothic fashion or “goth” style, it is oftennelaborate (like Gothic architecture), Victorian-period-meets-horrorngenre (like Gothic literature), with a twist of modern punk-rockninfluence. Goth got its start in the late 1970s and early 1980s, andnit has stuck around for a long, l-o-n-g time!
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nAlsonon this date:
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nFlying Firsts Day
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nIndependence Day in East Timor
