Inverness festivities focus on the occult

By John Labriola - Last month, when the Inverness City Council rejected placing a resolution on its agenda condemning pro-abortion Amendment 4, Councilman Gene Davis said council members needed to be careful because they "represent a wide spectrum of citizens" whose "ideologies may be completely different from ours." 

The same attitude led the city a number of years ago to cancel its Christmas manger display at City Hall, for fear of offending atheists. 

But while the city carefully avoids doing anything that could offend baby-killers and God-haters, that concern apparently doesn't extend to sponsoring occultic events that might offend Christians.

At this week's city council meeting, the city discussed preparations for next month's Cootertober festivities, a monthlong celebration of evil spirits and characters inspired by Halloween. 

Featured in the lineup of city-sponsored events is a Vampire Ball deejayed by Brian Cabrera, where attendees can "dance, drink, and party the night away in true vampiric style" by getting "donned up in the style of your favorite vampire character." There's also a Vampire Pub Crawl that encourages participants to join the city in "grabbing our capes and Vamp'ing it out as we cruise around downtown and drink the night away!"

Events also include a Witches and Warlocks Night Out, Spooky Story Time for Kids, a Historic Haunt at the Old Courthouse, and Cooterween, a trick or treating costume contest. 

The events are put on in a partnership with Twistid Arts Initiative, which receives a $74,000 contract from the city to promote and organize the events. The city expects to spend another $24,000 in staff time, according to City Manager Eric Williams. 

Twistid Arts Initiative Executive Director Elisha Belden spoke at Tuesday's council meeting. She told the council that Cootertober went viral in a video on TikTok last week as the top "weirdest festival" in the state of Florida, putting Inverness on the map for its celebration of the occult. Belden, who usually wears black and uses black nail polish, is friends on Facebook with Brian Kovalski, a self-described witch and drag queen who regularly performs psychic readings and drag shows at the Canna Bakery Shop in Inverness and the Boil Yard in Crystal River. The city honored Belden on Tuesday with a "Cooter Kudos Award" that recognized Twistid Arts Initiative's dedication to arts in the community. The Twistid Arts Initiative is run by the owners of the Twistid Ink tattoo studio in Inverness.

Cooterfest started as a three-day festival in 2004, then billed as the “Great American Cooter Festival,” to honor the Florida Cooter, a species of freshwater turtle native to the southeastern U.S. It consisted of family-friendly activities like cooter races, a music festival, and a pet costume contest. In 2023, it morphed into a month-long celebration of Halloween with a new moniker, Cootertober.

Halloween’s origins go back to the Celtic festival of Samhain, an ancient pagan holiday that was celebrated on Oct. 31. The autumnal festival acquired sinister significance, with ghosts, witches, hobgoblins, black cats, fairies, and demons of all kinds said to be roaming about. The custom of trick or treating goes back to the ancient Druid priests, who would go from house to house demanding food. If the people in a home would not provide them with food, they would speak a demonic curse over the home. To modern followers of Wicca, it is the most important holiday of the year, an opportunity to embrace the devilish, dark side of the spiritual world.

The next Inverness City Council meeting is taking place on Tuesday, Sept. 17 at 5:30 p.m. at Inverness City Hall, 212 W Main St, Inverness, FL 34450.