Oh, I love this holiday. Perhaps most fictions writers are, as we are so dedicated to that which isn't. There are not enough days on the calander when one is encouraged to go out in costume!
I love making costumes, though unlike with writing, I have little interest in audience for my costumes. Nobody every understands what I am, and the explanation required is often quite long. I am happy to explain, and also happy to remain a mystery for those who don't care about the explanation. The best question I've been asked in a long time was the recent query, "So, Rebecca, what abstract concept are you being for Hallowe'en this year?"
So costume highlights from say 1996 onward (when I was a whippersnapper and costumed by my parents, I wore mainly standard superhero/witch/alien/hula girl costumes, which enevitably disappeared beneath a parka and sometimes snowpants. I did not, overall, fare terribly well during the years I was being dressed by my parents):
1)Bunch of grapes
2) Chalk outline
3) Carrot (something of a produce theme emerges)
4) The Universe
5) Fire
6) Evil Toothfairy (she takes teeth that aren't even loose)
7) Dryad
8) Television test pattern
There were (gasp) a few years in there that I didn't dress up, as well as a few in which I was my standard fallback costume, a butterfly.
But this year is going to be the best ever! Or I'm going to get ink poisoning!! Whatever, I don't care, I love Hallowe'en so much and I've already had SO MUCH SUGAR!!
Whatever you are going as (and if you choose not to wear a costume, I choose to pretend you are going as a plain-clothes cop) I wish you a very happy Hallowe'en! Try not to egg any houses tonight!
RR
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5 comments:
I'd love to see a picture of the chalk outline costume, I can't imagine it.
I once went to a Halloween costume party as Noel Coward, in a silk kimono and waving a cigarette holder. I was amazed how many people recognized it. My date, who was an actress, dressed as Sarah Bernhardt, and when we began to sing "Don't Put Your Daughter On The Stage", virtually the entire crowd joined in. That was Montreal, in the '80's, with a bunch of McGill students from both the drama and philosophy departments, in a giant house in Westmount.
Later, when I was a student at Concordia, the costumes and parties were much darker, with Furies and Witches and Pixies and Violent Femmes, and a lot more sex and drugs. But then, that was the black-clad English and Arts crowd, and shows the difference between Concordia and McGill.
Sarah Bernhardt is now the chair of a department at a major university, mother of two in the burbs. The Witch/Cybele/Siren is a novelist. I still love them both dearly, but my heart belongs to darkness, which is just sexier.
No extant photos I'm afraid, but it was just a snug black outfit with white tape all around the edges (and white hairband).
Your parties sound pretty amazing--maybe I missed out on the best Montreal years. Although I must insist that McGill had its own bits of arty arty darkness--we worked hard on that!!
What did you go as this year? I want to hear about this potential ink poisoning business.
I do hope you had as good a time as I did. I'm not sure the party competes with Michel's in the sex and drugs department (it's been a slow couple years for sex and drugs; I mean, what are you going to do, people get older, right?), but there were costumes and bottles of drink and there was sugar and property damage and bars that I couldn't even afford to order water in. It was, in the words of Barney Stinson, legendary. I may still be hungover. I do hope you had just as good a time.
And in case you're curious, I went with a traditional costume this year (folks are still cleaning up the blood, from what I hear). Behold Zombie August: http://www.vestige.org/junk/zombie_fishsauce.jpg
Awesome costume, August, and by that I mean disgusting. Also, nice to see all the books in the background of the shot!!
Thanks! That's actually my DVD shelf. I do have four bookshelves though, two of which are 5x that size and stacked two books deep. Up to well over 1,000 now.
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