Metatalktail Hour: Halloween! October 27, 2018 4:43 PM   Subscribe

Good Saturday evening, MetaFilter! This week, I want to know what you and yours are dressing up as for Halloween! Or what you might dress up as if you lived in a Halloween-having culture. Or what your best costume ever was, whether Halloween or cosplay or whatever. All things costumey!

It's been a super-shitty couple of days, so let's have this thread be a reprieve from all of the awfulness. On that note, don't forget to check out Thanktoberfest, going on now! (Here's the tag, if you want to go find some great posts.) As always, the topic is a conversation-starter, not limiter; we want to hear about everything that's up with you! (Double especially happy and hopeful things this week.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) to MetaFilter-Related at 4:43 PM (118 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite

The kid this year is a kid Frankenstein Monster who happens to be going to Hogwarts. We are undecided which house he belongs to - we have a Slytherin pin and a tie from Gryffindor so it'll likely be one of those. Possibly both depending on the body parts.
posted by Ashwagandha at 4:54 PM on October 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


This year my wife and I attended a local food pantry fundraiser as Dr. Erin Gilbert and Kevin from Ghostbusters. She got some extra mileage out of the costume for her barn's Halloween party by going as Dr. Jillian Holtzmann and dressing her horse as a ghost.

This year we're making stuffed pumpkins for Halloween dinner, which I'm excited about.
posted by jedicus at 4:55 PM on October 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


Today at the San Francisco Zoo I was a penguin. On the actual day of Halloween I have school and a doctor appointment- I shall be a Walrus for both. I bought two plants at the Sloat Garden Center while en-penguined which I hope brought a smile to someone's face. Probably the best part of "boo at the zoo" was the toddlers waving to me. "Hi penguin!!!" I especially liked the little 3 year old in a princess dress who tapped my belly a few times while apologizing for having been afraid of an earlier mascot style penguin. I think she thought we were the same person. Her parents had to explain the whole thing to me somewhat sheepishly- it was utterly charming. This all happened while we were petting a goat. I rode on the carousel, for the first time in nearly a decade which was also quite nice. I'm starting up the blog again, now that it's going on two weeks since we had to put down the silly bee-eater. I'll have pictures to share next week. For now- it's Halloween, and a time of healing. If I could get away with wearing my walrus everyday until Wednesday I would. But I don't think I can get away with that. Kigurumi style costumes are very comfortable!

And yes- I took a selfie in front of the actual penguins. Because what even is the point of dressing up as a penguin if you don't confuse the actual creature.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:58 PM on October 27, 2018 [16 favorites]


Hi I would like to dress up as one of the Dora Milaje, or Shuri, from Black Panther. Thank you for your time.
posted by Freeze Peach at 5:07 PM on October 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


The little McGees this year are dressing up as the main trio from The Dragon Prince (on Netflix). As the show is brand-new this has been a mom-fabricated outfit. I'm sewing the last of the trim on the "Ezran" tunic, and I devoted a whole weekend a couple weeks ago to making a dragon egg that glows. I also went and bought a loaf of french bread today so it can be nice and stale by Halloween to be the tactical bread, which Mini McGee felt was EXTREMELY key to the costume!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 5:11 PM on October 27, 2018 [10 favorites]


I have the whole week off! Which means I can both avoid having to costume myself in any way and also go watch little kids in the neighborhood trick or treating! (I live too far out in the country for them to come to my place.) I am excited.
posted by lazuli at 5:11 PM on October 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Possibly both depending on the body parts.

Do this.

Thank you for your time & consideration.
posted by aramaic at 5:14 PM on October 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


Ooof. I am so behind on Halloween, I haven't even bought a pumpkin or candy. I don't think I'm going to pull off a costume this year. Also, half of my appointments these days seem to entail tears and discussions of trauma and gloom, and I probably shouldn't be dressed like Pippi Longstocking while we're discussing how it's ok to be sad because your parents are getting divorced.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:21 PM on October 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


I’m Bad Janet! The boys are superheroes. We have a trunk-or-treat tomorrow and then we’re doing a Halloween open house during the hours our neighborhood does trick-or-treating- we expect at least 250 candy goblins!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:22 PM on October 27, 2018 [13 favorites]


I have an orange NASA flight suit that a friend gave me about 10 years ago. He actually bought it at NASA while on a tour, so it's super durable and looks really fantastic. It's the best costume because it's easy, it's recognizable by kids and adults alike, and it's super comfortable.

This year I'm working at City Hall on Halloween helping with absentee and early voters, so I'll have a parade of people coming on through all day long. I used to have a helmet (like a big fishbowl) but that isn't much fun to wear, so this year I bought a NASA baseball hat.
posted by Elly Vortex at 5:28 PM on October 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


I am not a performer in any sense of the word, but I like Halloween and even as a grown up I really enjoy dressing up and getting into character. It's late in the season and my kids are dressing as totally different themes and I had no idea how to get on board with either of their themes. Yesterday it occurred to me that both of them are completely engrossed in Pokemon right now, so I'm half-assing it with a Pikachu hoodie that I ordered from Amazon. At the very least the kids will appreciate it.
posted by vignettist at 6:01 PM on October 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Well, I have not cut my hair in 14 months, I have not shaved in 3 weeks and my gut is too big so I am going to slap on a plain black t-shirt and my prescription sunglasses and go as Jerome John Garcia. I was actually recently at a Bob Weir show and had some people, extremely drunk and/or stoned mind you, call me Jerry. My wise-guy son is suggesting strongly that I chop off half my middle finger on my right hand to look authentic.

My recently moved in neighbors have a 4 yo girl who is so excited for Halloween! SHe has been dressing up and ringing my bell as practice for about a week. Finally, I am clueless, I recognized the pattern and got her some candy so now she gets candy every day she practices. Her mom is trying to not let her think that every time she says trick or treat the other person will give her candy. Apparently, she has been saying it to people in every store they go into. Some have actually obliged.

I usually only get a handful, maybe 20 or 25 kids to my home. This year, I noticed a sale on full bars of Nestle Crunch, 2 for $1. So, for $20 I bought a box of 40. I am excited to be that guy who gives our full bars!
posted by AugustWest at 6:04 PM on October 27, 2018 [17 favorites]


I was going to dress up as the new Doctor Who and I ordered the shirt, pants, coat and sonic screwdriver from Hot Topic. When it arrived, my daughter fell in love with it (I had secretly hoped she might), so she'll be wearing it.
posted by mogget at 6:19 PM on October 27, 2018 [12 favorites]


My 12 yr old son is going as Dwight Schrute. One of his friends is going as Jim. Also, if you plunk a $16 bag of Halloween candy in the middle of a group of 7th grade boys playing D&D, it will be gone within an hour.
posted by selfmedicating at 6:35 PM on October 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


I was going to a party tonight but due to Reasons, I cancelled. I'm tired. For actual Halloween, I'll be handing out candy to the kids that live in our homes, and then handing out candy at home. I'm not dressing up. I'm carving a pumpkin tomorrow though.
posted by deezil at 6:44 PM on October 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


I'm thinking of dressing as Riparian Dream Wizard-Goddess. I have a full length caftan with a reedy riverbank and creekwater print. On the morning of Halloween I will go into my side yard and harvest some leafy bendy bamboo and weave a crown/halo of about 3 feet in diameter and then balance this birdnest on my head.

I will leave my ankle length hair in a gnarly mess and step in some mud up to my ankles. Somewhere in the process I am bound to get mud on my hands, then face. This will occur organically with no artifice.

I will then go to work (we're encouraged to wear costume) and most likely will be told to put on closed toes shoes. Will have muddy shoes ready to put on. I'll need to rig up a way to carry my magic wand, maybe with some Coral vine or Wisteria.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 6:47 PM on October 27, 2018 [7 favorites]


I love Halloween but this year I will be in Tokyo, so if anyone has done anything Halloween-y in Tokyo let me know!
posted by WidgetAlley at 6:51 PM on October 27, 2018


I'm not doing Halloween, but I was kind of on the fence about NaNoWriMo this year and recent events made me realize, you know, fuck it, I'm not only doing NaNoWriMo, I have officially resolved that even if I can't figure out a plot, I will write 50k words of people who have Been Through Some Shit getting to sleep in, cook, buy things I can't afford, and do international travel.
posted by Sequence at 6:51 PM on October 27, 2018 [13 favorites]


sigh.
posted by bondcliff at 6:52 PM on October 27, 2018 [7 favorites]


I was Wednesday Addams, the easy costume of choice for pale white girls. I very skeptically, went to the Postdoc Halloween Party in Thursday, which brought together Postdocs from all Boston institutions in a bar with $2 Miller High Life and pop and R&B from the early 2000s. It was FANTASTIC and the $10 in cash I allotted myself for drinking went a lot farther than I intended it to. The party went from 7-11, there were grilled cheese sandwiches, and I made out with The Green Lantern.

Boston's postdocs were a hungover, sleepy group of people on Friday. I would guess that not a lot of science got done.

My two best costumes ever were Poodle in a Girl Skirt, and Princess Being Eaten by a Dragon.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:53 PM on October 27, 2018 [20 favorites]


Full disclosure: one of my bucket list items is to someday wear a really good Halloween costume. The last costume I wore was a T-shirt Ninja and even with related accoutrements, people still asked "What are you supposed to be?"

I've been buying things to put together a "Fat Rick" costume, my own take on Rick from Rick & Morty since I'm a person of size, but then it turned out I had an all-day offsite meeting the day of our Halloween party. It also turned out that I'm due to be an interview panelist for an intern candidate on Halloween, and I didn't think it would be right to show up in a lab coat with blue hair and a portal gun and belch throughout their interview. Maybe I'll wear my NASA baseball cap like Elly Vortex has to the interview and go as "Interview panelist for a NASA mission".
posted by Rob Rockets at 7:02 PM on October 27, 2018


The best costume I've done with my kids was constellations (and an alien). Black pajamas and LED rave earrings I got from amazon in bulk for cheap! Bonus: they wore the black and green pajamas all winter (and the alien hat!), and I gave all the earrings to my neighbor's junior high-aged daughter who passed them around all her friends to wear to a school dance.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:10 PM on October 27, 2018 [8 favorites]


Not sure what I'll be this year, mostly focused on the handing out of candy. My best costume ever was the red guy from DHMIS. Gumpybearbride was the clock. It was awesome.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:12 PM on October 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


We went to an 80s tribute band show last weekend and my wife and I went in full 80s mode. I did the Miami Vice sport jacket over a pink t-shirt mode, and she did the Madonna look. The band was great too. That is the closest went been to dressing up for Halloween in 20 years.
posted by COD at 7:19 PM on October 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I haven't done Halloween in many many years, but there was this once.... I was a Work-Study student (I think in the PC Repair Center instead of the Network Operations Center job.) I went to work dressed as a cross between Dr. Frank N. Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and a girl from Robert Palmer - Addicted To Love. I was slicked back, made up, in a teddy and panties and fishnets and high-heels riding a skateboard around campus fixing computers. I got away with it, I got a stern talking to. I think the big deal was that one of my Higer-Ups was actually a cross-dresser and thay year I won "The She-ist" ribbon. I sorta think he held a bit of a grudge some 15 years later. (Seriously, it was almost a game to watch newbies be terrified of that evil old man always yelling at people (for good reasons) when the day came that he burst into a meeting ranting and raving in a nice black lace dress all done up. On the whole, my workplace was quite liberal, but the teddy was a bit too much...

Sadly I'm too old to be cute in drag anymore.
posted by zengargoyle at 7:24 PM on October 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


I've gotten back on the garden horse so here's some pictures.
new flowers on the tomato plant, which is slightly ridiculous considering the time of year.
The peppers continue to grow, also slightly ridiculous.
And here are the two plants I got after I went to the zoo.
Got to get back on that gardening horse! More at the blog of course, but I just couldn't bring myself to post after the bee-eater passed. I think I'm going to be ok now. Just had to take a bit to not do anything and grieve.

Best historical costume I ever had was a really good Wonder Woman. But that was a while ago. It's kigurumi style costumes for me from now on. Comfort is it's own goal!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 7:45 PM on October 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


When I was a kid, I had this dark cloak that came with a Darth Maul costume that I repurposed several times, like the time I went as one of the flagellant monks in Monty Python and the Holy Grail by just grabbing a board from the garage and whacking myself in the head with it.

My best Halloween costumes have been the ones I came up with at the last minute. One year I went as one of the dancers with giant papercraft Shia LaBeouf heads in the Actual Cannibal Shia LaBeouf video. My Carl Sagan costume was a red turtleneck and a beige jacket I got at a thrift store, and my uncanny impersonation of his voice expounding on just how complicated it is to make an apple pie from scratch.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 7:54 PM on October 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


My mom was a dressmaker when I was growing up so we always had the best costumes of all time. I think my favorite from my childhood was Rainbow Brite. There was also that year we (me, my mom and my brother) all wore Star Trek: The Next Generation uniforms.

(I also had a good Sailor Moon costume in high school that my mom helped me make. I still have it but it's unlikely it still fits me.)

This year, my costume started out, conceptually, as "cute '60s alien girl" but it turned out like this which was kind of more '80s or something. I'm pleased, though, because it was fun. (The dress & belt I bought for this & I'll wear again. The boots I already owned.)

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and it makes me sad the older I get, the less people are interested. Costumes are fun!
posted by darksong at 9:21 PM on October 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


@TPS, D'Arcy liked your photo!
posted by k8t at 9:29 PM on October 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


I wore one of several John Karel skeleton T-shirts I now own to some MeFi friends' Halloween shindig tonight. Aww, Skelly. I love that iridescent skeleton so much all the time, not just at Halloween.

Since my father died in July, looking rather skeletal at the end, I've for some reason found comfort in cute skeleton images and stories of skeletons finding happiness (that Sad Ghost Club one made me cry when I saw it during that week back in July). My father always had a macabre sense of humor, and when we'd cleaned out his house about 5 years ago, we'd found that he had a literal skeleton in his closet—a cardboard Halloween skeleton, draped across the shelves, almost certainly because it made him laugh, and the idea of someone else finding it probably also made him laugh. Then of course I grew up taking Spanish classes from a young age, so I've known about the happy skeletons of Dia de Los Muertos for a long time, too, and maybe there's some association there as well. When I went to San Antonio a few years ago, I definitely got a little painted skull to take home, which makes me happy.

Long story short, skeletons experiencing joie de vivre makes me happy now for some reason, or perhaps several reasons, and hanging out with MeFi friends tonight made me happy, too! Also pumpkin beer rules.
posted by limeonaire at 9:55 PM on October 27, 2018 [9 favorites]


From junior high through high school, a group of my friends (about six or seven girls?) used to go trick-or-treating together every year. Once we got up in the later teens, we felt a little guilty about getting all the free candy, and so when each householder opened the door, we burst into song. We'd sing "Dona Nobis Pacem," "We Wish You a Happy [Halloween]" and a couple other things, one song per house. A few of us were experienced chorus singers, so we had some nice two- and occasionally three-part harmony going, and it went over well. Candy was yummy too.

My go-to costume when my hair was longer was always Princess Leia. I am not as pretty as Carrie Fisher, but similar in height and coloring, and I'd put on a white sheet or nightgown with a sash and then use about fifty-five gazillion heavy-duty bobby pins to put my hair up in cinnamon rolls. The resemblance was considerable.
posted by huimangm at 10:05 PM on October 27, 2018 [8 favorites]


Every day is Halloween!

I've always had some personal issues with really getting into Halloween because #Traaaaaaans and aaaawkard having to "pretend" and ha ha look they're in "drag" then go back in the closet and all that, but I once did a time traveling Alice B. Toklas pretty well. Long swingy overcoat, long natty scarf, pinstripe double breasted suit, etc. And it was a weed-centric party, so, yeah, I brought brownies.*

It's been raining buckets, and in the last 24 hours I've met three frogs, and just now I saw a salamander nearly a foot long. I'll take it as a real good sign we have a bunch of environmentally sensitive amphibians just cruising around, especially that far away from the little pond and gullies. I've been hearing them all over the place even in the cedars and ferns where it's rather dry.

Over on a friend's farm I met a totally new berry. The golden raspberry. OMFG. It's like.. a giant thimbleberry that doesn't fall to pieces the instant you pick it, has zero pit or pith inside and has a flavor somewhere between a pear and a very mild raspberry, with heavy vanilla and almost smokey-sweet notes up front with a earth of an earthy-sweet finish like a really thimble berry. The fruits are also HUGE, like bigger on average than a Himalayan Blackberry, a bit larger than a good commercial grape. Seriously one of the biggest drupe-cluster bramble berries I've ever met, but with zero pith and fuzz like bigger blackberries get.

I'm going to try to get some cuttings when it starts running enough to have to trim back. They only have a few vines but even those are quite productive.

Hrm, what else? Oh, had a pretty wild synth/hardware jam today at the art/bookstore place. It was a lot of fun just noodling around and letting people try out gear. It was pretty well received by people wandering in to the book store to find a pretty big pile of keyboards, drum machines, blinking lights and wires and stuff and the group of us just happily noodling away and trying out different sounds.

I'm frickin' exhausted again, though. Every time we do this sort of a thing it ends up being some aggregate of a hundred plus feet of wire crammed into a couple of big tables. It can take like 2 hours to get just 3-4 peoples stuff wired up right and run through a communal mixing board, and then we'll jam for 3-5 hours and it'll take us another 1-2 hours (or more if we're slacking) to break down and pack up again, and then up to an hour of transit to get everyone home again. And I woke up at like 6:30 or 7 AM on a Saturday to screw my head back on and then spend like 3 hours making sure I had all the right wires and boxes to bring with me properly packed and sorted.

And this is why at this point in my life if someone says "Electronic music is easy!" I usually respond with a snarky laugh and just walk away. Actually? Hey, no, plugging a guitar into an amp and banging out some chords is way easier. Trying to get music that doesn't suck out of a pile of electronics and audio cabling is a crapton of work, practice and audio engineering skill. Our signal path today had something like a dozen different volume knobs alone, and that's not including the big volume knobs on, say, the amp or speakers. My synth alone has like 30 knobs and maybe another 30 buttons on it, and it's really easy to twist any one of them the wrong way and make it sound bad/weird/wrong, depending on your values of wrong. Or just lose the sound entirely. Yeah, it's not that complicated, but if you don't understand what's going on on some fundamental level, a complicated 3x2 oscillator ADSR synthesizer with multiple LFOs and patching schemes can be intensely daunting.

* But yeah, no, seriously, Halloween is a total mixed bag for a lot of transfemme folks and sometimes a minefield. On paper it should be all kinds of fun but it can actually be really triggering and problematic on a surprising number of fronts. Confronting femme-mocking cisdudes in drag can be one reason. Another reason is that almost any femme expression isn't a costume at all, but an authentic part of themselves.

Please don't let this stop you from having fun, though, just be aware and sensitive of this if you find yourself prodding someone trans or variant to go out on Halloween. If they're resistant it's because of a number of really good reasons.

posted by loquacious at 10:21 PM on October 27, 2018 [9 favorites]


I love that iridescent skeleton so much all the time, not just at Halloween.

OMG this is probably the thread where I can put my favorite skeleton-related video of all time. I know it's the wrong month for Earth Wind & Fire but it makes me laugh like a loon every time I see it.
posted by WidgetAlley at 10:32 PM on October 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


Once in junior high I was a refrigerator. I don't remember why I decided this, but I rigged up a cardboard box with a door that opened when I pulled a string and shelves with empty containers on them and everything. I couldn't sit down at all in it, so wearing it to school was a real pain, but it was good.

This is my first Halloween post-divorce and I'm kidless that night. I'm pretty new in my neighborhood and don't know if trick or treating is a thing here, so I don't know if I'll give out candy, or hide in my house and turn our sugar pumpkin jack-o-lantern into soup, or what. My porch is festooned with beautiful spider webs, so I wouldn't even need to decorate. The kid has decided to be a kitty cat prince, and has further decided that you show you're a prince by wearing a sparkly pink tutu. I like her style.
posted by centrifugal at 10:42 PM on October 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


This is our first post-divorce Halloween so the kid will be out with his dad and I will probably be drinking wine and watching Practical Magic, my fave Halloween movie. I did successfully find a ghost costume for him that was creepy but not gory, and I feel pretty good about that! I have not really loved any of my Halloween costumes but aspire to do a really good one someday that is neither too obscure nor too mundane.
posted by emjaybee at 10:45 PM on October 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


Hey emjaybee, solidarity.
posted by centrifugal at 10:50 PM on October 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


I could have swore I saw a "Hippy Geisha" costume tonight. Also a Hip Hop Panda? Is that a thing?
posted by rhizome at 10:55 PM on October 27, 2018


My brother and I were two years apart so we were in high school together for two years, and in a lot of the same activities (i.e., marching band), so one year for Halloween I went as my brother. I waited until he'd left for the day and raided his room to get his favorite baseball cap (this was when every white high school kid in America wore the same ratty ballcap all the time, brim rolled), his braided leather belt, one of his favorite T-shirts, and his grass-stained lawnmowing sneakers, tucked my hair away under the cap, and went to school with his signature slouch and scowl, and it was HILARIOUS. Everyone immediately knew who I was supposed to be and was laughing hysterically, and all day people were going up to him like, "OMG did you see your sister is dressed as you?" and even teachers were teasing him about it. When we went home he raced to get to mom first to complain about what I'd done and why I should be in trouble, and my mother called for me in a very stern voice, so I slouched and scowled my way into the kitchen, still wearing my brother's clothes, and said, "What." in his particularly surly tone, and my mother burst out laughing.

She told me not to do it again and I readily agreed, because who repeats a Halloween costume? My brother was loudly outraged I wasn't grounded and my mom said maybe if he didn't wear the same ratty hat every day and walk around with terrible posture, he wouldn't be so easy to imitate.

He sulked for like a week, but there was a marked improvement in his posture.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 11:11 PM on October 27, 2018 [44 favorites]


I’m not going out for Halloween this year, but my favourite costume was a pink dinosaur a couple of years ago.
posted by ellieBOA at 11:21 PM on October 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


heh,loquacious. You can freak people out with Ministry - Everyday Is Halloween (old Ministry). Oh yeah, I like Ministry, just not that Ministry....

+++

TACOPBP: I scavenged from the street bits and pieces of a discarded badminton set left on the street. (ob
Hanebado! - MyAnimeList.net
reference). Sadly the racquets wouldn't fit in a bucket and are not suitable for juggling with low ceilings (have to keep an eye out for pins or torches hah), but I now have netting which may turn into a closet organizer type of thing depending on how the plan actually turns out. I'm still postulating ideas of how to pack/arrange stuff in a bucket in both weird and eccentric yet cromulent way. Sorta wish asavage was still MeFi so I could pick his brain.
posted by zengargoyle at 11:23 PM on October 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


Oldest kid announced 2 weeks ago he wanted to be Sauron. Like, not the Eye, but the humanoid version before he was killed, with all the crazy gothic looking armor. It’s actually coming along, one more trip to the hardware store tomorrow.

Youngest kid is supposed to be a lego minifigure, but after a couple of trips to the hardware store, it’s more of a robot junk man looking thing. I’m really trying to instill in them the idea that creative projects start with raw materials from the hardware store. Then they’ll be ready for their first trip to Burning Man.

Me, I’m going to wear my super realistic cowboy outfit again, but this year in honor of Red Dead Redemption II, I’m John Marston.

people, RDR2 looks completely amazing and the reviews are over the top great, and I’ve got so much going on these days, I have no idea how I’m going to fit this game into my schedule
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 11:31 PM on October 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


heh,loquacious. You can freak people out with Ministry - Everyday Is Halloween (old Ministry). Oh yeah, I like Ministry, just not that Ministry....

Aww, you underestimate me. That was a direct quote of same. I'm taking two Goth Points away from you for that!

I used to have that on vinyl. It's actually really irritating, but great for whenever someone requested Ministry. "Oh sure, I got you." "What fresh hell is this? This sounds like ABC run backwards through Cabaret Voltaire. Ugh, I'd rather listen to Psychick TV's Clarisse vs. Sickmob's R U Experienced? and that's horrible."
posted by loquacious at 11:54 PM on October 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


This year I did Nathan (well, Natalie) Drake with my husband as Sully; it's the first costume I've done in a while where I get to mostly wear regular clothes with pockets for my keys, and minimal prop-hauling. I spent a while making the holster rig from 3 as this year's project, but other than that, it was super easy to put together. I had a surprising number of people peg it straight off, too, so that was gratifying.
posted by tautological at 11:54 PM on October 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


Last night I was Death from The Sandman, which did involve putting the face on in a pub bathroom as I didn’t feel like sitting on a rail replacement coach in full face on the way up to That London. Can recommend Makeup Revolution's white SFX base (£3 from Superdrug) for all your non-budging deathly pallor needs. (T'hb was Gimlet from Discworld, I made him a dwaren beard out of yarn - plaits and everything - and he had a cod-Viking helmet, a toy rat on a stick and a Gimlet's deli apron with all the prime cuts of rat on it.)

Not much is likely to happen on Wednesday in my area vis a vis trick or treaters, which is fine by me. The doorbell ringing will send upstairs's dog into a frenzy so I’m happy to just chill and watch Hocus Pocus while t'hb goes to see a John Carpenter re-release.

It wasn’t a thing in South Africa but I have very fond memories of trick or treating in Ireland. I think by the time we moved from there to the UK, I was (mostly as long as you didn’t ask or ID) old enough to be out at the local goth club on Halloween so haven’t ever tried UK trick or treating.
posted by halcyonday at 1:30 AM on October 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


Sadly, my Halloween costume this year is going to be an exhausted and jet-lagged academic attending a conference dinner. I'm pretty sure I can pull it off.

My go-to costume for years was Charlie Chaplin. I'm terrible at dance and movement, but I seem to have been born to do a slightly exaggerated Tramp walk in a way that people find exciting.

But, I call dibs on Picotoro for my next costume party. There's a small chance that I'll get to try it while the PPAP meme is either fresh enough to be recognizable or old enough to be old-school hipster-cool. Perhaps I've already missed the first.

My most embarrassing Halloween was meant to be a reverse-trick-or-treating event. A dozen people with several small children signed up for it. We were going to ring doorbells and then give residents candy, liquor, and or packaged razor-blades and candy apples, depending on who answered the door. (Trust me, this was less weird than it sounds in the neighborhood we chose.) But, in the end, only two of us - both adults in our mid twenties without kids - actually showed up. After 10 minutes and a couple of incredibly awkward encounters we gave up, ordered takeout, and sat in a living room eating mediocre Thai food while in costume.

It was even worse than my 5th grade attempt at a mummy, which involved wrapping hundreds of individual strips of cloth around myself, tying them together, and not attaching them to anything. It turns out it's hard to keep a hundred cloth bands in place on your legs and torso while walking. (We didn't have the internet to look up how reasonable people make mummy costumes then.)
posted by eotvos at 3:02 AM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


For complicated reasons which may become apparent in the fullness of time, I'm going round a few places in an isolated village - including a pub, a church, a graveyard, and an oddly-shaped field which induces strange headaches in some who enter it - as seven curlews.

+ + + + +

Autumn is nearly done here, and with it a clutch of projects that, for a change, I've completed. Though other things have been neglected (I still have many emails and postcards, received over the summer, which remain unresponded, and an increase in messages from same on variations of "Are you okay?")(yes, just busy). And being busy means I haven't been to as many seasonal and harvest festival events as in the previous four years, though my Flickr album for the season indicates that cake has not been entirely omitted during this time.

Here in England (and other parts of Britain, and the UK), the clocks went back an hour last night. This made for a brighter start this morning, but sunset will be during Afternoon Tea today which is always a shock to the system. This also means that my girlfriend's butler will be doubly busy, serving said tea and slicing cake (today is Sunday so it will be coffee and walnut sponge cake, my favourite) while closing curtains and turning on lights at the same time. I have taken over fire making and lighting duties as I'm experienced and really enjoy doing that. On given permission I've carefully read the delicate House Rulebook (it's 200+ years old and badly needs rebinding) and apparently the winter protocol is that the drawbridge is also raised at sunset, so it will be interesting to observe how all this works out. At least it is not yet cold enough for the water to freeze underneath it, and the subsequent increase in badger-related problems.

Despite the usual negative conversational openers about the nights drawing in, the first snowflake, getting a thicker duvet out, how uninsulated the turret is and so forth, this time of year does bring benefits. Clean and fresh air on evening walks; the local vicar confusing residents; clear skies overhead; lovely sunsets over the Wolds and more distant hills; picking blackberries then making a splendid hot pie with them; less unsolved English village murders as it is more difficult to hurriedly dig a shallow grave in frost-hardened ground; cream teas in front of roaring fires in stone-built restaurants; early Christmas markets and fetes in rural communities for the selling of homemade jams and cakes; a feeling, when disconnected from the online and outside in nature instead, of peace.

I hope, in both north and south hemispheres, MeFites enjoy the positive and good things about this changing of the seasons.
posted by Wordshore at 4:02 AM on October 28, 2018 [8 favorites]


The party went from 7-11, there were grilled cheese sandwiches, and I made out with The Green Lantern. ChuraChura, that is definitely the best sentence I’ve read all week.

Older kid (HS junior) went as a ladybug to a Halloween party last night. Next year, she vowed, she and her friends will go as the Pink Ladies from Grease. She had previously asked us to buy some Pink Lady apples the next time we go grocery shopping, so I guess Pink Ladies are very much on her mind?

My younger (HS frosh) went to his first high school party Friday night! He’s deeply introverted and at first he wasn’t planning to go, but we gently encouraged him to consider it and he eventually confessed that he really was interested in going. It was a (non-Halloween) party with all his high school band friends, so we knew he’d know a lot of people and were confident that he would have a good time, and he did. He brought his new card game, Exploding Kittens, and enjoyed playing it with his friends. I’m very proud of him for his willingness to do something outside his usual comfort zone.
posted by cheapskatebay at 4:24 AM on October 28, 2018 [7 favorites]


Bondcliff, don't go kicking any errant footballs. (That's marvelous)

Eyebrows, dressing as your brother, today got a guffaw out of me.
posted by deezil at 5:39 AM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


During my Buffy binge last weekend, I made a stake and a large cross out of cardboard. I figure I can pass for a vampire slayer with my blonde hair in a braid, a t-shirt and cargo pants, and a quick Google search for the right '00s makeup.
posted by rawrberry at 5:45 AM on October 28, 2018


We hosted a Halloween party last night and people mostly came in costume and drank a lot of beer and ate all the candy I put out, so I’ll consider it a success. I dressed up as Hilda from the comic book/Netflix series of the same name. My partner went as Gritty

By far the best costume of the night was 2 of my roller derby friends who were a curler (team Canada shirt, leggings) and the curling stone (black body suit, papier mache disc+handle strapped to her back, roller skates). We found them a broom and people at the party took turns sweeping around my friend as she rolled through the living room.
posted by coppermoss at 6:43 AM on October 28, 2018 [4 favorites]


Kinda too late and too broke for Halloween this year. I'd had a vague idea that I'd dress up as Marlene Dietrich, but that never pulled together. I'd probably try to do something more if Halloween were a weekend night, but it being Wednesday just has me thinking 'pfft'.

My neighborhood used to have this awesome Halloween events - someone a couple blocks down from me would do these things where they'd build a stage in the front of their house and do a cheezeball show and then have a block party and that's where all the kids would go trick or treat, but last year's show was their last ever. At least we still have the people one block over who have a jazz band on the sidewalk with everyone wearing masks. And it looks like someone is doing a dance party nearby with emphasis on "Thriller." And we have the dog costume parade today, and that's always fan-flippin'-tastic so I'll be visiting that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:58 AM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


I put on a pinstripe suit and had and took my beloved Speed Graphic camera and went to a party last night as Weegee, the forties photographer.
posted by octothorpe at 7:09 AM on October 28, 2018 [9 favorites]


It was rainy yesterday in NYC so Mr Chick and I went as our favourite characters, Slightly Damp Canadian Tourists. Honestly we completely forgot that we were going to be here on Halloweekend, but at least we got some laughs when shopkeepers and bar doormen asked where our costumes were.
posted by some chick at 8:31 AM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


I spent much of Saturday at a friend’s homebrew & bbq Halloween fest drinking strong Belgians. As the sun was setting a quartet of friends performed a set of songs on ukulele and finished with “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” “Donald Trump stole this song from the Stones,” the host said, “and we’re stealing it back.”

So it was late by the time I got home and I just threw on some black leggings, a black t shirt, a black silk scarf, some purple eyeliner, and sprinkled purple glitter all over for the next party. Quasi-Bowie Space Fairy earned me an approving laugh from one person who said “That is a look.”

Probably my best ever costume tho was the time I painted my self blue, wore a purple velvet cloak, lots of brass bangles & jewelry & went to a grad school party as a Pictish king.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:01 AM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


Went folk dancing Friday evening, and was the programmer, selecting and playing requests. We had some newcomers, so there was an hour of teaching easier dances Fun, tiring. I wore black top, black skirt, my lovely, soft black boots that can't possibly last much longer, black bandanna with skulls & crossbones, black infinity scarf with skulls. No one noticed that I was Halloween-y, I really looked like an old lady in any Eastern European country where you start wearing black when somebody in the family dies, and never wear colors again. I think that's still a Thing. Except I wore purple tights.

Moar Pictures! I love seeing your costumes. Eyebrows, I will be making the constellation costume. My favorite of all time was when a group of us wore olive drab cargo pants, white tshirts, bandanas, black berets with a red star, and Groucho glasses - Groucho Marxists.

I used to make my kid's costumes. Knight's armor made of frozen juice lids. We made a cloth skeleton, ironed it on a sweatshirt & sweatpants, outlined the bones in glow-in-the-dark fabric paint. The last time my kid dressed up while living with me he needed a last minute costume, so he wore my kilt loosely belted, boots, no shirt, blue & white face for Braveheart. My ex- has all the pictures.
posted by theora55 at 9:21 AM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


So much work, I didn't even think of Halloween yet.

BUT.

Last week I recorded Bach on a harpsichord wearing a "sawdust is man-glitter" shirt, I think that counts.
posted by Namlit at 9:31 AM on October 28, 2018 [4 favorites]


I randomly found this earlier this week and decided it was a sign from God to be the Log Lady for Halloween.

(Taking bets to see if anyone at work gets my costume...)
posted by elsietheeel at 9:55 AM on October 28, 2018 [6 favorites]


I went to a Victorian mourning house last night. After the talk on embalming, complete with a period embalming kit, I involuntarily and loudly proclaimed how glad I was to be Jewish, and the resulting laughter totally broke the horrified tension in the room. The tour ended, naturally, in the gift shop. My friend bought a pink sparkly fan for her eight year old son (he was delighted) and I decided I needed a hat pin. The two Victorian clad women started talking about how beautiful hat pins are, and my friend, who knows me so well, cheerfully piped up with "They're good for protection, too!" The looks on their faces were priceless and I had a hard time keeping a straight face as I finished my transaction.
posted by Ruki at 9:57 AM on October 28, 2018 [6 favorites]


It was a good night for couple's costumes. My wife and I went as Popeye and Olive Oyl, and a friend and her husband were Bob Ross and a happy little tree. She made herself a tree headdress, and that was dedication.
posted by joycehealy at 10:34 AM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


I never think about Halloween until its way too late to do anything. Maybe next year!
My new workplace very much gets into Halloween, with a departmental costume contest. This year's winners were a Mariokart line-up: Yoshi, Toad, Mario, Luigi, Wario and Waluigi in complete costumes including cardboard cars that were around their waists. It was incredible. I'm the safety manager, so I was concerned that there'd be lots of dangling clothes, wigs, and jewelry (my stock joke is "no Stevie Nicks, please."), and to my great relief everyone was completely reasonable about it.

Speaking of safety, please be extra extra careful driving on Wednesday. Make sure your kids can see and move OK, and that if they're in all black (reapers, etc) maybe put some reflective tape somewhere on them or a glostick or something?

My neighborhood, particularly my street is crazy on Halloween. I'm going to keep a count this year, but I am pretty sure it's north of 500 kids. Down the street, someone turns their carriage house into a legit haunted house with actors and everything - there's normally a line down the block. They charge $1 pp and donate it to the neighborhood association, so that's pretty cool. Another house gives out boxes of Girl Scout cookies to the adults that make the trek up to the door (instead of staying on the sidewalk while their kids go up). It's really fun, and much more of an event than anywhere else I've ever lived. Maybe one day I'll be on top of things enough to really decorate and dress up, but not this year.
posted by Fig at 10:34 AM on October 28, 2018 [6 favorites]


Stockholm doesn't do Halloween quite like San Francisco does but a nearby neighbour organized a party for the local kids and my grandchildren went off in matching pumpkin sweatshirts over lots of layers. The party was outside and it was in the low 30s went they went off, fully mittened and behatted. I cannot recall any good Halloween costumes of my own. But a friend once borrowed a vintage cocktail dress I owned and acquired a gorilla mask and went to a party as Gorilla My Dreams, which I thought fab.

A cold has kept me lying low since Wednesday but I dashed out of the house at 3:55 pm to take a brief walk before the sun officially went down at (I kid you not) 4:01 pm. Welcome to standard time in Stockholm. I walked down to Sweden's third largest lake, past shivering birches (the leaves were shivering, I could hear them!) and wondered why I keep forgetting that there is a nature preserve practically in my back yard.

ArbitraryAndCapricious, I understand why dressing up like Pippi Longstocking is not in the cards but I salute your preference. She's quite the kick-ass gal.

Wordshore, I just finished another PG Wodehouse novel after a many-year hiatus. I know there is no relationship between your girlfriend's butler and Bertie's valet, Jeeves, but how delightful to hear that your firelighting and other duties are taking place within a residence that has a drawbridge as well as uninsulated turret. I do hope the walnut sponge cake is/was up to your high standards.
posted by Bella Donna at 11:46 AM on October 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


I'm missing out on Halloween this year, but on the up side it's because I'm in a show and I get a costume anyway! I'll be appearing as Alonso, the King of Naples in The Tempest from October 31st through November 3rd.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 12:15 PM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


guys.

listen guys.

any dog costume contest where the dog dressed up as the luchadora only wins HONORABLE MENTION is a hell of a thing.

The grand prize winner was Oscar the Grouch; I arrived at the park just behind them, just in time to see Oscar's handlers getting him ready; one wheeled a trash can along on a dolly while the other frantically chased her pup around wielding a can of bright green Manic Panic. I actually favored the second-place winner - a team of kids with a dog dressed as Mary Poppins. There was a performative element - they dolled up a dog crate to look like a carpet bag, then two kids dressed as chimney sweeps wheeled it onstage and then opened it to reveal a third chimney sweep and "Doggy Poppins", who both climbed out and then the dog just sat there while the kids started doing the "Step In Time" dance.

And those were just the top two placers. There were also dog cowboys, dog tacos, two completely different sets of Wizard of Oz characters, two completely different sets of fishermen-with-pugs-dressed-as-lobsters, two completely different "Ruth Bader Ginsburg" dogs, two completely different "sushi-with-soy-sauce" sets, a guy who stuffed his pomeranian into a french fry costume and called it "Pom Frites", and a dog who was dressed as the girder from that photo of the construction workers on a lunch break in mid-air (beanie baby stuffed dogs stood in for the workers).

The whole event has its own hashtag on Instagram, check here for your various dogs-in-costume needs.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:27 PM on October 28, 2018 [8 favorites]


Oh hey, if anyone is saving the pumpkin carving until today or later, please note that pumpkin-carving tools are apparently safer than random knives, FYI.
posted by Bella Donna at 12:32 PM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]




My all-time favorite costume was the year I dressed as the Little Match Girl. It was also the year that I officially gave up on Halloween costuming, as NO ONE got the reference.

So now I stay home, hand out candy to the hordes of children who descend on our home, all while styling an orange t-shirt with a graphic of a smiling, spectacled jack o'lantern.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 12:33 PM on October 28, 2018


I wish halloween was a bigger deal here, it seems like great fun. I've recovered my kat week's colonoscopy, but I Hebe to go back in a year, waaaaaah! (was previously every five).

Had a lovely weekend, kids were great, I had an excellent massage and run, and made a kick ass snapper curry I had been dreaming about all week.
posted by smoke at 1:03 PM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Wow, EmpressCallipygos, I totally forgot about Great Pupkin for about the 5th year in a row, but I'm glad to have your report from there.

I can't believe nobody on instagram has made the What's updog joke (except for me, now)
posted by moonmilk at 1:30 PM on October 28, 2018


kick ass snapper curry

Link goes to this thread, FYI. I would like a recipe! :)
posted by cozenedindigo at 2:55 PM on October 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Wow I stuffed that right up on my phone haha. Here you go!
posted by smoke at 3:35 PM on October 28, 2018 [4 favorites]


My kids are set for Halloween. I fixed the giant cat in our front yard, as the fuse was blown and a light bulb was out after... a wrestling match between our son and said cat. We're expecting our traditional 360~390 kids this year. We go wholesale club 30-piece sets and then my wife holds the neighbor kids to one bar a piece - which... yeah - 390 kids.

The winds weren't kind to our T-Rex. We glued his little arm and his jaw after he took a solid spill to the ground for the second year in a row... I'll stand him up the day of, and make sure I've got batteries galore in all the lights...

I'm in UAT hell all week with a new system coming up. I'm planning on working from home on the 31st because our street will be un-drivable once it gets dark and all the kiddies come out to play. I forewarned them that Halloween in our neighborhood was insane and that UAT needed to be the week ahead but - here we are...
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:11 PM on October 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


Ideas for this Halloween included:

- Prince Peacher
- Team Rocket grunt
- "Is this a pigeon?" meme guy
(with whiteboards hanging around my neck / underneath the butterfly initially saying "Is this a costume?" and "meme" respectively)

What I'm actually doing: probably nothing, because I am lazy, and also have plans to go to a semi-fancy restaurant where costumes are probably frowned upon.
posted by junques at 4:31 PM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


Sadly, the weather on Saturday lead to cancellation of my old boarding barn's annual Halloween party and my equestrian drill team's Halloween performance, which means that I've got no particular use for my new skellie sweatshirt now :-( That's about all I do for Halloween, although I may turn the lights on and clear a path to the porch in case any trick-or-treaters decide to show up on the road. PITA daughter made me buy a pumpkin at Aldi last weekend she was home so carving it is a possibility.
posted by drlith at 5:08 PM on October 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


I don’t really do Halloween dress-up, but I have ideas for someone. Like the show Legion? What a treasure trove of costume possibilities!

- Light colored 70’s suit: Oliver
- Black outfits, fake mustaches, some glow sticks, and a basket: Admiral Fukuyama and the Vermilion.
- Metal head device and unbrushed hair: David
- Don’t suppose you happen to have an antique diver suit, huh? That would just come in generally handy.
-Vest/cardigan combo and tan trench coat: Cary and Kerry. Bonus points if you’re Kerry with Cary stuck half out of her.
posted by greermahoney at 6:52 PM on October 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


ThePinkSuperhero, I was Good Janet! We should hang out. (This is v.1; I'm hoping to get some fabric markers to match the shirt a little better). My husband, who didn't wish to be pictured, is from Jacksonville and loves his Jaguars, so he went as Jason with all his gear. I like to joke that I am obviously Good Janet because I, too, fell in love with a man from Jacksonville and brought him to The Good Place (Canada). (Or possibly the void.)
posted by ilana at 7:25 PM on October 28, 2018 [4 favorites]


I just realized I have all the things to be Good Janet! So I guess I have to go to the Halloween swing dance tomorrow.
posted by ChuraChura at 8:03 PM on October 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


I dressed up today for GeekGirlCon. I basically used clothes from home to make the best Agatha Heterodyne costume I could. It was subtle, except for the trilobite pin and Incorruptible Library medal. I got recognized a few times, so basically a win.
posted by Margalo Epps at 10:53 PM on October 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


The first snowfall of the season is visible outside my window. In the unlikely event I get invited to a Halloween event, I could go as a snow person!
posted by Bella Donna at 12:30 AM on October 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


My girlfriend and I dressed up as Team Rocket, because we view them as the original tough-trans-girl-for-sensitive-trans-boy couple (it us).

We went to a very gentle Hallowe'en get-together a friend of ours does every year. It's a drop-in from 10am to 10pm, and they make lots of homemade candy and screen only non-frightening Hallowe'en movies and decorate their house impeccably with many many construction paper bats.
posted by ITheCosmos at 4:32 AM on October 29, 2018 [8 favorites]


sigh, my costume this year is "woman working double shifts because she got a last minute freelance job that delivers on the 2nd" Costume consists of thinly-stretched creativity, a lack of sleep, and a black satin bathrobe with gummi bears in the pocket.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:53 AM on October 29, 2018 [7 favorites]


My best-ever costume was probably when I dressed as a young Greg Universe last year, because I (sorta) had the hair to match.

When my kiddo was 6 months old she was Frida Kahlo for Halloween. When she was 1.5 she was Janelle Monae. Now at 2.5, she got to choose her own costume for the first time, so she's a t-rex, and she's really into it.
posted by duffell at 5:41 AM on October 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


Sexy Gnostic Heresiarch.
posted by Segundus at 7:03 AM on October 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


My kid has been saying she wants to be a tree for the past month, but switched this weekend to wanting to be a ghost. Since my mom sent us two (2) actual fleece costumes - one (1) dragon and one (1) shark, I am hoping we can do like a ghost shark or something. It might rain Weds, so we have to take that into account.

I don't want to dress up.

We carved pumpkins yesterday, four of them, lots of seeds everywhere but no tears and pretty quick cleanup. They will go out on the stoop with a bowl of candy while we take the wagon around the neighborhood. Kids like our street, and we run into all kinds of people we know.

I want to be excited and fun and present but am struggling with the desire to curl up in a ball and wake up in a better timeline. You guys, this world.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 7:40 AM on October 29, 2018 [4 favorites]


If I had any bandwidth for things like "fun" I would go as a Wicker Man.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:55 AM on October 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


The dude who came up with this was one of my Exes-From-Hell, but I will admit this was a decent last-minute idea:

One graduation gown + one rainbow wig + one clown nose = "The Supreme Court Jester".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:21 AM on October 29, 2018


....So the National Park Service has tweeted a "costume generator" for those seeking "last-minute ideas".

There's not quite enough time for me to get a "Majestic Saguaro Cactus" costume together, but it I was still amused.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:54 AM on October 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


I will probably never top my 5th grade costume - I was the baby of a vampire family, wore footie pajamas and carried a baby bottle filled with Hawaiian Punch.
Though I was also pretty pleased with my Rapunzel/Medusa costume (for a Monster Mash-Up party) My Rapunzel braid had snakes woven into it and a painted gray (because I turned him to stone) prince climbing up it.
posted by tangosnail at 1:08 PM on October 29, 2018 [3 favorites]


Hot Tub Time Machine. You got to plan this for a while because you need to gather your stuff indicating time machine goodness such as a Tardis, an Einstein plush with bridge and rose reference, cover of HG Wells book, you get the vibe because your cardboard hot tub needs FLARE. The worst part is trying to design and build the hot tub without having the 18th-century problem of wide panniers My daughter, who has never seen the movie, decided that this should be her costume. Wish she had told me like a few weeks ago...like months... so I could get big enough cardboard, suspenders and flare.

I do not know how I would do it, but SHAME in search of...(insert name of President Cheeto and his many associates). How do you costume as Shame? I mean, I was impressed with myself when I did an ovary but this one stumps me.
posted by jadepearl at 4:22 PM on October 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


Janet Swing Dance Success!
posted by ChuraChura at 8:01 PM on October 29, 2018 [4 favorites]


The idea that your own personal snacks could be part of your costume had never occurred to me before, and since then I've been giving serious consideration to having snacks be a part of every Halloween costume from here on out.

Ron Swanson and deviled eggs.
posted by elsietheeel at 6:51 AM on October 30, 2018 [2 favorites]


How do you costume as Shame? I mean, I was impressed with myself when I did an ovary but this one stumps me.

You could go as the Shame Wizard from Big Mouth.
posted by prize bull octorok at 8:54 AM on October 30, 2018


So, I'm not a big fan of dressing up (and I need to be in an all-day sponsor meeting tomorrow, trying to stay conscious, so costumes aren't a possibility anyway), but my wife found an amazing one on Twitter earlier today.

I give you Reviewer 2.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 12:01 PM on October 30, 2018 [3 favorites]


I randomly found this earlier this week and decided it was a sign from God to be the Log Lady for Halloween.

(Taking bets to see if anyone at work gets my costume...)


I have the same log and used it for the same thing, along with a good sweater. There were a couple people at work that got it that year, heh. That pillow now makes a great hammock pillow, FYI.
posted by limeonaire at 4:29 PM on October 30, 2018 [2 favorites]


The problem with the shame wizard is where would I get Nazi dildos? I can't make one up since I gave my non-affiliated ones away to a fellow Mefite. Don't look at me, they were new and gifts from former co workers. I was Mari Kondoing and the set did not spark any joy so into the give away pile they went. That is a lot of background detail on how not to costume.
posted by jadepearl at 7:04 PM on October 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have the same log and used it for the same thing, along with a good sweater.

Oh boy do I got a good sweater, 100% wool, lined with fleece, and it's got thunderbirds on it. And I'm glad for it, because it's 25 degrees out there and I have to walk a mile outside to get to my office.

It could actually function as a The Dude sweater, should I ever find myself with a need for one...
posted by elsietheeel at 7:10 AM on October 31, 2018 [1 favorite]


I already had a cute fairy headband, got a cheap pastel wig, and some sparkly makeup - winter fairy or similar. I'll admit, part of it was coming up with a wig-and-makeup easy costume that did not need me to wear contacts. Voila - the wig matches my computer glasses, call it a day. I may need to apply more sparkly makeup though - I should be glitterier.

When I was a kid, we pretty much always had sewn costumes, until we got old enough to assemble our own (though some of those were also sewn, we just had to do it ourselves.) One was a black cat costume that was not leotard and tights, but an actual cotton jumpsuit my mom made. It got passed down through my brothers, until one of them split out the back just before going out for Halloween. There was no matching black fabric in the house. My mother cut a strip off one of the ready-for-retirement sheets, patched the back, and decreed it was now a skunk costume. Which is how I came to be a skunk for halloween the next year.

I wound up going out for halloween throughout high school because my family had a big Coleman camping lantern and a number of kids in the neighborhood were not allowed to trick or treat at night unless escorted by one of my family with the lantern (much safer than just flashlights.) (I have no idea what they did after I went to college - with any luck some other family took up the responsibility.) One year I was not feeling especially well, so my school costume had been a trenchcoat and my dad's cossack hat and I declared myself a "Russian spy". When I took the little ones out, I told anyone who asked that I was Diogenes and pointed to the lantern. Don't judge me, I bet half of you were that kid, too.
posted by Karmakaze at 7:23 AM on October 31, 2018 [2 favorites]


Happy Halloween! This year I dressed up as a character from Where the Wild Things Are.

For how long I spent on the costume, I'm a little disappointed with it - but hey, I learned a lot for next time! Shoutout to Askme for coming up with ideas for my head.
posted by too bad you're not me at 10:58 AM on October 31, 2018 [10 favorites]


Here's the little McGees as the characters from The Dragon Prince. I'm super stinkin' proud of that dragon's egg.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 2:15 PM on October 31, 2018 [6 favorites]


So my good friend and co-worker didn't plan on matching our costumes and somehow it happened. Kara and Clark for the win!! Happy Halloween ya'll!!
posted by Fizz at 3:48 PM on October 31, 2018 [3 favorites]


I had no choice but to go trick-or-treating with DOT, Jr. tonight. Couldn't be helped. I was all out of bubblegum.

(glasses detail) (reference) (source) (famous scene) (other famous scene)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:14 PM on October 31, 2018 [3 favorites]


Here's my sliced face makeup!
posted by vegartanipla at 6:37 PM on October 31, 2018 [6 favorites]


I did not dress up at all, but I did count our trick-or-treaters for the first time this year. 849. In 3 hours. I knew it was a lot, I didn't realize it was that many.
posted by Fig at 7:06 PM on October 31, 2018 [4 favorites]


Fig, wow, that's SO MANY. Did you have enough candy on hand? As an adult I keep living in apartments/fenced-in housing in fringe neighborhoods where no one comes to trick-or-treat, but I feel like my parents' house in my hometown used to get perhaps 70 on heavy years. Admittedly the town itself was rather small though.
posted by vegartanipla at 8:48 PM on October 31, 2018 [1 favorite]


I went out as the gothest mf on the peninsula!! Turns out my good friend's friends bought a damn theater, they had their first public party, and it turns out there's actually hella cool queer (and friendly) folk out here in the forest, just invading the area. Really nice turn out and small, friendly group.

We even had an actual bat join us and hang out for a while and foot around the spooky old space and everyone was just like "hey cool, spooky."

Currently winding down totally off grid at said friend's place and patch of forest, not that far from my home patch.
posted by loquacious at 1:19 AM on November 1, 2018 [3 favorites]


Halloweeny report:

Several T'Challas of every race, creed, and color which I'm going to interpret positively and not as appropriation because I need something to hold on to right now and also because six year olds probably aren't sentient enough to do the bad appropriating

One lawn flamingo -- ballpark 12 year old in this costume that must have been about eight feet tall so that normal human legs were proportionate to the costume; her face was sticking out of the base of the neck. It was beautiful and grand.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:08 AM on November 1, 2018 [3 favorites]


We did! The first year we lived at the house, we were completely unprepared. We had 1 regular-sized bag of Halloween candy, and ran out in about half an hour, hahah. This year, we started with 8 warehouse-store sized bags, and were left with 2 by the end of the night.
posted by Fig at 7:51 AM on November 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


GCU Sweet and Full of Grace: Several T'Challas of every race, creed, and color which I'm going to interpret positively and not as appropriation because I need something to hold on to right now and also because six year olds probably aren't sentient enough to do the bad appropriating

Yeah, I'd take little kids being T'Challa as more of a sign of fandom or respect than appropriation (and I, a white dude, celebrate the diverse love of Black Panther). Our youngest, not yet 4, is a blond-haired blue-eyed boy, and he loves his Black Panther t-shirt (he has not seen the movie, and will not for many years, if we have any say over it), and when he picks it out, he's Black Panther for the day ;)

Our boys were Jawas, sort of. They had costumes, but certain parts bothered them. First they didn't like the belts, so they didn't wear those. Then the hooded masks weren't comfortable and made it hard to see, so they opted out of those, too. In the end, they were wearing fuzzy or knit animal hats (mainly for warmth, but also as a pseudo-costume) and the Jawa robes. Yaah for easy-going kids!

We actually had three little Jawa costumes, and I could squeeze into the 3rd, but it came down to my hips, so I thought I could find fuzzy arms and pants, either from a bear costume, or ideally a Wookie costume, and I could be a Wookie in Jawa garb, but I couldn't find any fuzzy adult costumes at the 11th hour. So thanks to my wife's creativity and makeup, I was a goth, which paired pretty well with her ghostly bride.

We didn't have a ton of kids, so we were generous with the candy, and only have a large bowl left (plus what the boys got from trick-or-treating). My wife liked the little kids in home-made salt and pepper shakers, but I'm not sure what my pick for costume(s) of the night would be. I was happy with the general variety, and distinct lack of President masks. I think my favorite thing was how decorated some houses were, so maybe I was paying more attention to those details than the costumes, in part to think of what we could do next year (and what to pick up at half price this weekend ;)).

We'll probably take down most of our Halloween decorations this weekend, then put up our pre-lit fake Christmas tree sans ornaments, because it's a nice bit of fall/ winter festivity and joy in literally (and depending on the election results and other politically-related actions, figuratively) darkening days.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:06 AM on November 1, 2018 [3 favorites]




Do people know what that is here? Virtually no one IRL did.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:54 AM on November 1, 2018


DirtyOldTown: Do people know what that is here? Virtually no one IRL did.

Nope, but then again, most of the teenagers' costumes went right over/ past my head. Still, I dig the costume!
posted by filthy light thief at 2:44 PM on November 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


elsietheeel: It could actually function as a The Dude sweater, should I ever find myself with a need for one...

With snow on the nearby hills, I really appreciate the warm costume!

I saw a white, fuzzy jacket that instantly reminded me of a cleaner, smaller version of this coat worn by Elijah Wood in the BBC American version of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, and I was really tempted to try it on, in my attempts to make an 11th hour costume. (I also found a giant, light blue faux lambskin rug, which seemed like something I should just have on hand, to make up some costume, right?)
posted by filthy light thief at 2:50 PM on November 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


I saw a white, fuzzy jacket that instantly reminded me of a cleaner, smaller version of this coat worn by Elijah Wood in the BBC American version of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Holy crap you should have tried it on! Even if it's a costume no one ever would have gotten...YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWN, AND YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT YOU ARE AWESOME.

But ultimately? You probably shouldn't take my advice, because I kind of collect half-assed costumes. I can dress as any member of the Belcher family with no notice, and I used to be able to whip out a Margot Tenenbaum in an instant - but my polo dress and fur coat no longer fit. I can do a last minute Joan Holloway. I've got a Starbuck costume from the new BSG. I've got the Perfect Attendance and Punctuality Award pins from Rushmore so I could probably easily manage a Max Fischer costume. Now I have Margaret Lanterman and The Dude. And probably others that I'm not even remembering right now. I love a half-assed costume...
posted by elsietheeel at 5:27 PM on November 1, 2018


My original costume plan this year was Lady Justice, complete with scales, blindfold and sword. After the Supreme Court tragedy (and a somewhat triggering political cartoon) that costume no longer felt empowering.

So....instead I decided on Medusa.

If only I had her powers, the patriarchy wouldn't stand a chance!
posted by Lapin at 9:38 PM on November 1, 2018 [5 favorites]


It's not costumey (we don't really do that as much here, at least not for Halloween, which has so far not really been a thing here anyway) but it does fit the Halloween theme and I made a thing.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:09 AM on November 2, 2018 [3 favorites]


Awesome makeup Lapin!
posted by ellieBOA at 7:40 AM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have a growing list of great costume ideas that I never do, so in that spirit, here is something for the "what I would dress up as" category.
posted by rhizome at 10:47 AM on November 3, 2018


I was invited to a party at the last minute. I could have done a "Pregnant Duchess of Sussex" but for weather constraints and lack of a ginger-haired doll. Yes, I have a tiara and jewels, what? Meanwhile, I did what I could: baby blue hoodie, shades and a printed "He didn't even WIN THE POPULAR VOTE!" sign, and my Damian from Mean Girls costume was complete.
posted by droplet at 1:33 PM on November 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


DirtyOldTown, yes, I know Undertale and Sans. I have more of a soft spot for Papyrus, but Sans in the genocide run is pretty fantastic. Neat costume!
posted by vegartanipla at 10:08 PM on November 7, 2018


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