Costume Dramas
by Michele 
This year we hit an important milestone in my house: my eleven-year-old is officially too cool to wear a Halloween costume. His younger brother still cruises the iParty costume row with glee bordering on hysteria. (Pirates! Ninjas! Soldiers with machine guns! I could inflict a lot of damage with this stuff!) But every costume I suggest to the older one is met with a disgusted, world-weary shrug. We leave with piles of bloody, severed limbs and a strobe light to turn the barn into a haunted house, along with a rubber mask (to be worn with street clothes) that he allows me to buy for him only because I convince him nobody will give him candy otherwise. Adolescence has struck.
The same progression happened to me. The princess and ballerina costumes of childhood gave way to edgier, more grown-up ones. I was a witch; I was Marcia Brady, then for a couple of years, I wore black clothes and face paint. Finally, I hit the no-costume phase, which comes once you realize that the mean girls are watching you, that their costumes cooler, or at least more expensive, than yours. There's only one way out of the no-costume phase -- the high-concept costume phase. The mean girls aren't too smart. If you dress up as the subway, or as Proust's madeleine, they won't get the joke, and you can take a nasty satisfaction in that. (Until you realize that a bunch of your friends don't get it either.)
It's reassuring how little Halloween has changed. If anything, it feels safer and more innocent today than it did when we were kids. Our childhood Halloweens came with an edge of real fear. In my neighborhood, kids trick-or-treated alone, sent off with dire warnings about razor blades in apples and LSD in popcorn. This turned out not to be such a bad thing. We were no longer expected to eat the bruised fruit and weird cereal balls from the strange neighbor with the cats. We could focus on the neatly wrapped Hershey and Kit-Kat bars and throw the disgusting stuff away.
My favorite all-time costume, I have to admit, is the little green onesie in the shape of a dinosaur, made out of fuzzy fake fur, that both my boys wore on their first Halloween. But a close second are some of the unbelievable high-concept one-of-a-kind efforts in this video from youtube. WARNING: not for the faint of heart.
Happy Halloween!
Prairie Home Companion's Halloween show has much that's different "sit around in your bones" "the Raven." You could listen live now, later on archive-- http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/
You can also find stories and craft ideas at storyteller Jackie Baldwin's site
www.story-lovers.com/barebonesstories.html
Posted by:Mary Storyteller | October 27, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Thanks for the welcome back! This year, I'm going on my walker as a grumpy old woman!
Posted by:ArkansasCyndi | October 27, 2007 at 09:19 PM
THE TOP 10 REASONS TRICK-OR-TREATING IS BETTER THAN SEX:
10. Guaranteed to get at least a little something in the sack.
9. If you get tired, wait 10 minutes and go at it again.
8. The uglier you look, the easier it is to get some.
7. You don't have to compliment the person who gave you candy.
6. Its OK when the person you're with fantasizes you're someone else, because you ARE someone else.
5. 40 years from now, you'll still enjoy candy.
4. If you don't get what you want, you can always go next door.
3. Doesn't matter if kids hear you moaning and groaning.
2. Less guilt the next morning.
AND....
1. You can "do" the whole neighborhood!!!
Posted by:William Simon | October 27, 2007 at 09:28 PM
Willliam, I am extremely disappointed in you. Your list did not say, "You don't have to buy her dinner."
Posted by:ramona | October 27, 2007 at 10:33 PM
One thing at a time, ramona..:) Mason has to learn the intricacies and nuances of Halloween first, then move on to the more, um, "complex" issues....:)
Posted by:William Simon | October 28, 2007 at 08:07 AM
William - perhaps you should go as Hugh Hefner, rather than Hugh Jackman. Just Saying.
Posted by:Rebecca the Bookseller | October 28, 2007 at 08:55 AM
I LOVED the Bobbsey Twins -- must get them, as I have two five-year olds, and it sounds like it's time. Costumes that require a caption are always fine with me.
Oops -- gotta run -- I think I see -- why, yes, there's a Blond Bond ringing my doorbell.
Posted by:Harley | October 28, 2007 at 09:04 AM
Sorry, Rebecca...you've got me confused with someone else. Check with Margie, she knows everyone..:)
Harley, if Blond Bond is ringing your chimes, remember to send us a postcard...:)
Posted by:William Simon | October 28, 2007 at 09:11 AM
Ringing your doorbell? How the heck did he get out of the handcuffs???
Posted by:ramona | October 28, 2007 at 09:18 AM
You guys were up early this morning. I myself was wiped out from . . . oops, never mind.
Off to iParty to buy more fake cobwebs for the haunted house!
Posted by:michele | October 28, 2007 at 10:38 AM