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HALLOWEEN_FASHION
November 5, 2004
Sunday night was the night of nights, and we
headed up Bernal Heights to a haunted house FASHION_REPORTER
party organized by some friends.
This was set-up outside, on three sides of a
house, and by the time we got there it was already
in full swing with a line around the corner.
They did a pretty good job of keeping things kid accessible,
but also making it interesting to adults in different ways:
Just inside the gate, a woman sits in a window
playing cello, randomly screaming when you least
expect it.
Around the side of the house, a pirate band
performs, amidst some haunted house like goings
on, like a Santa Claus extorting candy in return
for a promise of presents.
The gateway to the back yard led you under a
metal bridge a dozen feet high, where a
Dr. Octopus bounced around in menacing fashion--
when you're not looking, he pulls a longer
"tentacle" from behind his back, reaches down
and swats you in the face.
Around back some women in cat outfits up on stage
dance and sing/chant while a superman spins
records and manipulates the drum machines. The
cat outfits include whiskers and fishnets, but
also various other accoutrement's notably a white
feather boa put to good use by a woman not shy
about tarting it up and flirting with the entire
audience.
Right in the center of the stage (aka "back porch") was
a pillar decorated with a very hairy carved balinese
fright mask (which I know well, it normally hangs in
Dangerbabe's office). They hung it at the right height
so that the dancer's could line up behind it, donning it
temporarily... this strikes me as a nice use of available
circumstances, much like a cyclist might use the fact that CRITICAL_FASHION
they've got the bike with them in a bike costume.
The woman on the mic had short white hair and heavy
sunglasses, doing an 80s look: In general she did a nice
job of the retro-new-wave drum machine band schtick, with
deep voiced spoken/chanted lyrics.
I will pass over the costumes in the audience,
which were there, and were certainly
acceptable but don't stand out in my mind,
though there was one guy that I remember
because I was confused by his outfit, and had
to have it explained to me. He carried a
small witches broom, and a small plastic
cauldron, and wore a large green tropical I always have trouble
plant frond in front of his face, trimmed remembering that the
slightly to make room for his eyes. witches broom is
Dangerbaby identifies him as "The Green Man", regarded as having some
a neo-pagan figure. significance in the
newage world... to me
it's too redolent of
dorky cartoon witches.
As for our outfits... we went for our
quick-and-easy Halloween "cop-outs":
Dangerbaby strapped on her rubber bat wings
and some fuzzy pointed ears, I popped on my
anubis head, and a black bed sheet draped
over a shoulder in toga-like fashion.
We ended up fussing over this for hours before
being willing to go out: Dangerbaby carefully
selected a maroon corset top, with a very
broad ribbon criss-crossing the front; and
worked carefully on getting the right
arrangement of long skirt and lace over skirt
(she settled on pinning it up in front), not
to mention the appropriate pair of Nice Boots. COSTUME
My anubis head is really just a hat, the bed-sheet I just
fold over about eight times, drape over a shoulder and
belt, how much trouble can that be, right? Well, from
previous experience I know that it tends to ride around in
annoying ways, so I worked at pinning it together on the
side to try and stabilize it (in vain), I also worked out a
way of adding some pockets: I sliced up a an old set of CARGO
combat pants, cutting away everything except for the
pockets on the side that would be hidden by the sheet.
But the pastie rasin-taunts in my opinon, was Dangerbaby's
eyeball concept. She carved up a honeydew melon to look
like an eye, and threw in some green cyalums to get it to
glow... she carried this glowing green eye around with her
all evening (when I wasn't carrying it for her). It was
actually pretty convincing in a weird way, no one would've
known it was honeydew melon if she hadn't told them (but in
fact, she did tell every single person we ran across,
whether friend or stranger...).
We were put to work as a fright act for a little while
there, sitting in the back seat of a cadillac. Dangerbabe
waved her glowing eye at the kids, and I used my anubis
head as a hand puppet.
Anubis would scan the scene casually, then suddenly
fix one child with it's stare for a moment, before
suddenly noticing another one, then lunging forward
and rapping it's red-jeweled nose against the glass!
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