Happy Halloween

Technically, Halloween ended a little over a half hour ago, but still.....

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. This year, for the first time in a while*, I dressed up as a still-alive real person. Usually, I go with something more conceptual/bizarre/inappropriate (like in 8th grade when I dressed up as Uma Thurman's character from Pulp Fiction, complete with fake cocaine under my nostrils and a needle sticking out of my chest).

I kept it simple this year and dressed up as Katy Perry. Really, I was just looking for an excuse to wear a pastel wig. Don't pretend you don't know what that feels like.

My mom e-mailed me this disturbing picture today:


and she wrote a comment that this could have been her and her Dad back in the day. It's true -- my grandfather so favored Jack Daniels that for years I thought Mr. Daniels was a close friend of the family. At every holiday gathering, people would joke about how close Grandpa and Jack were ("Where's Grandpa?" "Oh, he's spending a little time with Jack Daniels"). When I saw the label on a Jack Daniels bottle, my first thought was, "oh, that's so funny, it's the same name as Grandpa's best friend!"

Ah, innocence.

My favorite Halloween story is actually not really fit for public consumption (it involves my older brother repeating a very un-PC gross joke he learned from our cousin while treat-or-treating), but a close second is when my younger brother Richard, when he was 6 or so, eagerly told people while trick-or-treating that he was collecting money for a unicycle instead of UNICEF.

*the last time I dressed up as a real, live person was in 2001, when I went as Nancy Kerrigan and my best friend Kim was Tonya Harding. She chased me around all night with a crowbar.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween kind of snuck up on me this year. In fact, the whole month of October snuck up on me. How is it already November?

At any rate: Halloween 2010. It was fun, perhaps not as memorable as past years, but maybe I'm just finally reaching an age where Halloween is less fun for me. That's a depressing thought. Not going to unpack that at the moment.

This year, I had a little impromptu gathering at my house, featuring pumpkin-flavored beer and homemade "spooky snacks": Sriracha-spiced deviled eggs and curry/cayenne roasted pumpkin seeds.


We watched a few scary movies (Little Shop of Horrors, Alien), then went to the obligatory costume party. My costume was I think funnier in concept than in execution. But really, it's all been downhill since my costume zenith from Halloween 2001: The Taco Belle.

I spent the whole night speaking Spanish with a Southern accent. Damn, I'm clever.

Last year, I went as Baby from Dirty Dancing. I carried a watermelon around all night. And told people not to put me in a corner.


Tonight, I did little to celebrate -- no trick-or-treating, no parties. Ate take-out Thai food and orange and black M&Ms. Maude looks way more festive than I do, but she's sort of perpetually in the Halloween spirit due to her coloring. And her worship of Satan.

Too much candy for Maude?

Scary Movie Smackdown

Disclosure: I'm a scary movie junkie. Last weekend, in honor of Halloween, I saw two new horror movies: Paranormal Activity and The House of the Devil. Maybe there's no way the former could have lived up to its hype, but suffice it to say that I was very underwhelmed. Admittedly, the Blair Witch-style hand-held cinematography made me very nauseated and I had to stare at the floor of the theater for at least a third of the movie so as to not vomit. So maybe that affected my opinion of the film's merit.

The House of the Devil, on the other hand, is being added to my Favorite Scary Movies of All Time list. Like Paranormal Activity, 90% of the movie is buildup -- nothing truly horrifying happens until the last 20 minutes. But I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and duly impressed with the whole look/concept of the film. I'm not a film critic so I won't go into more detail about that, but if you're interested, check out the trailer here.

What are my other favorite scary movies, you ask? In no particular order:

The Descent (2005)
I have never screamed louder in a movie theater. I also love that before the supernatural element is introduced, the premise (being trapped and lost in a claustrophobic cave) is already scary as hell.

Ginger Snaps (2000)

In 2004, I went on two dates with this guy and on date #2, we watched Ginger Snaps, which he owned on DVD. Though the relationship went nowhere, I will always be indebted to him for introducing me to this Canadian werewolf flick. I could write an amazing women's studies paper on this movie; it conflates the fear of female sexuality with the werewolf myth. It's smart, funny, gory, and very suspenseful.

Alien (1979)
I've seen it probably a dozen times and it never gets old. I love how Ridley Scott uses silence and minimalist sound design to create an eerie, lonely atmosphere. And Sigourney Weaver kicks ass.

Carrie (1976)
The best adaptation of a Stephen King book, in my opinion. And the unexpected last scare? Classic and oft-imitated, but not yet surpassed.

Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Say what you want about Roman Polanski, but this film is a masterpiece. Period. Somehow, a ridiculous-sounding premise (a woman is impregnated by the Devil) seems completely plausible.

28 Days Later (2002)
Zombies don't really scare me that much -- they are slow-moving and kind of stupid. But 28 Days Later uses a disease/plague metaphor (the zombies are "the infected") and makes the idea of a zombie apocalypse seem all too real. Also, the infected are NOT slow-moving.

Fright Night (1985)
Ok, ok, this movie is pretty dated and not that scary...but it terrified me when I saw it as a kid and I still find it tremendously entertaining. Plus, Chris Sarandon makes a sexy vamp.

Poltergeist (1982)
The clown, the tree, the swimming pool filled with skeletons....

The Exorcist (1973)
Saw this fairly recently and was pretty shocked by how explicit it was. I totally get why Linda Blair grew up with serious psychological problems.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
This movie is not kidding around. It's balls-out violent, not to mention weird and truly disturbing.

Feel free to weigh in on any classics you feel I've missed....

Happy Halloween!

Here's a spooky little poem for today by Paisley Rekdal:

Bats

unveil themselves in dark.
They hang, each a jagged,

silken sleeve, from moonlit rafters bright
as polished knives. They swim

the muddled air and keen
like supersonic babies, the sound

we imagine empty wombs might make
in women who can’t fill them up.

A clasp, a scratch, a sigh.
They drink fruit dry.

And wheel, against feverish light flung hard
upon their faces,

in circles that nauseate.
Imagine one at breast or neck,

Patterning a name in driblets of iodine
that spatter your skin stars.

They flutter, shake like mystics.
They materialize. Revelatory

as a stranger’s underthings found tossed
upon the marital bed, you tremble

even at the thought. Asleep,
you tear your fingers

and search the sheets all night.

Happy Belated Halloween!

Ok, it's two days late, but still...it's the thought that counts.

I spent Halloween night waitressing (in my guitar costume), but yesterday, in honor of the Day of the Dead, I rode the ferry out to Salem, MA with some other Emerson grad students. Though various websites assured us that Halloween festivities would be happening all weekend, the town was actually pretty quiet. By the time we arrived at noon, they had already taken away the 1,000-pound pumpkin. We were greatly disappointed.


We did visit the Salem Witch Museum (which would have been better had it featured an animatronic Tituba) and then hung out at the Psychic Fair, where I received a reading from The Stone Lady. We also pondered our mortality in a historic graveyard, which was conveniently located next to a fried dough stand and the New England Pirate Museum.

Since no one was burned at the stake or wrongfully imprisoned, I guess the trip was a success. And check out the gorgeous sunset we witnessed while waiting for the commuter rail:


And now, two spooky videos, both filmed yesterday by moi. The first is not for the faint at heart!




Listening to a cappella the day after Halloween with a raging hangover = horrifying.

And finally, a Halloween hat that sings and dances.