the list of 9 for october 23, 2007:
NINE THINGS I'VE BEEN FOR HALLOWEEN
It's that spooky time of the season again, and frankly I'm surprised that, after having writtenthese Lists of 9 for nearly ten years(!) now, I haven't taken advantage of the late October periodto list some of the Halloween costumes I have worn in the past. Sadly, the memories are fading,but I still recall the following outfits:
- Han Solo, 1977. I was probably one of thousands ofseven-year-old boys to don this getup that Halloween, with Star Wars still packing in thecrowds at the local cinemas. (Hard to imagine such theatrical longevity now, with DVD and VOD andall that, but the film played on the same big screen - Century 22 - in San Jose for well over ayear).
- Jawa, 1978. This was an even cooler Star Warscostume than Han Solo. My mom sewed me an amazing brown Jawa robe - with the same material as usedin the movie - and even made me a black felt mask with gold sequins around the eye holes toapproximate the glowing eyes of the Jawa. I was about the same height, too. (I got a lot of useout of that robe - seven or eight years later, my mother cut it down to an Elizabethan cape for meto wear as Benvolio in my English class's mini-production of Romeo and Juliet.)
- Robot, 1979. Oh, how I wish I had easy access to photos ofthese costumes, dear reader! This one was truly dorky: my mom and I constructed a boxy robotoutfit (literally, it was a box), spray-painted it gold, and included a helmet made out of one ofthose plain cardboard "ice cream containers" with a TV antenna on top. It was very square andretro. I was definitely not going for a C3PO look, though like Anthony Daniels, I could only movestiffly in this outfit, and was unable to sit down with it on.
- Wolf, 1975. When I was even more wee, Mom - the 70's werea big "sewing" period for her - bought some fake fur and made a little cowel, with pointy ears,which I wore over my head and shoulders. It wasn't really a mask, though, and I eschewed facepaint. But with that, and a big tail made out of the same material safety-pinned to my pants, Iwas a "wolf" (or maybe "wolf man") when I was in kindergarten.
- Pirate, 1976(?). This may have been later in my life -there were, after all, only so many Halloweens in the 70's - but I shudder to think about beingten or eleven in this get-up. For it was a very frilly pirate costume indeed, using my mother'sflouncy white ruffled shirt, a bold red sash and a floppy, girly hat. (I don't think I even had aneyepatch.) To look more tough, I added a plastic knife and a "hook" for a hand, which wasbasically just a bent-up wire hanger that I stuck out of one knotted-up sleeve end while hiding myhand inside. Sad.
- Marillion dude, 1986. My adolescence was not aboutcostumes. But when I was 16, and I tagged along with a couple of friends to San Francisco forHalloween, my "look" was inspired by the pretentious 80's prog rock band Marillion (don't feel badif you've never heard of them), and their creepy, airbrushed surrealist album covers by MarkWilkinson - in particular, his art for their single "Assassing". (I dressed up asthe guy on the left - in terms of face paint, anyway. Sleeveless camouflage jackets were not formy pale, bony arms, and I wore a trendy 80's Mao cap in lieu of a Rambo-like headband. In the end,I came off looking like a Communist ghoul.)
- Kurt Cobain, 1994. The Nirvana frontman had ended his lifejust six months earlier, so what more topical - or more tasteless - costume could I choose for myattendance at CalArts' Halloween party that year? I greased up a blonde wig and even grew out asparse goatee. Unfortunately, once I added my round black-framed glasses to the wig and flannel, Ilooked like Garth from Wayne's World. So I added a little ghoul makeup and kept my glassesin my pocket most of the night - thus my evening truly was a blur.
- Agent Smith, 2001. I haven't dressed up for manyHalloweens as an adult. The glasses (which I started wearing at 18) are to blame. The "Kurt orGarth?" mixup brought the truth home that most of my costume ideas just wouldn't work withspectacles. But I did have a pair of prescription sunglasses, and when a friend invited me to hisHalloween soiree a few years back, I slicked my hair back, put on a black suit with a skinny tie,donned the shades, and voila - a pretty believable Matrix villain. And I could see foronce, too.
- Harry Potter, 2002. Hooray for J.K. Rowling and herfour-eyed hero! My then-girlfriend dragged me to the West Hollywood Halloween "carnaval" (thebiggest in the world, with over 250,000 attendants each year) and this was a simple enoughcostume, especially as I already looked the part. Strangers even shouted "Harry Potter!" to me allnight. As for my wife Miki, she wouldn't dress up if her life depended on it, though we've thoughtup some very clever costume duos - and we live just two blocks from the annual WeHo revelry.
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