There are lots of serious issues to ponder these days, but we shouldn’t forget about Halloween, which comes with its own set of challenges. One such challenge is finding a fun yet easy costume.
One year I cut up some cereal boxes, colored parts of them red with a marker, made some paper knives and plastered these all over the clothes I was wearing. I forget whom to credit with that but I thought it worked well. Nothing like a cereal killer on the loose.
For the more academically minded, you may want to try dressing up as a social circle/ego network. You inflate a few balloons with helium, you draw faces on them and then tie them to your body. Valdis Krebs who suggested this to me has a helpful little guide to social network analysis on his Web site in case this costume doesn’t make too much sense.
Another option is to wear white clothes and wrap a few yards of white fluffy fabric around you. Then attach some aluminum foil on the inside of the fabric. When people ask you what you are, you show the aluminum foil and say: “silver lining”. (Thanks to my friend Carolyn for that one.)
Last year, my friend Tania suggested I wear regular clothes to which I attach a bunch of name tags all over. That was an easy costume.. perhaps not to guess, but to make. I was an identity crisis.
I welcome additional suggestions as I haven’t yet decided what to wear tonight.
A couple of years ago I went to a halloween party, one populated mostly by law school students, wearing a nametag that said “Reasonable Prudent Person.”
It was one of those last minute “Hail Mary” ideas, and I actually thought it was pretty lame, but it got quite a positive response. But then again, it was mostly law students, and everyone was pretty drunk . . .
I haven’t worked very hard at a costume for a few years, ever since nobody recognized me as Galactus Devourer of Worlds. This year, I’m going for Land Shark. However, for truly inspired costumery, I would turn to Rob Cockerham for pointers.
My finacee wore a slip dress to a party last year covered with stickers with words like “ego”, “unconscious”, “Electra complex” and so on. She was a Freudian slip. Unfortunately, not too many people got it.
‘Just had lunch with a friend and got one more suggestion: he once dressed up as a scratch-and-sniff. He took some pieces of felt and soaked them in liquids with various fragrances such as lemon. Then he put these on his shirt.
Check out this Scott McCloud costume, and abandon any thoughts you had of putting in effort at a creative costume of your own…
For work this year (theme: the 80’s), I fell back on what I wore for Halloween during the 80’s - I’ve got my bathrobe, my slippers, and my towel. (But no Hitchhiker’s Guide, alas. I could use something that says “Don’t Panic” in large, soothing letters…) It has the added bonus of nobody getting it except for my boss.
hey ab_normal I just meant to recommend that.
Many years ago at Harvard’s Government dep’t party, one student wore normal clothes except for a large capital ‘F’ on her chest. When people asked what her costume was, she replied
“I M F”
Easy one for blondes. Wear black and a crucifix and say you’re Buffy the vampire slayer.
One year for our notorious Abstract Halloween Party (not allowed to come as anything tangible) a friend wore a pair of things, I think they’re called bobbers. Basically, glittery styrofoam balls on springs attached to a headband.
He was an umlaut.
For the undergraduate linguistics society’s halloween party, I attached several tree branches to a hat, and from these hung tags labeled “DP,” “IP,” “CP,” “N’”, and so on—labels for syntactic phrase categories.
In short, I went as a syntax tree. They were amused.
In case anyone is curious, I ended up dressing up as Twistess. What? Twistess, female form of Twister. It’s not quite as clever as many other possibilities, but it’s the best I could do given that I’m not at home. I bought a Twister game, used the “board” as a cape and made a hat out of the little spin board section. My friends were pretty tame, no one wanted to step on me or anything.
I remember a grad student come-as-a-famous-pair party. We had Heloise and Abelard, Death and Taxes, etc. etc, but the best one was the guy who came stag.
He claimed to be Satre’s Being and Nothingness, who was his date, really was right there.
For an easy and slightly dirty costume wear ONLY a pair of pants and when people ask what you are reply, “I’m a premature ejaculator. That’s why I just came in my pants.”
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review