It looks like the Great Pumpkin is on his way! He appears to be peeking up out of the patch today. Could the Morning Report be the most faithful Pumpkin Patch???
Maybe he's looking to get a glimpse of all those adorable costumed animals that certainly provoked a lot of reader response yesterday. The moose-dog and the geese were crowd favorites, while one reader questioned the time it took to develop the revised banner. Perhaps the Great Pumpkin will tell us if he rises... Finally, yet another reader provided some pictures of a dog that sets the bar in the costumed canine world. Trotter the French Bulldog brings a certain flair for sophistication to the outfits he is put in by food photographer Sonya Yu. The samples on Colossal are great, but Yu's Instagram page has even more Trotter outfits scattered among her food photos.
So now you have ideas on how to dress your pets. BUT: What if you don't have pets? What then? Today's Report is all about ideas for how to settle on the perfect costume for your Halloween. To do this, we're going to break things down into four basic categories: Scary, Sexy, Pop-Culture, and Lazy. Sure, there are others. (The glut of over-priced mask and suit/dress costumes to turn four-year-olds into little superheroes and Disney princesses come to mind.) But really, as far as the DIY costume is concerned, those are the basics.
SCARY: I'm gonna go ahead and say avoid this. Seriously. I hate being scared by people. I choose not to go on haunted hay rides and into haunted houses/prisons/woods for this reason. Just this past weekend one of our readers and I were were up in New Hampshire and heard a woman discussing a haunted house where you could sign a waiver and the people inside you could "touch you and do whatever they wanted and stuff." She said this with excitement in her voice. This sounds AWFUL. And I know that this won't happen by default of people in public dressing up as scary, but seriously, there are kids out there on Halloween. Nobody wants to have to cross the street with a crying baby to stay away from the scary bleeding clown man. Of course, there are some costumes that are not inherently scary, but make for terrifying things once they've aged a bit.
SEXY: So if you're not gonna be scary, perhaps your Mean Girls mind leaped to the only other alternative offered in the film. Toss on a pair of ears, some lingerie, and now you're a sexy [fill in the blank]. The sexy costume route used to be mildly acceptable. I mean this "used to" in two senses. First, the "sexy" costumes of the 1920s and 1930s are pretty tolerable. ("Damn, man, did you see that chick's ankle?!") But things evolved to become literally NSFW. Therein lies the second "used to." The sexy [noun] worked in college. Hell, you could even get away with it in high school. (Though, just as the presence of kids in the world means adults shouldn't dress scary, the presence of adults in the world means that kids shouldn't dress sexy.) But now, those of us in the working world have a choice to make: We can become workplace legends by sexing it up at the office Halloween party OR we can keep our jobs. I'm going with the latter.
POP-CULTURE: In my mind, the winningest costume is something rooted in popular culture. For people who recognize you, they'll think you're really freaking awesome. And for people who don't know who you are, well, there's your opportunity to evangelize for one of your favorite movies/TV shows/books. Either way, you're a walking conversation starter. Given the Report's age distribution, most of the readership will find some ideas for awesome costumes rooted in childhood here. Don't like that, then do something more contemporary. (Can't go wrong by grabbing a pair of cutoffs and blueing yourself. If you don't have blue paint, diamond dust will do in a pinch.) The creative genius of Pixar is also a great place to find inspiration. But no matter what you do, you're not going to beat little Carl Fredricksen, here.
LAZY: "But Evan, I don't have time to do any of that!" Fine. Thing is, you don't really have to. There are plenty of great costumes waiting for you in the detritus of your closet. That bowling shirt you won at trivia? Thrift store cowboy hat? Tie-dye anything? Yeah, you've got costumes galore. (Not sure what wearing all three of those together would make you...) Don't believe me? Check out this slideshow for some lazy ideas. (Sure they're for kids, but don't even pretend like you don't have some of those things at home.)
Or, you could reach the pinnacle of laziness and find a sheet and a pair of scissors. Are those people boo-ing your laziness, or are they joining in with your haunting holiday spirit?
Just remember to be careful with the scissors, or you might end up with a rock.
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