Muselmann: Go out, dress up, celebrate Halloween

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Today, Oct. 31, marks a special day for me, and I’m sure many others. On this day, or usually the weekend before, many join in by dressing up or giving candy, but each year I can’t help but think that something in it was missed, its essence in some way watered down.

Most obvious is the nature of costumes one encounters on a supposedly spooky time of the year. The majority I see and hear about are either cute, funny or slutty. Admittedly, I do enjoy any one of these genres executed well, but too many costumes are chosen based on whether others will “get it” or not.

Making a costume almost guarantees a more interesting one. While it can be more stressful at times, it can also be therapeutic. Last year I made a costume “as such”—involving animal skins, blood, dirt and a pristine pair of white women’s Keds. I couldn’t tell anyone what it was exactly—it was just as much a mystery to myself as to everyone else. It was some sort of spawn birthed from the attitudes of the times leading up to the day(s). It just felt right, and for me, looked right too.

It is a chance to look however or like whoever one wants, and really, everything is permissible.

Raw, original, scary costumes are the clusters in the cereal. Just as encountering a truly merry stranger during Christmas or noticing “Dwayla” has cherry cobbler stains down her shirt and a ciggy in each hand on the Fourth, a good costume during Halloween is an instance of lush festivity that enriches the season.

However, not everything has to be scary, but it is shied away from by the vast majority of people. Halloween isn’t just a holiday (it isn’t even that for some people), but a chance. It is a chance to look however or like whoever one wants, and really, everything is permissible.

In years past, this day marked the culmination of a month or more of scary festivities for my friends and me. Though it was not the same this year, today, shrouded in an obscure silliness, couldn’t have come a moment too soon. Today is about remembering the joy of being scared, and that we’re all a little creepy, sometimes.

Muselmann is a Tulsa, Okla., junior in journalism.

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