{"id":3965,"date":"2019-10-28T13:11:31","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T13:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nosmallthing.net\/main\/?p=3965"},"modified":"2021-05-08T14:22:34","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T14:22:34","slug":"scary-creative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nosmallthing.net\/main\/scary-creative\/","title":{"rendered":"Scary Creative"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last year, two days before Halloween, as I approached my front door, I was surprised to be greeted by a carved pumpkin, spewing seeds and pulp from its jaggedly cut jaw.<\/p>\n

My downstairs neighbors, a family with two youngish teen daughters fessed up to creating the holiday gourd greeter, telling me that it was their tradition to carve a BARF-O-LANTERN every Halloween.<\/p>\n

I smiled inside and out.\u00a0 I loved the humor, the idea that it was a father daughter tradition, that it was a display of creativity.<\/p>\n

I guess Halloween is not just about candy any more.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just for kids. \u00a0It\u2019s not just about dress-up, about copping a persona that\u2019s creepy or camp.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s big business and small gatherings. I love the juxtaposition between cultural phenomena and home-made fun.<\/p>\n

I live in a nice neighborhood where the abundance of yellow crime scene tape, fortunately, is not usually put up by Police District #17 to maintain artifacts in an undisturbed state for an investigation.<\/p>\n

By the last week in October, crime scene tape and RIP gravestone markers and spools of white spider web material have long been sold out at local Target and K-mart stores.<\/p>\n

Homeowners rake their front yards and install temporary cemeteries, bat caves, and giant tarantula nests populated with Freddy Krueger clones, not so friendly ghosts, and dangerous dolls wearing Victorian pinafores and glassy expressions, begging for an exorcism.<\/p>\n

Decorating the front yard is just the beginning, of course.\u00a0 Halloween is a great excuse for grown-ups to get a little crazy with costumes.<\/p>\n

There are always the classics available from any costume store: witches, black cats, French maids, skeletons, vampires, and clowns.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s in-the-news costumes inspired by the likes of Meghan and Harry, the Donald<\/em>, and the Zika virus.<\/p>\n

And there are costumes that are not quite original but can be put together from things most families can find in a closet or basement and can capture an unique rendering like baseball players, nerds with high-waisted khakis and pocket protectors, and hippies (yes, Boomers really wore jean skirts and wire-rimmed glasses).<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s never saw that one coming<\/em><\/strong> inventions.<\/p>\n

One year, for Halloween, I turned myself into a Chia Pet, that funny plant and planter combo that grows almost at will. I fashioned a very simple tunic out of Astro-turf like material, looping green yarn through it in spots to reflect where seeds had started to sprout.<\/p>\n

Just a few years ago, I went to a party as artist Frida Kahlo.\u00a0 Wearing a colorful Mexican smock, with plastic flowers in my hair, toy monkey hanging loosely from my neck (she actually had a pet monkey), and heavily penciled uni-brow, another party reveler kept staring at me, trying to name the famous person I was impersonating.<\/p>\n

Late in the evening, with a sense of pride, she screamed at me in recognition, \u201dSalma Hayek.\u201d<\/p>\n

I had to laugh.\u00a0 \u201cNo,\u201d I said, \u201cBut she played me in the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

I always felt good \u2014I thrived\u2014when I felt I exercised my creativity.<\/p>\n