Culture on a Budget: halloween

Showing posts with label halloween. Show all posts

14 September 2010

I Am Old.

So, yesterday I turned twenty. And I feel weird about being twenty, because I've had the -teen suffix for so long now. It was also weird not having my family around for the first time. However, I did get to party. The local LGBT group, EIU Pride, had their welcome reception yesterday, and not only did I go, but I also helped plan it and purchase food and decorations. I like to get involved. So, I was there for about three hours, and then I went back to the dorm to eat Jello and open presents. I got a signed picture of Leonard Nimoy, which is now hanging above my bed to watch over me. I also got the single weirdest CD I have ever heard of: "Spaced Out: The Very Best of Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner". The best track, of course, is 'Ballad of Bilbo Baggins', which Spock and I use to annoy the hell out of each other. In case you haven't been subjected to it yet, here you go. Dig that crazy bassoon! I also got some fun trinkets from my aunt in Southern Illinois; the bunches of matching oriental stuff made me smile.
For my birthday, despite the fact that it was yesterday, I will do a list of...
20 Things that Make Me Smile
_{In no particular order}
1. Babies laughing

2. Smiley faces in food

3. Playing cards

4. Rainbows

5. Watching scary movies with my dad

6. Halloween shopping

7. Being in love

8. Portal

9. Making avatars

10. Lolcats

11. Rush

12. Living with one of my best friends

13. Spock [my Spock, the original Spock, any Spock, really]

14. Tetris

15. Lady GaGa parodies that don't insult Lady GaGa herself

16. Singing

17. My mom

18. Rock Band

19. Lego versions of pretty much anything

20. Birthdays

Thanks for smiling with me!
~Sushi

22 June 2010

Ready, Set, Please Don't Make Me Watch This Again!

When I was younger, I was absolutely mortified by a movie called The Halloween Tree. I can't even remember why, but I couldn't watch it without crying, and I've never seen the end. The reason I'm telling you this is because I happened across The Halloween Tree while doing a library search for media involving Leonard Nimoy but not Star Trek. [Taking Trek out cuts the list down by about 90%, in case you're wondering.] I had no idea Leonard Nimoy was in The Halloween Tree, because the last time I tried to watch it was at least a decade ago. So, I put the movie on order, mostly because I wanted to figure out why it's so damn terrifying, and of course, because Leonard Nimoy is, in my world, the human equivalent of God. The movie came in, I popped it into a VCR, and...
90 Minutes Later

I am almost twenty goddamn years old, and that movie is still scary as shit. But, now that I am an articulate adult, with a pen and paper sitting right beside me, I can tell you precisely why I was afraid to walk up my stairs in the pitch-blackness of my house after watching The Halloween Tree.
First off, it's a cartoon based on a book by Ray Bradbury. I've read a lot of Bradbury's work, and while I enjoy it, most of it is not suitable for children. He's a spooky guy, even if he's not exactly trying to be. Oh, he's also the narrator of the movie. The Halloween Tree also features one of the spookiest soundtracks I've ever heard for a cartoon; those vocalists haunted my nightmares. Then, after the intro, the children show up. These kids, apart from the token fatty, are skeleton-thin, and not just the one actually dressed as a skeleton. Then, when the kids gather into their little clique and realize their buddy Pip, the "greatest kid on earth," is missing, they take a trip through the forest from Snow White to get to his house. I am dead serious; this forest wanted to eat those kids alive. But all that weirdness seems minor when compared to Leonard Nimoy's character, Mr. Moundshroud. He is, among other things, a "scary yellow pointy magic bastard"--at least, that's what I have in my notes. When the bony kids make it to his house, which also wants to eat them, they see Pip, who is clear, climbing a tree growing pumpkins, which are apparently souls, and then flies away clutching a pumpkin that looks like his face. Oh, and a sidenote: in order to get Pip back, Moundshroud and the band of anorexic children must go to the "Undiscovered Country". Yes, like in Star Trek. Oh, and in order to get to the Undiscovered Country, they have to fly a time-traveling kite, made out of pieces circus posters that are alive and trying to eat them. Fun. Thankfully that gets torn to shreds when they land in Egypt. Okay, at this point in my notes, I wondered if I was just a sissy when I was little, and I decided to stop writing things down until I was truly spooked. But then, Moundshroud's cape turned into bat wings and he started to fly. Maybe every single thing that happens in this movie really is disturbing as hell. Later in the movie, in France, it is revealed that Moundshroud can't walk on holy ground. Is he the Devil, or the Grim Reaper or something? Nothing extraordinarily bad happens until they get to Mexico, during Dia de los Muertes. There we find Pip in a crypt, stuck in a giant spider web, surrounded by animated corpses. When the first of the skinny children tries to touch him, he turns to dust. I have pinpointed this as the exact point in the movie where I ran screaming from the room. Right about there. Well, not this time. This time I just watched in awe, wondering why the film was ever made. That, and why it features, among all those other frightening things, soul-sucking sugar skulls. Try saying that ten times fast.
Here, I made this for you:

~Sushi

08 June 2010

No Zombie Is Safe from Chicago Ted

On Saturday, June 5th, 2010, in a move that unequivocally proved to my family that I do in fact think that every day is Hallowe'en, I dressed up as a zombie and lurched my way through downtown Chicago. Otaku, her girlfriend [let's call her Squeak], and I had heard about Zombie March Chicago 3 through Facebook, which is where we hear about most fun things, and decided to give it a try. I kept notes throughout the day, in order to compile a checklist of...

Things To Do: Zombie March Edition

Spray fake blood on clothes, floor, etc.

Get fake blood all over tub, hands,

Take a ton of pictures - repeat as necessary

Learn how much I have in common with Squeak [it's almost ridiculous]

Load blood-soaked clothes into large trash bag

Load clothes, make-up, camera equipment, people into small car

Drive and yell at cars and drive and get Mountain Dew and drive

Listen to awesome tunes: Daft Punk, The Birthday Massacre, My Chemical Romance

Yell, "FUCK YOU BP!" because fuck you, BP

Close Squeak's bank account

Drive more

Realize that we are all using the same tone of voice, and all sound like we're seven

Go to Squeak's second cousin's eight grade graduation party; watch family shenanigans; receive free food

PRODUCT IDEA: T-shirt - "Don't touch me; I'm sick. _{No, seriously. I am.}"

See Hindu temple; freak out

Put on much make-up; get dressed in bloody, damp zombie clothes

Try to catch train; go to wrong train station

Fall asleep during drive to Chicago

Go. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. Stop. TURN!

Get to Chicago two hours after march has started; zombie it up anyway

PRODUCT IDEA: Bumper sticker - "I have a horn, too."

Park car; put on more fake blood

Look for other zombies

Find one zombie, one homeless person, get distraught, go to Starbucks

Explain esoteric American culture to Chinese tourists; try to explain what zombies are

Find nice zombies, asshole zombies, mohawk zombies, zombies with sweet pants

Here the phrase, "Can I ask you a question? I keep seeing all these zombies..." about two dozen times

Get picture taken twice by people who asked, a billion other times by people who didn't

See someone whip out a video camera as you lurch past them in full zombie regalia

Scare the shit out of small children, especially that one little girl who looked like she was going to cry

Realize that your feet hurt, because you've been walking/lurking for several hours

Hear the phrase, "Why are you doing this?" over and over again

Have one person ask you, "Do you dress like that every day?" Do not punch this person.

Cut bottoms of Otaku's pants off with a key and a pen; this takes skillz

Have a total Rush-gasm over Rush carpet, Quebec license plate, Ontario Street, Rush Street

Find car; drive to Squeak's house

Take shower to wash fake blood off

Eat ice cream and drink orange pop while watching True Crime channel until midnight

Drive home

Sleep.

For more information about the Zombie March, as well as other zombie-related activities in Chicago [there are far more that you'd think there would be], visit Chicago Zombie.

Next year, Spock and I plan to go as zombie Vulcans, complete with green blood. Don't take our idea, or I'll eat your brains.
~Sushi

30 November 2009

The Google Image Meme Mashup

One of the newest internet crazes is the Google image meme, which I will be showing you shortly. When I found out about it, I figured that there would be one universal version. I was so very wrong. When I looked it up, on Google of course, every page I went to had a different version. So, with five different versions, I present to you, with no repeats, the...
Ultimate Google Image Meme
Age on your next birthday