A procrastinator's guide to Halloween costumes

Halloween is in two days, but most celebrations will be taking place Saturday night.  That doesn't leave much time for costume planning.  If you're like me and wait until the last minute every year, here are some tricks I've learned that I pass on to you.

1.  Take inventory of what you have in the house.  Even the most basic household items could be repurposed as props.  One year at the West Hollywood Halloween parade, I saw a woman dressed as a dinner table.  It was a 3D costume, complete with food and dishes, and even a romantic candle.

2.  Read up on the news.  What stories are getting the most coverage?  Are there any colorful characters that you could impersonate?  Last year my roommate went as Balloon Boy, and her ingenious costume really came down to poster board, an umbrella, and some silver fabric.

3.  Don't discount the advantages of make up.  Even a hefty application of bronzer could get you halfway to being a Jersey Shore cast member.

4.  When all else fails, go to Rite Aid.  This is what I did last year when I was supposed to go to a party and had no idea what to be.  I wandered the aisles hoping a blue wig or something would pop out at me and give me an idea.  Luckily, a light bulb went off over the board game section, and I went home feeling confident in my new purchase of Twister.  Any board game could work, really.  All you have to do is turn the board into a hat by duct taping it to a head band (the soft, sporty kind).  And for the rest of the costume, you could either dress as a character from the game or use the playing pieces as accessories.  With Twister, I wore the mat as a dress and the spinner as a hat.  I cut a hand out of a piece of orange construction paper and taped it to one of the dots on the mat.  Bingo.  Interactive outfit.  You could do the same with Clue or Monopoly and simply dress as Miss Scarlet, Professor Plum, or that guy in the top hat who gives away money.  I promise you will make lots of new friends this way.

Happy Halloween!


Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I 
(Round about the cauldron go)  
by William Shakespeare 

The three witches, casting a spell

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights hast thirty one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.