Crap. I’m leaving for New Orleans and CSIcon in a few days, and they keep telling me about this costume party. I’m sufficiently funny-looking that I’ve never had much need for a costume.
I need suggestions. Something fast, easy, and not too embarrassing, and also easy to transport (no way am I going the elaborate cosplay route, in other words). Hey, it’s not too late: maybe you should register, show up in New Orleans, and dude me up.
I’m thinking a toga, crown of thorns, bloody hands and feet…
I can’t help you, as I’ve always found the easiest way to win a “best costume” trophy is abject self-humiliation. Dressing in a diaper and baby bonnet is out, right?
Another winner for me was “the shaving accident,” but that required some shaving, so that’s probably not an option either.
Sigh…well, there’s always The Pirate.
A tweed Ivy cap, oversized round eyeglasses, and a confused expression….
…go as Michael Behe.
I’m thinking octopus-human hybrid. Cephlapods overrule all other costume suggestions.
Go as an atheist, just carry a half-eaten baby with you.
A fake, if you’re worried about the law.
Glen Davidson
I was going to make an effort, but # 6 put me off.
A couple of costume ideas PZ (three actually), one moderately rude, one trendy and one classic: just wear pants, no shirt. “What are you supposed to
be?” Answer: “premature ejaculation, I just came in my pants.” 2) Get a bit of white cardboard, cut a hole in the top left corner and carry a marker pen: a Facebook profile, and people can write on your wall. 3) classic ghost, baby. Just a white sheet with holes for your eyes (bonus points for non-white/patterned sheet)
Wear a bright, monocolour skivvy (Pink?) and call yourself “the Atheist wiggle”. And do the gun-finger-waggle a lot while telling people about Dorothy’s real history.
OR
Put on a studded dog collar and call yourself Bill Nye’s bitch. Hence implying that Bill Nye keeps bitches. A thought I find HILARIOUS.
Stop at a Japanese restaurant. Order the first item on the menu that has a cephalopod in it. Wear it on your head.
Don’t go at all and claim you were there as the great IPU.
Why not Zoidberg?
That should be easy … a pirate hat and a plate of spaghetti and meatballs.
My 13 year old daughter suggests dressing in winter clothes, carry some sheet music, you’re a caroler who got the holiday wrong.
It might be a bit excessively embarrassing, but I’d think that a simple, small cross necklace would be all you’d really need for the ultimate in terror. At least, it’d scare the shit out of me to see you wear such a thing….
Cheers,
b&
Why not jeans and a black mock turtleneck? Tasteless, yes, but quite easy to put together.
Actually, that video reminds me of a “best group costume” award I saw a few years back: four aliens and an abductee on a gurney. They kept inserting and removing various oddities out of the exposed false rump of the abductee.
That reminds me: Weren’t you supposed to liveblog your colonoscopy?
Dress entirely in black, stand up straight. You’re the monolith from 2001.
There’s always the old classic of wearing a slip and carrying a cigar and calling yourself a Freudian slip.
Crockoduck.
Not sure how, just do it.
Go as something truly frightening: Ayn Rand!
Brunette bob wig, too much red lipstick, cigarette, copy of Atlas Shrugged, and boxy vintage dress.
If you can find one that will fit you. Perhaps Trophy Wife can help with that?
I think this idea is oh-so-clever and if I didn’t have other plans for Halloween I’d be doing it myself.
monika #8
A strong suggestion: ease off on the gender-specific insults.
Cut your beard a la Ken Ham. It would scare the shit out of me.
“Tis Himself, OM” #22
Clearly you can’t recognise a joke when you see it. Due to the presence of the dog collar I was clearly referring to the “dog” definition of the word bitch (meaning female dog used for breeding). Which is why it is so funny that someone like Bill Nye would keep PZ as a “dog” for breeding purposes. I.e. PZ is a possession of Bill Nye. Frankly Bill Nye owns all of us IMHO.
Funny because it has no basis in fact what-so-ever and because Bill is such an incredibly nice guy.
I see no problem with the word bitch used in this way. HUMOUR. Git it?
Are there any other jokes you need me to explain for you?
I would think dressing as a priest would be the funniest.
How about trying this? It requires a bit of preparation but doesn’t seem difficult. I’ve always wanted to do it but not had the opportunity:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/02/gaping-hole-costume.html
Does that mean Trophy Wife should go as Nathaniel Branden?
Ill-fitting, oversized, knitted cardigan: Dr Dr Dumbski.
I was looking at the list of speakers, and thought “Barbara Forrest, how cool is that?” then I scrolled down and they have William B Davis!
Wear a cheap suit and carry an “I Want to Believe” UFO poster – you could be Fox Mulder.
Wear tight blue long underwear (tops and bottoms) and tape/glue/staple tufts of cotton all over your body – you are partly cloudy!
I go with Josh’s suggestion of a priest but if your shirt is purple wouldn’t you be a bishop?
just add a very pale whitish blue grey face you know dead looking
uncle frogy
OK I have a good one for you, all it needs is the purchase of slightly overpriced knitwear:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cthulhu-Ski-Mask-Handmade-Balaclava-Send-Size-/130508105621?pt=US_Hats&hash=item1e62e3a795#ht_2270wt_1104
Well, duh: mad scientist. You do have a white coat, right? A pair of goggles, or maybe safety specs with a thick black rim painted on, a few props from the lab, bleach your hair and comb it out at crazy angles if you’ve got the time and inclination, and you’re done. Even just the white coat might work for you, PZ.
This post is extremely amusing in Google reader with an ad for Yandy.com running beneath it.
Captain Nemo
Cthulhu. Obviously.
Devil horns and beard darkener?
Bathrobe, sandals, & 5-star cross, copy of The Devil’s Disciple?
*5-point star,* you know, the pagan symbol.
Lab coat & test tube with metal holder, coloured water in the test tube & a rubber stopper so it won’t slop out while you wave it around. Or…. your mysterious fluid of choice so you can sip it and cackle in your best Mr. Hyde manner.
Mashup: Pirate (eyepatch, tricorn hat) with octopus on shoulder, courtesy of your local fish shop.
Or you could do what this fellow did.
@24 monika,
So tell us, why is it funny to use a word whose original meaning has taken a distant second place to a misogynist slur, one which has no good connotations whatsoever? Your explanation above was lacking, mostly in how the joke is funny.
As regards costume ideas for PZ…write the word ‘SPAM’ on your nametag and tell everyone you’re Ken Ham.
/ducks rotten tomatoes
C’thullu! You are the leading based squid and octopus based atheism blog so it’s only fitting that you go as a madness inducing squid headed god…
Pirate is easy, thematic, and would look good on you.
Antlers + PZ = Gnu Atheist.
If you put black pigment over your parotid and lacrimal glands, and also over your distal trachea and main stem bronchi, you can go as the panda/lambda sign on Gallium-67 imaging. Then you’ll be sensitive and specific for sarcoidosis.
Sally Strange, OM 21:
I strongly advise you to drop the comments about how women should look it IS NOT welcome in these parts. For the record how much lipstick is “too much” dear “Sally”[ahem].
Get the Cthulu Tentacles Archie McPhee (http://www.mcphee.com/shop/products/Cthulhu-Tentacles.html) They only go on your fingers, but you could hold your hand in front of your mouth and slowly, gently writhe them as you talk.
The word is Cephalopod. No matter what you can always be assured that it will blend with its surroundings and with all those legs it must be an impressive dancer.
Eight dimestore stuffed kittens pinned to your tweed coat. Doc Octopuss.
Just dress up like your own bad self from the “Beware the Believers” video – black hat with an octopus cut out from paper/fabric and glued on, money necklace, and if possible leather jacket. Would be cool to actually do it in grayscale, but that would be a lot of makeup and time.
dave cortesi # 50
the Cthulu tentacles:
This is my favourite. Except that you couldn’t hear PZ speak for the giggles in the audience.
LIKE!
Oh, Sili, I’m so glad you asked.
Actually, my original idea was for a duo costume: one person dresses as Ayn Rand, the other as Jesus. Together, you are: the modern day Republican party!
Zombie Jesus!!!
At many stores, one can find a black hood which makes it look as though your face is just a blank black nothingness. Get one of those and then wear your normal professorial clothing. You can go as a faceless Evilitionist.
I second suggestion #35. You’re the squidly overlord, why not be Captain Nemo? Bonus points if it’s Captain Nemo as portrayed in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics.
Go as PZ Myers!
* Fast
* Easy
* Not too embarassing
* Easy to transport
They’re all good suggestions. The only thing P-zed must remember is to get photos taken to share with his faithful followers here on Pharyngula.
My own suggestion, though it’s embarrassing:
Go as a stripper with a big-hair wig, pasties with tassels, g-string, and a sort of Hawaiian grass skirt affair. Be sure to take along the Really Big Bottle of Intensive Care Lotion – some strippers use it for mock semen as they writhe in mock lust. Oh, and a fake octopus on your head.
P-zed objects: But what about my beard? But what about my hairy torso and legs?
RFW responds: Just turn a blind eye to the defects. Costume parties are s’posed to be fun and silly.
RFW 61
Please don’t bodyshame people here. 3 strike rule applies so this is a polite warning.
Wow, a couple people here need to lighten up a little. The joke about The Science Guy and the other one about Ayn Rand were funny. In context neither one of them were derogatory IMHO, but you jump all over them as if you’re looking for a any reason to call someone out as sexist and therefore make yourself feel smug about your self-righteous selves. Sheesh!
Tie a pillow to your head and then toss on a sheet. Tie the sheet off at your waist and tell everyone you are a sperm.
Go as a clown. You’ve been called worse things.
The Invisible Man
Ok. Since certain humourless people cannot cope with a word that has two meanings like “bitch”, replace bitch with gimp. I want PZ to go as Bill Nye’s gimp.
NOW we are all on the same page :-P
1. Go to the hardware store and buy a short length of heavy chain, and a short length of light chain.
2. Fashion them into a necklace to wear.
3. Explain that you’re an immunogoblin.
Jake @63 is definately a sockpuppet. Probably Caine or Salty IMHO. The “Sheesh” gave it away IMHO.
All you’d need is some stiff wire and the hotel bedsheets- and voila, giant communion wafer!
I take back my comment about how I want PZ to be Bill Nye’s gimp. I realise now that some people might feel that I am being offensive to open source graphics software (the more common term these days).
I am profoundly sorry and will go and shoot myself.
All I want is a Bill Nye based, master/slave costume. Is that too much to ask?
I also have to figure out a costume, maybe, for the halloween party one of my Physics classmates is throwing. Unfortunately, most of my usual ideas for “scary” costumes (broken condom, pregnancy test, etc.) might not go over great since one of our classmates (the one we all bug for math help since she’s a double-major) actually is pregnant. I suppose there’s Form 1040…
A crucifix, a bible and a name-tag saying ‘fuckwit’
Black shirt, black suit, hotel bible, printed pictures of alter boys taped to the bible, and a bit of ranch dressing smeared around your mouth (anything white and sticky really). In other words, a typical priest.
…can we say this has gotten ridiculous yet?
I think the one objecting to the “too much lipstick” bit in my description of an Ayn Rand costume was a ham-fisted attempt at sarcasm, meant to mock the same people you are telling to lighten up.
I also think you’re not a sockpuppet. Particularly not of Caine or SC. What a bizarre suggestion.
Also, Monika? You had a chance to be funny, but you missed it. Best to let it go.
What a strange thread this became!
No, seriously. Why the fuck are a bunch of people whose nicks I’ve never seen before presuming to sanctimoniously lecture others, regulars included, about community standards? Is this a false flag operation to prove that “political correctness” ISN’T just a bogeyman of the wingnut imagination?
If someone DID die and make you God, please act the part by going silent.
Indiana Jones… that is all
I like the pirate idea. Eyepatch, hat, attitude.
Or eyepatch, bandanna, attitude for a really lightweight costume.
And the eyepatch can be flipped out of the way when you’re not preparing to board another ship and fight in a dark hold.
For the record, “too much” lipstick is the same amount of lipstick that Ayn Rand would wear. I mean, look at her! Wouldn’t you be scared? The costume also requires an intimidating, glassy-eyed stare.
A few people here are under the mistaken impression that I am trying to make them laugh. They also seem to believe that not laughing makes them a superior being. Lets make something quite clear. Unless your name is Monika and you look exactly like me, you aint my target audience and never will be.
Go Bill Nye.
Black shirt, nlack trousers, white collar and then an altar boy attached, friend of mine did that for a bad taste party. Only one complaint.
Unfashionable clothes and just wander round the party trying to convert people to cult of choice, you probably have the literature already.
Do as Oz did in Buffy, go as god. Involves name tag.
Dress in green from head to toe and claim to be invisible.
Dress all in black. Get a matching fedora. Viola! Terry Pratchett!
Clergy shirts aren’t too expensive. You could probably find one and have it shipped overnight or 2nd day for $30 or so.
Or just skip the party, and when people ask the next day, tell ’em you were God.
Wear a robe and a halo, tie a dinosaur to one side of you and a bird to another.
Voila – you’re the God of the Gaps…
Turn your jacket inside out and go as Benedict Arnold.
Be a mimic octopus. They can look like anything. Including you.
This of course:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/06/cthulhumas_came_early.php
Stick the letter ‘H’ on your forehead and be a Red Dwarf hologram.
Wear red shoes, a frock, & a funny hat, if you can’t buy a Pope costume. And don’t forget to take some crackers & nails.
get yourself a rubberized brain from the anatomy lab, stick it in a plastic bag, hang the bag from your neck and then label yourself “Creationist”.
Carlie
Holy moley that was awesome.
monika: first rule of holes.
Or is your next suggestion going to be that he goes in blackface?
you’ve got lab coats, right? do you have a gray one (or one grayed with age and from being washed with darks)? If so, paint some white stripes down the back and go as “a road”!
or, if your lab coat is white, just wear that and go as “a road after a snow storm but before the towns gets to ploughing”
Prison orange or stripes. Tell people you’re Ken Ham.
I was going to be a sexy pope, but you can steal it if you want. Although, I don’t think it’d be quite the same on you.
I once saw a guy who just had equations written all over any exposed skin. He was the scariest thing of all…math!
I’m going to the party too and am tempted to use the costume from Adams Family Values.
Halloween Party Hostess and Concerned Mom: “But Wednesday, dear, where’s your costume?”
Wednesday: “I’m going as a serial killer. They look like everyone else.”
Otherwise, I can always bring a skirt, white socks, tennis shoes, and a Bible and go as a Christian Homeschool Mom.
It would be kinda cool if you did that, too.
For a Halloween party this year, I went as the scariest thing I could think of . . . a Republican presidential candidate!
Essentially it was nothing but a suit and tie, but the props completed the effect. I carried a small Bible, a lapel-sized flag, a large coin (to help me out with policy decisions), a copy of Obama’s birth certificate I downloaded from the internet (did you know he was born in Kenya?!?!) and a photograph of Adam and Eve with a T-Rex, putting the nail in the coffin to *that* little controversy.
I’m planning to go as a cereal killer- splattering some dilute white paint across black clothes to look like milk, gluing some random cereal bits and package pieces on, and carrying a box of cereal with a fake knife shoved through it. Though I AM liking the Republican candidate idea, that’s bloody scary as hell.
I have a pope costume that I wore last year. I can send it to you. Then you can dress up as your “worst nightmare”!
Heck, easiest costume of all (besides the one from Wednesday at #100) is to carry a banana. Couple it with a box of Tide (“the tides go in, the tides go out; never a miscommunication”) and you’re the official “worst nightmare.”
This is probably one of the few groups which would immediately get the references.
I also just thought of going as Sylvia Browne. That’s scary.
Last Halloween I went as Magritte’s “Son of Man.” Very easy,clever costume: bowler hat, suit jacket, piece of tag paper cut into the shape of an apple, colored green, and on the end of a stick like an old-school masquerade mask. Comfortable, easy to get together, and instantly recognizable to a great many educated, artsy people.
Dan L (#105):
and to anyone who saw The Thomas Crown Affair.
I like it.
A mankini
David, shuddering
#95 Carlie
Why the hell would I suggest blackface? Its been done before like a million times which makes it boring now. Go a find a single reference to my suggested outfit anywhere on the internet that doesn’t appear in this thread. Its original and that was my aim. I’m guessing your last Halloween costume was a sheet with eyes cut out.
And the point goes whooshing over your head, breaking the sound barrier along the way.
Carlie,
I get your point. You just don’t get mine.
Blackface is about racial oppression which is completely unrelated to anything I have said. You are trying to tar me as racist simply because I suggested a costume you didn’t find funny. Get over it and take your brush elsewhere.
And for the record, it isn’t terribly logical to call someone a “hole” when their only crime was to say “It was never meant for you” when someone didn’t like their suggestion.
Please keep in mind:
1. There is no rule that says everyone has to like every suggestion in this thread.
2. There is also definitely no rule that says a bad suggestion deserves to be vilified and compared to racism (or other nasties) when it contained no such content at all.
I am not racist and I never ever said anything racist and you have no right to claim that I would enjoy suggesting something that you know is widely abhored thanks to its racism. You are wrong for doing so and should eat your words.
Actually, I found you to be sexist and then ableist. I was just suggesting you might also have racist and get a trifecta, and that it would be kind of probable given your penchant for slavery.
No, dear, I did not call you a hole. The “first rule of holes” is that when you find yourself in in one, you stop digging.
No, just bitches and gimps. No slurs aimed at large groups of people based solely on their physical characteristics at all.
Can you see me rolling my eyes at you from here? Run along, now.
Carlie,
I can see that what your real problem here is a fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to the topic of “Context”. Especially with words that have multiple meanings.
I’m not going to bother trying to explain it to you because you’ll just furrow your brow and continue to make unfounded claims that I rape babies and such. Zang! totally got me!
Feel free to say what you want from this point on. I’m tired of trying to meet you at your level and will not be responding anymore.
Cheers! great talkin to ya. :)
want my shovel for your reply?
monika – short version: when the alternate definition of a word is derogatory in the same way that the original definition is, you haven’t reclaimed or redefined it. You’ve simply built on the original definition and broadened the slur. That’s really not going in the right direction.
Wear a white shirt that says “Go Ceilings!”
Ceiling fan.
A little late, but how about this? Wear a Starfleet lieutenant’s uniform with the Cthulu mask. You can go as Lt. Cthulu. Should be good for at least a warped factor one.
Go as a BP oil exec. You could walk around the party spilling drinks and apologizing.
I was going to suggest the Ken Ham shave, but #23 beat me to it. If it weren’t too hard to travel with, the obvious answer would be a caveman riding an inflatable dinosaur.
Wear any clothes you want, but tape/marker/mark on your chest in some way a square containing “Sr” along the lines of the periodic table… You’re the element of surprise.
You could make a squid costume out of fleece and suction cups. :)