At the Black Dog Café...

... take off that dog costume right now!

UPDATE: A bunch of kids came to the door just now, and I was all "Is he a lamb? Are you a ram?" and I was informed that they were all "Star Wars" characters.

The pre-Freakfest scene downtown.

We're snug at home this evening, while the revelry goes on here in Madison, but earlier this evening, we took a walk downtown, and we encountered this religious demonstration. Note the signs. Note the effort to get passers-by to look into the casket.



Where there was a mirror. They just wanted to remind you. In case you forgot: You're going to die.



As the younger folk scamper off, the older man is hoping they'll come to Jesus before it's too late.

(Click here for a large enough version to read the signs: "Every one of us shall give account of himself to God" and "Jesus said: I am the door: By ME if any man enter in, he shall be saved.")

"Embrace and celebrate" "Hetero-een."

An interesting Dan Savage rant about Halloween. Sorry there's no transcript, but click to listen and begin at 0:59. He takes on those who complain about the sexy costume for females (and females only) and argues that heterosexuals need a day to bust loose from all their usual inhibitions.

Hey, you with the racist Halloween costume!

Jenée Desmond-Harris is tired of your defensive, I-am-not-a-racist routine.

[M]any seem to forget that one needn't be a card-carrying white supremacist to make a choice that imagines racialized communities as "other"; that plays upon a history of inequalities and stereotypes; that instigates, mocks and offends.

"There's this sense of 'I don't know why people have to make it a big deal,' " says Leslie Picca, associate professor of sociology at the University of Dayton in Ohio....

But [David J. Leonard, associate professor in and chair of the department of critical culture, gender and race studies at Washington State University, Pullam] hopes those who have problematic attire brought to their attention will, at the very least, reconsider using their relative privilege to dismiss criticism, and choose to listen rather than "hiding behind a mask of ignorance about racism in America."

And by the way, this means you don't get to wear a Barack Obama mask even if you love Barack Obama. If you think you do, you need to reconsider your relative privilege and listen.

AND: Wearing any mask might get you arrested in New York.

The ban on masks in New York State dates to 1845, when it was adopted in response to events in the Hudson Valley, where local tenant farmers disguised as American Indians had attacked and killed landlords. The law includes exceptions for masquerade parties and similar events.

The police have periodically used the law during political demonstrations....

The law has been litigated several times over the past decade or so, with state courts, federal courts and appeals panels seesawing back and forth over whether it can be fairly applied.

Perhaps the most vigorous challenge came in 1999, after police officials said Ku Klux Klan members could not wear masks during a rally in Lower Manhattan....

Where's the line between pet costume...

... and tormenting an animal?

Halloween greetings.

(Animation of Meade's photo by Chip Ahoy.)

Saturday's protest ambiance: mellow, low-key.

A woman dressed in nonthreatening witch garb stood under the "Forward" statue and implored people to assemble for an "Oakland March" — which I presume was a protest against the recent attempt by the police in Oakland, California to oust the Occupy Oakland protesters.



People gave the "witch" a wide berth. It was a Farmers' Market day, so the Capitol Square was pretty crowded, mostly with people who didn't seem to be shopping for any new political ideas. But there was a woman standing under a black "Recall Walker" umbrella, and a man with a lot of 9/11 Truther paraphernalia.



Then there was this man with a "Decline of Western Civilization" poster. It's got this quote that's attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, a Scottish-born British writer who died in 1813.



The Wikipedia article says: Tytler "believed that 'a pure democracy is a chimera,' and that 'All government is essentially of the nature of a monarchy.'" The "Tytler Cycle" that appears on the poster is unlikely to have been written by Tytler. I'm not sure what political position the poster-holder is trying to take. He has a "you are here" pointer — see the enlargement — between "from Abundance to Complacency" and "from Complacency to Apathy." "Apathy" subsequently leads to "Dependence," which makes me think he's taking a right-wing position against the people becoming dependent on government. "Dependence" leads to "Bondage," which gets us back to the beginning of the cycle. But I'm going to assume that he means it in a left-wing way. Right?

Yesterday, we drove past the new "Occupy Madison" encampment...

... which you can see in the first 10 seconds of this 14-minute video...



... and you can hang out with Meade and me for the rest of the drive if you want. You'll see some more of Madison and the University of Wisconsin and eavesdrop on us. It's not all politics, I assure you, at 2 p.m. on a beautiful Saturday.

ADDED: A couple extra videos for reference. Here's the awesome song "United We Stand" by Brotherhood of Man:



And here's one of the wonderful "I'm a Pepper" commercials from the 1970s:



Of course, you must know the Herman Cain "smoking man" commercial, and here's the take-off by the Huntsman daughters.

AND: 2 more references. Donald Rumsfeld:



And Little Edie:

What the "Occupy Madison" encampment looked like today...

(Enlarge.)

It's exiled on East Washington Avenue. Meanwhile, at the Capitol Square... the protesting is enigmatic and infiltrated with Halloween — Freakfest — spirit....


(Enlarge.)

Would you eat that carrot?

Jesus Ween.

"Jesus Weeners might be seen as fun-trouncers."

"The Constitutional Right to Insult Your Neighbors With Tombstone Displays."

Just one section of an article — PDF — in the New York State Bar Association Journal about Halloween-related lawsuits. (Via ABAJournal.)

The tombstones referenced the petitioning neighbors by name, and each contained a date of death based on that neighbor’s address. For example, one tombstone referencing a neighbor named Betty Gargarz stated:

Bette wasn’t ready,

But here she lies

Ever since that night she died, 

12 feet deep in this trench, 

Still wasn’t deep enough 

For that wenches stench! 

1690

The Seventh Circuit recognized the validity of the plaintiffs’ First Amendment claim. While the court noted that the tombstones were intended to elicit “an emotional response” from the neighbors, they were not “the sort of provocatively abusive speech that inherently tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace” such that they would be considered unprotected speech under the “fighting words” doctrine.

"I cannot stop until I feel like I've conquered it."

It being the pumpkin. It's Ray Villafane, the master of pumpkin carving.

Enough talk of women and their slutty-one-thing-or-another Halloween costumes.

Let's look a the man problem for once. Here'sthe Amazon list of bestselling men's costumes —via Instapundit — and the #1 costume is some stretchy fabric that covers your entire body and makes you all one color. What is the attraction here?

Why are men choosing these costumes?
	They want to be somehow invisible, yet brightly colored.
	It's very much like being naked, but with no face and no genitalia.
	There's some movie/video game character this represents.
	The onesie suit is just the beginning. It's what you put on next that counts.
	It's not a Halloween costume. Wear your team's color to a sporting event.
	It's not a Halloween costume. It's for committing crimes.
	The onesie suit is just the beginning. Use scissors for individual, customized partial nakedness.
pollcode.com free polls

IN THE COMMENTS: I'm schooled by DannyNoonan, who seems to think I'm a bit of an idiot not to know about the "green man," and KLDavis, who points me to a video clip that makes me laugh a lot.

The 5-year-old boy who chose to be Daphne from "Scooby-Doo" for Halloween.

And the mother who chose to blog about it.

So now there's a viral photo on the internet of a boy dressed as a girl and endless speculation about what that all means.

1. Did the mother invade her son's privacy? By blogging about the issue of a very young boy who wants to pretend to be a girl? Or was it the photograph? Or was it wrong even to invade the child's fantasy world by speculating about his sexual orientation? The mother's blog post was titled "My Son Is Gay." Do we owe children restraint in thinking about what sexual behavior they will find compelling when they grow up, and if we do, don't we all violate that duty in one way or another?

2. Consider the notion that a costume of a perfectly nice girl was perceived as an unusually scary Halloween character. Kids dress as devils and monsters and dead people all the time, but to be a pretty girl — if you are a boy — is terrifying. As the blogger noted, a girl dressed as a male character would not stir the same anxiety in the grownups. What does this say about sexism? Is there a special aversion to females, that manifests itself when a male associates with female things? Or is it that people have a special aversion to male homosexuals and are really pretty much okay with lesbians?

IN THE COMMENTS: Big Mike said:

I'm glad I'm at home when I followed your "perfectly nice girl" link because some of those cartoons are definitely NSFW.

I've changed the link to the Wikipedia article on Daphne Blake. Previously, it went to the results of a Google image search on: Daphne Scooby Doo. I'll just add the "bestiality" tag to this post to indicate what you would have seen if you scanned the page too long.

Sex.

The 1-person Halloween costume. [I'm trying to link to the 9th picture in the slideshow, the one with the woman inside the mattress, with an inflatable man on the mattress.)

From Freakfest, which officials regard as a success this year solely on the metric of fewer arrests.

Halloween... we just got the tiniest little Spiderman...

... coming to the door by himself. There was a parent back there in the dark somewhere. Earlier, the bell rang and there were 3 kids: a clown, a ketchup bottle, and a witch.

ADDED: I'm less sentimental now than when I wrote that — 10 minutes ago. We've been holding out a bowl with 6 different kinds of full-size candy bars and saying "Take one." There were 3 kids and one boy took 2. Meade said "Take one!" He said that 3 times, and the boy didn't put one back. Nor did the parents, 15 feet away do anything to rectify the situation. The next group came, and Meade held out the bowl and said "Take one," and a parent, standing back 15 feet, called out "Take one or 2." The hell? Full-size candy bars cost 89¢ at Walgreen's. You don't take 2. My faith in kid-humanity is shattered. Now, we have to switch to choosing for them and handing out one apiece.

ADDED:

What's worse?
	The boy who took 2 and didn't put one back when Meade repeated "Take one."
	The parent who called out "Take one or 2" after Meade said "Take one."
pollcode.com free polls

IN THE COMMENTS: Meade said:

Hey, we just finished up the night with a great bunch of seven kids - looked to be about 10-12 years-old - and they all sang us a song! They were great! And polite.

Faith in kid-humanity restored! Thanks, Obama!

The Meadhouse jack-o-lantern.

I picked out the white pumpkin, found the black candle, and sharpened the knife. Meade did all the design work and carving.

"When I was a kid, Halloween was strictly a starchy-vegetable-only holiday, with pumpkins and Indian corn on the front stoop..."

"... there was nothing electric, nothing inflatable, nothing with latex membranes or strobes. I do remember the first time I saw bright orange lawn trash bags decorated with smiley pumpkin faces, which was about ten years ago; I thought they were kind of clever and festive, if a bit commercial. Now they seem quaint, compared to, say, yard decorations like Demonica Zombie Baby ('a latex skin foam filled child with sound and motion activated flashing eye lights,' in stock and ready to ship for $39.99) or a life-sized Hellraiser Pinhead Animatronic (a big investment at $279.99)."

That's Susan Orlean, who also bemoans the trend toward Halloween as a time for adult revelry: "when I was young, Halloween was a holiday celebrated only by children." That made me look up Orlean's age — 54 — and city of origin — Cleveland. The trend toward Mardi Gras-style street parties and parades for adult revelries goes back to the 1970s. That's when Freakfest began here in Madison, Wisconsin and the time of the first Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in NYC. I remember those parades in the late 1970s, when I lived in Greenwich Village. It was a continuation of the counter-culture of the 60s, isn't it? They called us Baby Boomers, and we internalized the concept of "baby." You'll just have to deal with it now.

ADDED: Orlean... Mardi Gras... Maybe that has something to do with her annoyance at the migration of adult revelry to the autumn holiday. That and the fact that — as she reveals in the article — Halloween is her birthday.

"I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of Snooki this year."

What's your Halloween costume? Surely, you're not going as Snooki. So lazy!

The most popular Halloween costume of the past few years was nowhere to be seen last night.

What has become of that erstwhile scary character, The Hippie?