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I type this partly as a chronicle of one man's walk through costuming hell, partly as a cautionary tale. I'll do it in reverse order, since (in one of the only things I planned well ((read=it was accidental)) my costuming got easier as the weekend progressed.
COSTUME #1: A suit for a dinner party at Martha Stewart's
The problems: The tie pin I bought would not unclasp...
which turned out to be irrelevent, because, well, it never occurred to me that it had been eight years since I've had to tie a tie. When I tried, it *baffled* me. It also didn't go with with my shirt...
which turned out to be irrelevent because I *left my shirt at home*. In fact, the only button down shirt I had with me was one I'd picked up at the costume shop because I thought it might, down the road, make a good clown shirt. Since it was red and yellow plaid.
COSTUME #2: Fozzie Bear.
The problems: One polka-dotted tie, dropped and forgotten on my way out the door.
One ZIPPER, which CAME APART IN MY HAND when I tried to zip up the back of my outfit.
COSTUME #3: Professor Farnsworth
My problem in a nutshell was that Professor Farnsworth looks like this:
and I look like this.
You can see the problem.
So it was time for a bald cap. And theoretically a bald cap is a fairly rudimentary effect: you put it on your head, glue it in place, then cover it and your exposed skin with the same makeup so that it looks fairly natural.
So I put the thing on. And then I stretched it a little more to cover my hair. And then a little more. And then a little more. And then I put the first glue on the front. And saw about an inch of hair sticking out of the back, so I stretched it a little more. And then, totally following the directions, I got out the scissors to trim away the portion over an ear.
If you've never stood inside a popping balloon, one that's partially attached to you, it might be hard to understand how it feels when the world goes THOPPP! and you get the sensation that your scalp has suddenly painlessly jumped sideways to dangle over your ear. You find yourself jumping around. Uttering words you didn't even know you knew. Shaking is permissible. Especially when you look down at what was once a bald cap, and is now several pieces of shredded latex about the size of pasties.
It is very disconcerting.
Fortunately, for this problem I had a contingency plan. It was a $1.99 swim cap I'd picked up in a pharmacy in 2006 and never opened, that smelled like a high school biology lab, soaked up the makeup like a sponge without ever really changing color, and was even smaller than the FIRST cap, but it was a plan.
To sum up: oy.
COSTUME #1: A suit for a dinner party at Martha Stewart's
The problems: The tie pin I bought would not unclasp...
which turned out to be irrelevent, because, well, it never occurred to me that it had been eight years since I've had to tie a tie. When I tried, it *baffled* me. It also didn't go with with my shirt...
which turned out to be irrelevent because I *left my shirt at home*. In fact, the only button down shirt I had with me was one I'd picked up at the costume shop because I thought it might, down the road, make a good clown shirt. Since it was red and yellow plaid.
COSTUME #2: Fozzie Bear.
The problems: One polka-dotted tie, dropped and forgotten on my way out the door.
One ZIPPER, which CAME APART IN MY HAND when I tried to zip up the back of my outfit.
COSTUME #3: Professor Farnsworth
My problem in a nutshell was that Professor Farnsworth looks like this:
and I look like this.
You can see the problem.
So it was time for a bald cap. And theoretically a bald cap is a fairly rudimentary effect: you put it on your head, glue it in place, then cover it and your exposed skin with the same makeup so that it looks fairly natural.
So I put the thing on. And then I stretched it a little more to cover my hair. And then a little more. And then a little more. And then I put the first glue on the front. And saw about an inch of hair sticking out of the back, so I stretched it a little more. And then, totally following the directions, I got out the scissors to trim away the portion over an ear.
If you've never stood inside a popping balloon, one that's partially attached to you, it might be hard to understand how it feels when the world goes THOPPP! and you get the sensation that your scalp has suddenly painlessly jumped sideways to dangle over your ear. You find yourself jumping around. Uttering words you didn't even know you knew. Shaking is permissible. Especially when you look down at what was once a bald cap, and is now several pieces of shredded latex about the size of pasties.
It is very disconcerting.
Fortunately, for this problem I had a contingency plan. It was a $1.99 swim cap I'd picked up in a pharmacy in 2006 and never opened, that smelled like a high school biology lab, soaked up the makeup like a sponge without ever really changing color, and was even smaller than the FIRST cap, but it was a plan.
To sum up: oy.
