Halloween '09

My love of Halloween is well-documented (I did much blogging on the subject of Halloween last year: 1 2 3). This year I had an idea for a Halloween costume months in advance, but I failed to follow through with it (I couldn't find the right stripy shirt).

So since I volunteered to perform a song at the ward Halloween party, I decided that my costume would reflect my song choice. So I pulled out my stage makeup kit, put on my least favorite t-shirt (apologies to Olene Walker), and smeared around some cheapo red nail polish (the only blood-looking item I could find at Rite Aid two hours before the party - everyone was worried but it came off my skin very easily). Add it all up and voilà: your standard zombie costume.

My song choice for the evening was a song by computer-programmer-turned-geek-rockstar Jonathan Coulton. I was introduced to him by my new roommate Peter, who wrote a scholarly paper about him (The Music of Jonathan Coulton: Postmodern and Geeky) that helped him get accepted into the musicology doctoral program here at the University of Michigan (no joke). When I mentioned that I was searching for a Halloweeny-type song to perform at the party, he turned me on to a Jonathan Coulton song called "RE: Your Brains." It's a zombie saga written in the form of a bland interoffice email:

Heya Tom, it’s Bob from the office down the hall. Good to see you, buddy - how’ve you been? Thing have been OK for me, except that I’m a zombie now. I really wish you’d let us in. I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand why you folks might hesitate to submit to our demand. But here’s an FYI: You’re all gonna die screaming.

The song features a part for a zombie chorus, so in the performance, Peter taught the crowd the part and lead them in the performance. I have a little snippet of the show here, starting with the second verse and going until the space on my memory card ran out:



I've become quite fond of Coulton's music - it's all very funny on the surface, but a closer inspection reveals some very sophisticated musical and thematic content underneath the comedy. You can listen to all of Coulton's music for free on this site (click on the little play arrow underneath in the 'Hear' column). In addition to "RE: Your Brains," I would suggest checking out the songs "Shop Vac" (the titular vacuum cleaner is a metaphor for a suburban couple's inability to communicate), "Skullcrusher Mountain" (a folk/country love song from an evil genius to his captive maiden - "I'm so into you, but I'm way too smart for you/Even my henchmen think I'm crazy, I'm not surprised that you agree"), and "I'm Your Moon" (a gorgeous love song written from the point of view of Charon, a moon of Pluto, who is consoling Pluto after being demoted from planet status).

Final thought: Nothing against Katherine Downie and her lovely tree in autumn costume, but the photo at the top of the post was cropped from the photo on the right. I cropped the photo to use as my Facebook profile pic, and as I was doing it I felt bad for chopping off a friend. So friends, I want to know: how do you feel about cropping friends out of your profile pictures? Have you ever been cropped out of someone else's photo? If so, how did it make you feel? Let the comments page serve as a cropped friends support group.