When Life Hands You Lemons... take pretty pictures of them and rant on your blog!

Attribute it to karma, klutziness or abundant physical electricity but for some reason I seem to be one of those people who occasionally stop watches or seem to cause multiple electronic failures in a room. 

I am admittedly klutzy in that my arms and legs seem magnetically drawn to corners of walls, shelves and coffee tables. And I have been known to walk into plate glass windows and wall mirrors, sober, mind you. As for electricity, I sometimes transfer a shock when touching people or things, my electronics acquire mystery afflictions and the last time my watch suddenly died both hands were directly on midnight. Really.

But truthfully, its probably just karma. When it rains it pours, right? This weekend (after putting together my best, most extensive costume to date) both my cameras broke.



Science of the New Thought (Erastus Whitford Hopkins, 1904)

My video camera just stopped recording image and my still camera flew out of my hand when I tried to photograph a guy dressed as Michael Jackson (but maybe that was his karma ;).

The upside is that, since we marched in the parade this year, there are numerous pictures that other people have taken of us, so will compile an album of photos from various sources. In the mean time I have been playing with filters and crops on the photos that I took with my iphone, which came out more arty than snapshots would have anyway ;) so there.

I'll post more detailed images of the costumes and the parade soon. But for now, please enjoy these images: Halloween 2009: Marie Antionette and Louis XVI march in the North Halsted Street Halloween Parade, Chicago!


COSTUME / HAIR AND MAKEUP UPDATE: 

Costume: I made the costume from a vintage dress (strapless floor length light blue satin), a long crinoline, flowers and ribbon. 
Makeup: The makeup included a sheer layer of white under powder and star shaped beauty mark (women of her era often wore a beauty mark, sometimes in shapes of hearts).  
Wig: The wig was actually 3 wigs: 2 braids used under the main wig as a "bump", a long wavy silver wig that wrapped around a platinum bob wig (for extra height) in an updo.  I puled some of my own hair up and around the sides and into the ponytail to help anchor the whole thing.  I then sprayed down the whole thing in white and silver hairspray... and tons of glitter :)


I was still feeling bummed here because my camera had just broken, but I tried to pull it together for a bittersweet Marie portrait.

I love these portraits of David and me as Marie and Louis. Believe it or not these costumes were his idea.

I can't remember the name of this band, it might have been Chicago Red Line Cabaret (so correct me if I am wrong), so I am just calling them the Rabbit Band, which played music as they marched through the crowd.

This couple was one of the finalists for "Best Couple" in the costume contest. They should have won first place in my opinion. They are dressed as Queen Elizabeth and Walter Raleigh. The costumes were handmade by Kai Wallace (one of the revelers here). Stunning and inspiring!

I'm not sure what this one was supposed to be, but I thought it was a Dr. Seuss character. He stood on 4 foot stilts for extra height. Amazing.

I like pictures like this that have that moving memory feeling, like an unspecific dream or thought you just can't seem to articulate.

This one I am calling "Marie Von D", after Kat, the tattoo artist. If Marie were alive today I think she would take many brave fashion risks, like tattooing her face.

Actually, my aunt has a tattoo on her face, which was her homage to her female mentor, Vali Myers. I would get a tattoo on my face, perhaps. Maybe like the one I have drawn here, a star over my beauty mark.. but then I would miss my beauty mark, which I have named "Elizabeth Taylor" (She has one in the same place)... but maybe I'll save this thought for another post ;)

Overheard in Chicago 1: "Of Rats and Men"

"Ok, so the point is, RATS have FUR, and furriers can make any fur look like..." - (some guy talking on his cell on Michigan Ave near the Tribune building).

I really wish I had stayed to hear the rest of that sentence.

(Gareth Pugh's Rat Coat, W Magazine)

FYI: The guy saying this may or may not have been talking on his phone. I just assumed he was on an earpiece, but Teryn was convinced he was talking to himself (i.e. crazy man). He was wearing a trench coat and walking funny...

Hearing that guy gave me pause and I simultaneously thought:
a) Note to self, be careful when purchasing fur that it is not rat!, and
b) ... wait, why would I be buying fur?!

Before those who know me cry "hypocrite", let me first confess. There may be a few scraps of fur lying around my closet, and by scraps I mean a beaver jacket and a mink stole, both of which were thrift store finds, not that it makes them any less "fur" or me less guilt ridden.

Gareth Pugh's "Rat Coat", pictured above, debuted in 2007 and was called "the most subversive anti-fur protest we have ever seen", by Fashionista.com. I agree it is both subversive and darkly humorous, but will the targeted audience be swayed by this kind of statement? I'm not sure those ladies get this type of humor ;). (Read full article here: http://fashionista.com/2007/11/gareth_pughs_rat_coat_an_essay.php).

I have in the past tried to rationalize ownership of things like this by saying that they were vintage and died long ago for someone else, but it is a lame attempt I admit. I have to own up to the fact that even buying them from thrift or wearing them in general perpetuates an industry based on violence borne against the very creatures I love so dearly.

Currently I have rationalized their presence in that they are part of a costume collection, but even that seems like a lame attempt to appease the Id driven cave woman in me that wants what she wants when she wants it. I guess my lesson to learn here is that some things (like boycotting Denny's or not smoking) are easy to give up in the name of politics and morals, and some things (like foie gras and fur), are very difficult.

Soon, my dearies, very soon, I will have to pry these treasures from my own greedy fists and make a drag queen somewhere very happy.