seasonally inappropriate; a/k/a My All-Time Favorite Halloween Costumes

In the mid-eighties in Madison, when Halloween turned State Street into a costumed bacchanale, we encountered lots of clever, creative, and elaborate costumes. But sometimes the simplest costumes were the best, when shot through with a conceptual brilliance.

So, two guys who went as "Shit!" and "Fuck You!" "Shit!" was a shorter, stouter guy, who covered himself in a brown garbage bag and muttered and shuffled down the street with downcast eyes. "Fuck You!" on the other hand, was a thin wiry guy, gesticulating wildly in the air with a half-closed, broken umbrella, turning his epithet into a noise rather like a startled chicken's cry.

I think it's the broken umbrella that works best for me: it's become a sort of iconic image for me. So if by some chance the creators of those costumes read this, have a drink on me.