homemade halloween

Tonight finds me inside sitting in my cosy living room, music on, beer in hand, and I am completely content with this situation. But this is not a post about my reason for boycotting Halloween or what I am doing instead. This post is about creativity.

I had some great costumes growing up. I remember being a clown and a princess as a little girl. In high school I pulled off a great Tinkerbell (think Hook, not Disney), and in grad school there was a pretty great Pippy Long Stockings. For sure, there were costumes in between these that were not A-quality, but there were some great ones, ones that I would happily repeat. And every single one of those was homemade. Parts of each costume were bought (thigh-high stockings), were thrifted (dresses), were sewn (clown costume and Tink clothes), and other parts pulled from the stock in the house (dive knife and shoes and make-up). The creation was part of the fun of the event. When I was at home, I had the assurance that mom could always help me create what was in my head, and since then I figure I learned well from the master.

All of this to say that I have mixed feelings on people buying costumes. Store bought is easier and often looks slicker. The cutest costumes that I have seen in the last few years have been for babies and kids – tigers an ducks and pumpkins. They have all been store-bought and these kids were cute enough to eat. I wonder if I will have the time and energy in the future to create costumes for myself or to help my kids create their own. I am not passing judgement on purchased costumes. And yet I love the idea, the principle of engaging the imagination and creative juices to build a costume and wear it well. To own it.

Where does this leave me? Hoping and wishing that Halloween is as much about engaging the creative as it is about anything else. It is that one day a year that we are all encouraged to carve pumpkins and create costumes and paint faces and own a piece of creativity. I hope you your creative juices have been flowing this weekend.

A while back I made a smart ass sign to try and get people to load their dishes into the dishwasher at work. A few days ago a lawyer with whom we share the building asked for one of similar tone about washing of hands given that it is flu season. I hope this makes him happy.

Title: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World

Author: Tracy Kidder

Genre: biography, nonfiction

Form: paperback

Recommended: yes

Thoughts: Dr. Farmer works to provide medical care to the rural poor in Haiti, is a doctor of infectious disease in Boston, a Harvard professor, and works to change modern medicine’s view of treating the diseases of the poor. Kidder spent a lot of time with Dr. Farmer as they travelled the globe, walked mountains in Haiti, and corresponded extensively. It is from this perspective that Kidder tells Dr. Farmer’s story. I once heard someone say that this book is annoying because it makes Dr. Farmer out to be hero – someone impossible to emulate and yet you are left feeling like you should be trying. I think that person was slightly right, and that annoyance means that it is worth reading because there is something worth learning, pieces of life worth living, that are contained in this book. So, be inspired and be annoyed all at once.

Title: The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School

Author: Kathleen Flinn

Genre: autobiography, nonfiction

Form: paperback

Recommended: yes – but only for foodies

Thoughts: Flinn tells her story of leaving the corporate world, falling in love, and following her long-time dream of attending the Le Cordon Bleu – a famous French cooking school. Each chapter ends with a recipe – many of which looked good, but I have not yet tried any of them. Her writing / storytelling was not outstanding, but I think you foodies (probably more so the female foodies) would enjoy this story.

Words on a brick wall in Ballard, Seattle.

Title: Hunter

Author: J. A. Hunter

Genre: autobiography, nonfiction

Form: hardback, out of print

Recommended: Definitely

Thoughts: This is an amazing book. Amazing because Hunter tells his own story in his own own way of a land that he watched change and no longer exists. Born in 1887, he traveled to East Africa in 1908 and subsequently watched and took part in the taming of vast amounts of land. Yes, he talks more about guns than I care for, but this is balanced by observations of the tribes he worked with, cultural practices like pointing with one’s lips, and places that I have been to (e.g., Ngorongoro Crater) that seem nothing like what he describes. The land he walked in was truly wild in such a way that I doubt exists today, which is wonderfully refreshing. If you can track down a copy of this book, you should read it. Thank you Josh for sharing this book with me.

Given that you might not have ready access to this book and that every now and then I post ‘safari photos’, I thought I should share a few quotes from Hunter on photo safaris. Also, just for the record, safari means trip or journey in Swahili – nothing more.

“In my youth, the only animals that were photographed were dead animals. This made the problem of animal photography very simple. After your client had shot his trophy, he posed on the dead beast while you clicked the camera. But today people are determined to secure pictures of living animals. The animals seldom care to cooperate.”

“I must admit that animals are sometimes remarkably tolerant of picture taking. I have watched in amazement while a group of photographers ducked in and out of brush within thirty yards or so of a heard of elephants, taking light readings, changing lenses, and assuming the most incredible poses to get unusual ‘angle shots.’ The elephants must have known that they were there and still the big brutes put up with their antics very patiently. After considering the matter carefully, I am convinced that the elephants thought that the photographers were a herd of baboons. Elephants are short-sighted, so this is a natural mistake for them to make under the circumstances.”