As it is my personal favorite holiday and I am supposedly a member of the ‘adult’ community, I decided that this year I would do the adult thing and dish out some candy to the kids. Little did I realize what I was in for. After work I went and bought the good stuff (little Snickers and Reese’s Cups) and quickly hashed together a costume. With the help of my Russian hat that Allison procured for me in, of all places, Russia and some basic vocabulary from one of the 3 Russians that work on my floor I was able to pull it off. After donning the outfit and getting in an appropriately Russian mood, I made my way to the front door of my apartment (which was disappointingly devoid of any decorations or anyone else with candy). The sight that greeted me was beyond comprehension. I have rarely seen this many children anywhere, let alone roaming the streets in sugar crazed gangs of masked characters. My candy stores were quickly depleted so I stopped by the local market and purchased several big sized candy bars and decided I would go distribute to kids with high quality costumes. On foot I quickly learned that Hyde Park is big on Halloween and that I live just a block away from the epicenter of the festivities.

Harper St. between 57th and 58th is completely shut down on Halloween. When I arrived the street was packed and nearly every house had gone for broke on decorations. These are not tissue paper spiders and cardboard skeletons. People have lights, spiders rigged to pounce on people from trees, fog machines in such abundance that sections of the street were completely blanketed, and there must have been enough candy distributed in five minutes to choke an army of donkeys. This was also not one or two houses that stood out. Nearly every one was draped with spider web, resplendent with tombstones rising from the front lawn, blasting eerie music, and complete with actual lines of children waiting for candy while parents hovered around. Sadly, I didn’t take any pictures because I decided that young, unattached, white, males taking photos of children in costumes would cause parents to call to mind such societal elements as ’serial killers’ and ‘pedophiles.’ I decided to spare them the worry. It was a truly impressive sight.

Armed with a small bagful of kingly sized candy and the remainder of the small stuff, I set off to dispense in a way that rewarded the truly clever and dedicated children (or children coerced by parents into appearing clever). I decided that I needed at least a simple rubric for deciding who would recieve the limited and highly coveted king sized candy. Immediate disqualifications were awarded for anyone dressed as a princess, Spiderman, Superman, the Incredible Hulk, any member of the Fantastic Four, or any comic book character recently appearing in a movie (with an exception for anyone dressed as a character from Sin City… though despite a good run at the box office, Sin City costumes were conspicuosly absent from the horde of young ones), faeries, sports figures, and all costumes consisting solely of a store bought mask and/or face paint. Bonus points were awarded for any literary character created earlier than the last 10 years and most recent literary characters were immediately disqualified (most notably the small army of Harry Potters). Bonus points were also awarded for any costume that I have not previously seen or musicians that my parents would not listen to.

The big winners were:
Two twins dressed as Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde (also appropriate for Hyde Park)
A kid dressed as Sherlock Holmes
A young lady dressed as a pear (I thought it ironic that she chose to become a shape that most women seem to fear with a singular terror)
The toddler dressed as Slash from Guns n’ Roses (this had to be the parents doing)
A child dressed as a Tie Fighter from Star Wars (complete with a Darth Vader action figure sitting in the cockpit on his chest… clearly hand made and totally sweet)
The best of the whole night was a kid dressed in a top hat and coat that was too large with handkerchiefs sticking out of the pockets who, when asked what he was replied with (a real) English accent that we was “Oliver Twist by golly!”

As an aside to this story I will say that Allison should be particularly pleased with her gift getting skills because I cannot even remember how many people were floored by my hat. The crazy lady from upstairs saw me coming in and made me take it off and show her. I even got a, “Yo dawg thats a muthaf—— pimp hat” from one of the local youths.