Holloween

[Americano]

From those who celebrated let's hear the stories. After living in Las Vegas I'm not easily impressed, but someone must have had an unusual experience.

[Michael]

From those who celebrated let's hear the stories. After living in Las Vegas I'm not easily impressed, but someone must have had an unusual experience.
Well we were out and about last night (not in costume) - walked over to see Bill Mayer's Religulous at a theater (see movie thread).

On the way back, we hit Church Street (the heart of Toronto's "gay village") which was closed to traffic for about four city blocks for a street party. They gay community really gets into Halloween... there were thousands of people there in costume as well as many more thousands of people not in costume. They also had a big stage setup with bands playing and a 'costume-contest' hosted by some drag-queen MC.

There was of course a grand parade of drag - that's a old 'gay Halloween' tradition - which is where the Church Street Halloween party originates from. Literally hundreds of men in drag and some of those costumes were wildly funny (or brutally ugly). Quite a few did drag with hairy legs, hairy chests and a moustache (which is always a bizarre look mixed with some platinum blond wig, lipstick and a dress).

Saw more than a few "Sarah Palin" types, a whole coven of witches (travelling as a pack), as well as a gang of undead zombies (shuffling along in a group), another group dressed as the 'fruit of the loom' characters, Luke & Darth Vader (with several stormtrooper) and my favorite of the night - Alex and the Droods (from Clockwork Orange) - very cool costumes.

We also saw just about every Marvel Comic book character (Superman, Spiderman, etc). These costumes all seemed to be very professional looking as if they were purchased/rented rather than homemade. There were also lots of wildly 'decadent' looking costumes with Master/Slave combinations (complete with whips and chains) as well as the "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" (a group of gay male nuns).

One of the costume highlights (and one I'd expect might have won that costume contest judging by the applause he got when he was on stage) was a DRAGON. Seriously this guy had a 15 foot wingspan and could operate the wings. The costume was like 10 feet tall and had another 10 feet of tail. Truly impressive - it was entirely homemade costume - the guy says he spent four months working on it.

Another 'highlight' of the evening was the Toronto cops who were working Church street (managing the traffic closing barriers). More than a few of the cops had various 'additions' to their uniforms - masks, makeup or some funny hat on - one cop was a cowboy and another cop had a HUGE (inflatable) gun attached to his belt as he walked around. Good to see the cops get into the spirit of things.

We had a surprisingly warm day yesterday which really brought out the crowds - every bar patio was packed with people (watching the passers by).

[Greendruid]

I had a total of eight trick-or-treaters and that was a bit surprising, especially since we dressed up (elf and faun). I'll post pictures when I get them uploaded. It was also surprising that we didn't have more because we got 19 last year, but those are the fluctuations when you live in a rural area I suppose.

I did have something kind of "interesting" happen when we first moved here though. We lived in a rented house in town and it was in the worst neighbourhood that you could get in an otherwise harmless place like Nova Scotia - I lived in Missouri and have been to East St. Louis so I know that most Canadian "bad neighbourhoods" aren't anything compared to the US. Anyway, on Hallowe'en night around these parts, fireworks are the official celebratory tool. Even the city does a small display at nightfall. My neighbour kids (teenage boy and his entourage of other high school drop-outs) decided to light a few tires on fire in field next to the railroad across the street. That was surprising but apparently not entertaining enough for them. The next night they decided to blow up an abandoned car. I shit you not - the sound of the gas tank exploding was ... LOUD! especially considering it was a street away from the backyard of my house. That's about the only unusual Hallowe'en experience I've had in recent years.