"Well, she’s still trying to proceed as normal, and she’s trying to tell herself that she can just go on with her life as if this didn’t happen."

"And she’s very excited about the Halloween party at Chi Phi at the fraternity. And you can tell from the text messages that she wants to go to the party. She’s getting ready for it. And then just before the party, there’s another moment that moves her thinking in this new direction. She gets a phone call from the president of the fraternity.... And he tells her, you can’t come to the party. You’re not invited. And he adds that it’s for her own good, because there are so many rumors swirling about what happened by both women and men. And there’s so much judgment about her. She shouldn’t come to the party. She sends a text message to one of the seven guys.... And she says to him, 'I knew this was going to happen. The women will always get the short end of the stick... You all... 'are not my friends....' This anger continues in the text messages... her telling of the events [has] now really changed...."

From yesterday's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "The Firestorm Over a Rape Allegation at Cornell/The New York Times has reviewed a trove of documents related to the case. Our reporter explains what we know."

I blogged about that podcast yesterday, but didn't have a transcript to excerpt. Today, I'm giving you the excerpt I wanted verbatim. 

Target apologizes for a costume that — accidentally? — looks like blackface.

You decide. It's the "Kids’ Glows under Blacklight Circus Clown Halloween Costume Bodysuit":

I'll do a poll:

"Japan stole our Halloween magic that tracks cause it died here about 10 years ago."

"I live in japan... you know... walkable cities and all. Halloween is BOOMING here! I handed out candy to 500 kids in just a mid-sized town here (went through ten 50-pack boxes) and my friends went to Nagoya and said there were THOUSANDS of people dressed up this year and it's only getting bigger because people hear about how fun it is and CAN ACTUALLY GET TO THE EVENTS!"

From a Reddit post asking what millennials did (supposedly) that ruined Halloween.

Interesting about Japan. As for America, it might be that millennials think they need to escort their kids from door to door, but if they do that, who will be home to give out candy to the kids that come to their door? I think you need lots of 2-parent families. Leaving out a bowl of candy doesn't work, because there's no one to see the costumes (and it's not surprising that kids dump the whole bowl). 

Other issues: "trunk or treat" format is replacing the door to door approach. And: "Was giving out Halloween candy in my neighborhood and not a single kid said the phrase 'trick or treat.' Literally not a single child."

Decorating your front lawn for Halloween in an election year.

I laughed but somebody else might be truly horrified (and by what, exactly?):

Who uses this method? Either do Halloween or don't!

pic.twitter.com/0nV36VjHiR

— Out of Context Human Race (@NoContextHumans) November 1, 2023

Why are we doing handouts anyway? To show what human beings are like? If you answer the door and dispense the handout personally, you can maintain a system of one portion per person, and you might even get a smile or a thank you. If you put out a big bowl of multiple portions because you don't want to monitor the process and impose single portions, then people will serve their own interests and take all they want. You knew that. The kids who took it all also knew that if they didn't take it all, the next group of kids would take it all. It's a state of nature without supervision and enforcement. Don't pretend you trusted people and you had some sort of admirable "hope" that now I'm supposed to feel bad got crushed. No, you lazy bastard. Answer the damned door next time. Or have the courage to turn off the porch light and huddle in a back room and celebrate the end of the holiday you no longer believe in.

Halloween sweetness.

A TikTok video, so it's below the jump:

"So a couple of years ago, when I was doing some late-summer decluttering of my daughter’s bedroom..."

"... and had to figure out what to do with the dolls she’d outgrown, the answer came to me like a disembodied whisper: 'October’s almost here. Place them out on the lawn.'... Doll decor can be as uncomplicated as dumping a pile of tattered and disfigured dolls on your lawn, because few things are weirder than an unexplained pile of dolls... I suggest letting your own twisted whims serve as your guide. This year, for example, I’ve toyed with sticking several dolls in my shrubbery, limbs akimbo...."

From "The Cheapest, Easiest, Freakiest Halloween Decor Is a Bunch of Old Dolls" (NY Magazine).

Your old trash + your twisted whims = Halloween.

You know what they always say: The only Halloween that matters is Election Day.

Let me just screen-shot my ramblings on Facebook (where I only talk to a few friends and family and don't want new friends):

"Even a holiday which celebrates debauchery, irreverence, and immature or dark humor should have no place for words or actions of hate."

"This deranged individual was looking to create fear and anxiety. We don't believe that he is a student, rather an outside provocateur."

Said Rabbi Mendel Matusof said, quoted in "UW-Madison releases statement after Adolf Hitler costume seen on State Street" (WKOW).

Here's a Reddit discussion — replete with a photograph of the person wearing a Hilter costume on State Street. I found that via this other Reddit discussion, where somebody says, "If it's any consolation, I was told by a bartender on State Street that the dude got his ass kicked."

UPDATE: Channel 3000 quotes the police report, which makes 3 important points:

1. Wearing a Hitler costume is protected speech, so no crime has been reported. 

2. Even though "no reports received by MPD rise to the level of a prosecutable crime," it nevertheless identified the person and interviewed him. 

3. It turns out that this person "has a cognitive impairment due to a past traumatic brain injury."

ALSO: Who called the police on a guy in a bad costume? Did anyone call the police on the person who beat up this mentally impaired person?

"Behind her, she heard people yelling, 'Hey, push! We’re stronger! I’ll win!' Then the flow of the crowd suddenly stopped."

"[Seon Yeo-jeong, a South Korean YouTuber] described 'being swayed back and forth as if in a tug of war' before temporarily losing her vision and being squeezed from front and back. 'If my friend hadn’t held me and helped me,' she said, 'I think I would have passed out and fallen to the ground.'"

From "Seoul Live Updates: As Nation Mourns, a Focus on How a Festive Night Turned Deadly/A crowd surge during a Halloween celebration in a nightlife district killed at least 153 people. Witnesses say police presence was scant, even through people were thronging the streets" (NYT). 

Here you go: 9 TikToks, carefully curated. Some people love them.

1. When you think you've arrived at the beach.

2. Put the baby outside... in Denmark.

3. Put your lips away.

4 What are you going to be for Halloween?

5. She's got the energy.

6. Grandma doesn't want to replace her frappe with protein drink.

7. Medieval hairstyles for men.

8. What's the difference between a boy and a girl?

9. Does this photographer know what he's doing?

"Nerds are winning."

I said to a trick-or-treating kid just now, and he seemed amused. I am taking a survey, giving all kids a choice between Twix — which I consider the mature choice — and Nerds Ropes — the funny choice.

The near west side of Madison has voted and the choice is clear: Nerds are winning.

I don't know what this necessarily means for society at large, but it seems to me it's a vote for fun.

"The theme of our party was Constitution Day. I was trying to say we’d be serving classic American foods, quintessentially American foods—sort of caricaturing ourselves as Americans..."

"... on Constitution Day, this very American day. And I have a very casual tone when I write emails. So that’s why I referred to 'basic-bitch-American-themed snacks.'"

From "The Yale Law School Email Controversy: An Interview With Trent Colbert/Colbert is 'cautiously optimistic' that the climate at YLS might improve in the wake of this conflict." (The interview is conducted by David Lat at his Substack.)

Colbert is one of Yale Law School's Native American students, by the way, and the email at the core of this controversy was addressed to Native American Law Students Association. This is such a small group — so hard to recruit in "critical mass" numbers — that it amazes me that Yale wasn't especially considerate to Colbert when he was accused of racism. 

It's also interesting to me that the Native American group was making a party out of being ordinary Americans. It's so loathsomely incurious of Yale to jump at the critique by black students and to have no interest in what this meant to Native American students.

That party idea made me think of "Mundane Halloween," a trend in Japan and Taiwan where they costume themselves as ordinary people — "From 'the guy who had to work during vacation' to 'the surprised man who got a vasectomy last year,' all the costumes you're about to see are downright amazing."

"In Japan, the #地味ハロウィン (translation: #MundaneHalloween) tradition has people coming up with very clever costumes of all-too-familiar situations and people."

"Artist @TAGASAING translated some of this year's examples" (Twitter). 

“person who refused a bag but their item ended up not fitting in their purse,” “a store mannequin children played with,” “PE teacher who usually wears jerseys wearing a suit in the graduation ceremony,” “an uncle’s facebook selfie,” “Person who is quietly despairing over the lack of seats with power outlets in a cafe they popped into,” “someone at the entrance of a thrift store, but you don’t know if they’re a customer or a staff”....

At the Sunrise Café...

 

... you can write about anything you want.

IN THE COMMENTS: tcrosse said: 

The ancients knew that Hallowe'en occurs when the sun rises over the center smokestack of the Broome St Power Station. It's Madisonhenge.

Yeah, I love the way the smokestacks change the sun into 2 glowing eyes. 

"Americans are split on whether children should be allowed to trick-or-treat on Halloween this year and whether they will hand out candy, given the coronavirus pandemic."

"According to a YouGov poll, 30 percent of Americans say they plan to hand out treats to trick-or-treaters, while 26 percent say they usually do but won’t this year. Another 35 percent, who I can only surmise are either unable to give out treats or just extremely grumpy, said they never give out treats.... Twenty percent of American adults say that ghosts definitely exist, according to a YouGov poll conducted last week. About a quarter say they probably exist, 39 percent say they probably or definitely do not exist, and 16 percent said they don’t know."

From the extra stuff at the bottom of a FiveThirtyEight page with the headline "Americans Say They’re Fired Up To Vote — Especially Democrats." 

I clicked on that headline because I thought it sounded dubious. A poll asked Republicans and Democrats whether they were "more fired up than usual" about voting. Do you vote because you get "fired up"? I think more conservative people vote because they have a civic duty and a standard practice of voting. So they might not "say" that they are "fired up" — that is, emotionally agitated — even though they're going to vote. 

Really emotional people might react with a quick "yes" to the question whether they're "fired up" but may have some other emotion going on when election day comes around, perhaps a peevish resistance to the damned candidate put up by that party they feel they're supposed to vote for. 

What's your plan for coronavirus Halloween?

Are you just going to turn out the lights and hide?

"I was starting on this year's Halloween projects and kept seeing 'Karen' pop up in my news feed and thought, 'Damn this is the real monster of 2020.'"

Said Jason Adcock, quoted in "A Los Angeles artist is selling $180 'Karen' Halloween masks, calling them 'the real monsters of 2020'" (Business Insider).

"Are you me? Are you me?! For Halloween?"

More Halloween...