Yesterday, I contemplated possible Halloween costumes based on concepts from physics, a field I haven’t seriously studied since the mid-1990’s. Today, we’ll consider skeptical ideas for costume parties. Only five days left for party prep!
- Anti-vaxxer – Show up with simulated mumps, measles, and rubella. Complain about how it’s all Big Pharma’s fault.
- Backmasker – Dress up like Anton Lavey, and learn to walk and talk like a Satanist — backwards. Have your friends record you and play it back (backwards) while hung over on November 1st.
- Cryptozoo – Dress up as any monster from this list. Have a friend follow you around excitedly carrying an old analog camera with petroleum jelly on the lens.
- Denialist (HIV) – Dress up as a sexpot (any gender) and politely offer to copulate with anyone who honestly believes they are carrying the so-called human immunodeficiency virus. No condoms!
- Ear-candler – This one is great for last-minute folks who fail to plan ahead. Just stick a lighted candle in each of your ears. True skeptics will get the joke.
- Faith-healer – Cheap suit, big hair, offer to cure anyone of anything by the power of prayer. Remember to invoke a popular religious guru and ask for a love offering afterward.
- Homeopath – Cheap suit, big hair, offer to cure anyone of anything by the power of water. Pretend that active ingredients have magical properties even when wholly absent and well-known to have the opposite effect in quantity.
- Ideomotorist – Unconsciously guide yourself around the room, towards an object of particular desire, by following a rod in your hand. For hetero men, this requires almost no practice whatsoever.
- Karmic law – Wear a robe and walk about returning evil for evil, good for good, preferably in subtle and ironic ways. Only appropriate for very advanced practitioners.
- Loch Ness – A specialized form of the cryptozoo costume, suitable only for indoor pool parties.
- Martian face – Construct and wear a reddish mask which looks like this. Try to avoid the guy in the pareidolia costume, because of the embarrassment that would inevitably result.
- NostradaMabus – The most frightening monster in all of cyberspace. Too scary for words. Wear asbestos body armor, just in case you are mistaken for the real thing.
- Out-of-body – Don’t bother to show up for the party, but describe it in detail to everyone afterwards.
- Pareidolia – Cover yourself in completely random patterns which are easily misinterpreted as somehow significant. Bonus points for patterns which happen to excite Catholics.
That’s it for now. More costume ideas to come!
