Best Halloween Party Ever!

The best Halloween party ever thrown in Austin, TX was October 26 1996 on Cherrywood. There was music, a living room filled with strobe lights and a DJ. Everyone was dancing. There were costumes, 4 kegs, a full bar and a huge tub of the yummiest trashcan punch. We made sure everything tasted good and looked great. There was tons of food. We had yummy, potent jello shots that made people pass out. There were pretty decorations and party favors.  My friends threw this party and I helped. It cost a little above $4K total between us. At one point I even bought a handful of nice cigars to hand out to people.

See, what happened was we all decided to throw a party as a Halloween/ Birthday Party for our friend Cecilia. We thought this would be our only chance because my friends were renting a huge house with a huge back yard. There was also a huge house located in front of their house to hide it from street view. For us girls, though, the priorities were the decor and flavoring the trash can punch and jello shots so that they were more sweet than boozy. We wanted everything to look pretty and taste great.  At the time, my best friend and I were going to college and I was working a  second job. The longer I worked the more overtime and bonuses I made and was  paid weekly. It was political phoning. The week before the party I was working 12 hours straight for party money. I skipped my classes that week too. All we did was plan for this party.

Because we thought that maybe everyone we knew wouldn't get the info on time, we passed out flyers to friends and friends of friends that week. I left a stack of flyers at work encouraging everyone to invite everyone thinking we'd be lucky if we got forty people. I heard later that someone posted the flyer somewhere public like on the drag or at Emo's or something. For the big day I wore a French maid costume and began to make my way through a modest crowd in the center of the yard, it was 9pm or so. The crowd grew quickly and to our amazement the back yard was a solid mass of people an hour and a half later. We made the rounds and found part of the cast to Slacker, local artists, writers, the drug dealer, old friends (that were not invited because we didn't know they were even in town but had found their way) it was mind blowing and overwhelming.  People were getting together, breaking up, crying, laughing hysterically, climbing trees, trying to get into blocked off rooms, calling cabs to get home, arguing with the DJ because he refused to play Madonna but through it all I kept hearing this was the best party ever.

The cops never found the place because it was completely hidden by the house in front. The house in front was empty and dark that night. This allowed the party to last until 5am before the hosts went to bed. The next afternoon there were bodies in the back yard. Complete strangers waking up and getting their bearings by asking where were they, what had happened. I don't think anyone went home sober or could even see straight. We were all  25 years old and younger and  all we cared about was if everyone have a good time. During the party we had gone out to get 2 more kegs to keep up with our guests. The jello shots and trash can punch was so yummy, no one could stop themselves.

There was still trashcan punch left in the backyard with bugs swimming in it. Quite a mess to pick up. It was a blast but for the next few days we were exhausted and depressed. When you throw something that takes so much planning and was such a hit and you spent all your money on it...the aftermath is blah. As the years went on we'd run into some unknown who would say that they had been to this party and such and such and so and so and it was this cool Halloween party on Cherrywood....NO KIDDING! It was our party. So if you were anyone living in Austin in 1996 you were at this party or heard of it. It was THE party that year. I can't believe that was 10 years ago!

Jack O Lantern

So after watching Martha Stewart carve a pumpkin I took on my first pumpkin. I didn't have all the fancy tools she had, I just had a steak knife. This is what I did with a pumpkin and a steak knife:

It was inspired by Gene Simmons

Don't Look Now

Watched the movie Don't Look Now over the weekend and it scared me. The way this movie was shot and  edited  made me jumpy. Venice looked like an absolutely creepy place and not at all attractive through this film.

John and Laura Baxter are living in Venice when they meet a pair of elderly sisters, one of whom claims to be psychic. She insists that she sees the spirit of the Baxters' daughter, who recently drowned. Laura is intrigued, but John resists the idea. He, however, seems to have his own psychic flashes, seeing their daughter walk the streets in her red cloak, as well as Laura and the sisters on a funeral gondola. I love Julie Christie and anything with Donald Sutherland in it. I hear they want to remake this in 2007. Why? It's already been made and it's great.

Speaking of remakes:
Also watched The Haunting(1963). I thought it was great too, loved it! There was no need to re-make it. Why are re-makes of great movies even done?

Made caramel apples for the first time. That's a messy project! I need to make them again and do it right this time. I added too much water. When something is done poorly the first time you go ahead and re-make.

Minutiae

Today is a nice day. It is grey and rainy out. Perfection would be 50 degrees outside but this is nice....with the ac full blast and solar screens on the window it makes it seem like it's freezing outside. I like that.

The house has been painted and it looks great! We added hunter green w/shutters & solar screens. Still a lot more to be done. Home improvement, ugh, we've started down that long road.

Loving Pompadour Hibiscus and Rose Hip Tea, buttermilk pie with berries and Nigella's pancake recipe.  These are just a few things that make me smile lately.

Totally into Corman's Poe films this month with donut runs to Mrs Johnson's Donuts.

Watched The Bloody Brood about beatnik sociopaths. It  starred a really young Peter Falk. I thought A Woman Under the Influence was going to be the  youngest I ever saw Peter Falk.  The dialogue and the characters were unforgettable. I have to own this film, I thought it was really cool.

Looking into CSA's for fresh locally grown  food. It would be nice to have chickens and a garden but I am unsure of my abilities to do either.  In the meantime  farmers markets and CSA's will have to do.

Happy Early Halloween!

Friday the 13th in October is the perfect time to start with the scary movies to get into the Halloween spirit. It is also the perfect time time to watch the stop motion Rankin and Bass masterpiece, Mad Monster Party. It was created  by Mad magazine's Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis. You won't be disappointed.

Personal Fashion Ins and outs

Well my wish came true and the Audrey trend is out in full force or was that someone reading my blog and making it happen,teehee.

My personal Ins are:
1. The beatnik girl look. This trend has never stopped but I have just joined it with bangs and growing my hair out. Also called the Bettie Page look, sometime Chelsea Girl hair...

2. Ponytails, tiny ones with cutsie, crocheted flowered ponytail holders with designs bigger than the ponytail. Perfect for when I don't want to straighten or product the hair. Perfect for humid days. Perfect for growing out your hair.

3. Lucha Libre colored tights: Bright blues, oranges, cherry reds and sparkly gold and silver opaque tights! Worn under tight fitting (think 80's) Black lycra dresses or short black minis(and turtlenecks). Teehee

4. The 49er! Belted over pencil tweeds and wools

5. The Mary Tyler Moore hat with a huge pompom on top

6. Vintage Alpaca sweaters!

7. Plain,calfskin soft, brown leather flats worn with floor skimming vintage, wool, navy uniform pants.

8. The grey sweatshirt worn one size small or baggy sweater over the pencil skirt with an interesting medium pump.

9. Rosie the Riveter styled Do Rag on head, preferably leopard printed worn with a black shirt, jeans and flats


Personal Outs are:
1. Low rise

2. Polyester made to look like silk. Doesn't work in Texas.

3. Leggings for me-I can't do this style again and all those cute 50's shirt dresses I used to wear over them are gone. Cotton can only last so long in rotation.

4. Bleached lines and designs added to denim. Just give me pure un messed with denim.

5. Taking vintage clothing that is still wearable and destroying it to make something asymmetrical and weird. I am having a hard time finding things. Went to Blue Velvet and found most mens 50's ties made to form headbands. Why? Brings me to this:

Bring back the late 50's and 60's thin tie for men in those same awesome and sharp designs. NOT the 80's thin tie either!

Cri-Cri

Cri Cri (Cricket) was Francisco Gabilondo Soler a Mexican composer of children's songs. These songs are not considered PC by today's standards. My Abuellito introduced them to me when I was a little girl. My mother had grown up with them. Every few months we'd receive a flat, square package in the mail covered with stamps and tied with a string. These packages always made me so happy because I knew that inside would be a new  Cri-Cri record with a loving dedication inscribed by my Abuelito. My mother would always read them first as they were written in Spanish and then translate.

I loved Cri-Cri's voice and the music. Even as a tiny kid I could appreciate the sounds of these vintage recordings. Most were done in the 30's and reflect those times in every way.

My favorite song when I was 5 or so was actually El Raton Vaquero because I thought a song in Spanish with some English lyrics was so neat. Those lyrics were:
What the heck is this house
for a manly Cowboy Mouse?
Hello you! Let me out!
and don't catch me like a trout.

Teen Years

Wow, I keep forgetting I am not 30. Keep thinking I am only 30. I'm well passed that. So hard to believe. Anything past 28 was never planned. Leggings and minis are already back. Do I dare? I still fit into my high school skirts. I just can't bring myself to do it because it went with my teen years. It goes way back, back, back.

When I first heard I Melt with You it was 1983 or 1984. I swooned. It was the song that single handedly catapulted me into my teens.
Sadly at the time,there was no romantic I Melt with you moment back then. Our fun was had sweating out the non-air conditioned used clothing warehouses where you tripped, fell over and drowned in huge heaps of vintage clothing. Nothing but 40 year old vintage clothing, some deadstock with tags still hanging on them. Scattered on the floor and coming in constantly, in barrels delivered by moving trucks, were beautiful 40 year old leather purses and shoes, wool suits, cotton dresses... all sold by the pound: 25 cents on the weekdays, 10 cents on the weekends. It was a dream that lasted a wonderful 4 years.

We'd take our cheap treasures home, wash and mend then go to the mall and swoon over John Hughes' movies at the triplex. There wasn't much else to do except make things, lots of things, some acrylic painting, crocheting, knitting, paper mache, a lot of visits to the library for their foreign films in addition to books and bios on Warhol and Edie, dancing and doing cartwheels with friends on Friday and Saturday nights in their backyard to the Pogues, Clash and Sex Pistols,REM,The Cure and everything else that was there and came along, eating crap every weekend and still getting a kid's sugar high, sitting on Claudia's roof at night drinking sugary drinks and talking about what we'd be like when we were old, like 28 or so, 30 was never mentioned, that was so far away and so very old. And that, my friends, is basically what I did for four long years. It was fun.