One day I am gonna get the hang of this iPhone photography thing. Or just photography in general…
OK, so I’m a week and a day late in posting this. Here’s to extending the Halloween season! (Because really, we all know those jack o’ lanterns are gonna rot on your porch past Thanksgiving.)
Have you ever heard of the Wild Rumpus? It’s this parade that happens in Athens every year before Halloween. Townspeople, students and anybody else, I suppose, don costumes and circle a block (literally — I’m pretty sure it’s just one block) downtown, led by Timi Conley in the guise of Max from Where The Wild Things Are. Then there is music and general merriment.
This year’s Rumpus was Athens’ fifth — the Facebook event dubs it the WILD RUMPUS Parade & Spectacle V — but it was the first one I’ve attended. I’m usually out of town for the Rumpus (NOT for Georgia-Florida, I assure you), and I honestly hadn’t heard of it before college. Actually, a lot of students still haven’t heard of it. I guess you have to be a Flagpole reader to learn these things.
But I went this year! And it was swell. If I were a mom, I’da brought my kid(s) out to the Monster Mash that afternoon for crafts and face painting and whatnot, but since I’m not, I just ate a burrito and watched the evening parade at College Square, and it went on and on and on and on. And on and on. Apparently this year’s parade was the biggest yet. The costumes were great! There were fire twirlers and stilts wearers and Miley Cyrus imitators and a father and child dressed like a giraffe (which is hard to explain but was really adorable and I wish my iPhone photos had turned out better) and a zombie wedding and Doctor Who references and dogs wearing clothes and a lot of costumes I frankly didn’t understand (but might have if I’d just buy some new glasses and not lose them this time), but it didn’t matter because the Halloween spirit was high, and Athenian quirkiness was running free.
You can’t really tell, but there’s a girl hanging from that apparatus on the right. She’s pretty neat.
After the parade, I met up with some friends from my Always Baked days (way back a month ago) and listened in the costume-clad masses to the free music (with aerial silks artists and more fire!) outside of the 40 Watt before heading into The World Famous for warmth and catch-up conversation. I missed the after party featuring Space Trucks, Timi & Kite to the Moon, and Ghost Owl inside the 40 Watt because I had a costume party to attend (apparently I bear a striking resemblance not to Peter Pan, but to Hermione Granger. The 12 year old or the 18 year old? That’s what really matters), and I didn’t have $15 anyway, but I’m sure the bands were great.
I spent my actual Halloween watching Mad Men on Netflix and gorging myself on cookies and hummus (not together, usually), and it was a surprisingly good night, but the Wild Rumpus pretty much was Halloween for me this year. Maybe I will actually participate next year!
The Almost Athenian 