No way!  I’ve always wanted to be this Magritte painting for Halloween, but have never gotten around to it.  Looks like my friend Philip that I met last year in Paris beat me to it.

Halloween is always a game of party hopping, especially in Tuscaloosa where the bars are packed and most everyone you know has a party they’re throwing or one that they plan to go to.  There are, it seems, small benefits to living in a town where Football Is King.  People know how to dress up, parade around town, and generally throw some bitchin’ parties.

This year’s most popular and cliché costumes include: around 10 Hunter S. Thompsons, some seen simultaneously at the same parties; a handful of Amy Winehouses with syringes tucked in their hair; The Shower Guy at the bar, who may or may not be the same guy every year (but there always seems to be one, and he is always wearing a t-shirt that says something to the effect of “chicks dig me”); a handful of bananas, although if you’re going to go as a cliché costume, banana is the way to go, especially if you convince your wife to dress as a slice of watermelon; “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski; and last but not least, Richie Tenenbaum of the LATFH variety.  Zombies were especially popular this year, especially zombies of the redneck variety.  I heard tell of a lot of Lady Gagas, but never saw any myself.

Best costumes: see above, Darth Leder.  Tobi is German, and I guess has his lederhosen lying around waiting for such opportunities.  He was able to feed a bendy straw through one of the slots of his mask so he could drink without removing it.  Other costumes of note: a woman dressed as David Bowie from the Labyrinth, glass ball and all; “baby rabies,” a guy who glued 20 or so kings cake babies to his face, and passed out extra to anyone who asked; Frida Kahlo; Bert and Ernie.

The images above were taken by Elliot, of image(n) photography.

What sorts of cool costumes did you see?

You gotta love the BBC and the kinds of things they report on.  They are at once totally absurd and exceedingly banal.  Sara sent me this, with the subject, “I bet it doesn’t beat the one at Chez Prosper.”

Eggs Louis Armstrong. They’re eggs Louis Armstrong!

Time for some festivities.  These devil horns have gotten me through so many of them without much planning.  Happy Halloween, y’all.

PieLab 1.0 (via .BWJ.)

Can you tell how excited I am about Pie Lab?  Because I’m pretty excited.  More photos in the flickr set here, and one more yummy article here.

PieLab, an initiative of Project M, is focused on community development and engagement in Hale County, AL.

PieLab is a welcoming community space on Greensboro’s Main Street that provides delicious pie and coffee, as well as retail and hospitality job training for local youth through the YouthBuild Program. More than simply a pie shop, PieLab operates as a community design center focusing on community development projects and small business incubation in Greensboro and the surrounding five counties.

More about PieLab here, here, and here.  You can become a fan on facebook here.  Hopefully I’ll get to visit soon after they open!  “Everyone loves pie” is, I think, the solution to a lot of the world’s problems.

Donate to their kickstarter fund here.  They only have 17 hours and less than $3,000 to go to meet their goal.  Please chip in so they’ll have the start-up for their Downtown Greensboro storefront!  I promise to make a pilgrimage, eat pie in your honor, and take some photos.  You can hold me to my word.

Bright Star - A Room Of Butterflies (via meediaguy226)

(via slugblog)

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The Real Time Web is a Beautiful Distraction – Opposable Planets

(via kottke — a post he made in late May that is still open in my browser.  Eep!  Welcome back to the internet, I guess?)