Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Halloween wit

Last night the SP and I went out on the town, to promenade in our gunslingin' finery and take in the sights. You'd think I'd learn by now to take a camera.

It was cold. And dark. We didn't see quite as much costuming action as I'd expected, but then we got downtown kind of late. We did see a Droog, though, strolling uptown along the sidewalk, complete with bowler hat and cane. Genuinely creepy and very cool (I should note that, in the course of searching for pictures, I ran across a blog entry that claims they're overdone. Could be--I'd never seen one before, but that may explain why vintage bowler hats are so hard to find).

We also saw "V," as in "Vendetta," sweeping his way across the intersection with the light change. Black hood, cape, sword-stick and all. Impressive, at least at a distance. Much more effort than the ready-made commercial version. Got to admire that.

But my personal pick of the evening was the waiter in the rather classy Italian restaurant where we stopped for an appetizer. The SP first pointed him out: "That guy's wearing a Superman tee-shirt." And he was--but over it he wore an Oxford striped shirt, with the sleeves rolled up and the front unbuttoned. His trousers were gray, and he had a conservative striped tie looped around his neck. He was a nicely built young man, maybe thirty, with dark hair neatly combed and parted. He wore black-framed glasses.

"He's Clark Kent," I realized aloud, with delight.

Classy. Subtle, but needing no explanation or guesswork. Two thumbs up, mister waiter.

Oh yeah, and we got some attention, too. I wore my blue 1880 dinner dress, with my new hat and wool cape. The SP wore his new gunslinger ensemble, looking remarkably like Val Kilmer in "Tombstone" (though less pasty). Mostly people admired at a distance, but a few came up and offered compliments. There was a large party of mostly women at the table behind us. Several were dressed as nuns. They were a bit drunk and huggy and just loved us. "Oooh, look at her dress," they said. "Ooooh, look at her hat. Ooooh, look at him!" "Mmm, I like that one. Look at that coat! Is he supposed to be a gunfighter?" "Maybe he's her husband!" (As opposed to some stranger who just happened to meet me at the bar dressed in the same period garb?)

"That nun slapped me on the butt," the SP reported as we made our way back to the car.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting that you should mention Val Kilmer. In the several cinematic renditions of the Gunfight at the O. K. Corral that I've seen, only one has Doc Holliday properly portrayed as cadaverous and tubercular. That was Kevin Costner's "Wyatt Earp." Dennis Quaid lost twenty pounds to play the part.
A 1947 version had Victor Mature in the role. Mature went on to play Samson in the Cecil B. Demille epic. He was no ninety-eight pound weakling. In the 1957 movie, "Gunfight at the O. K. Corral," Kirk Douglas played opposite Burt Lancaster's Wyatt Earp. Douglas, dimpled chin and all, was the very picture of health at the time, since it was filmed many years before his stroke. And Jason Robards, in the mid-60's version "Hour of the Gun," was not at all skeletal.
Of the recent versions, I preferred "Tombstone" over Costner's "Wyatt Earp." I never did see that one all the way through.
Sg