October 2, 2006:
Now that it's October, we can all wear our Halloween badges without having to deal with any badge-checkers telling us that it's "too early." No, October really is the Halloween season, and with it come all of the things that we've blood-oathed our souls away for. Soon you'll be picking a costume, looting candy and -- if you haven't already done so -- fuckin' up a pumpkin old school. Hell yes.
With jack o' lanterns, I admit that I've always been a traditionalist. I don't gun to be the most creative carver on the block. My pumpkins need to look "archetype." They have to have triangle eyes and a mouth with an overbite that's never etched out quite right. They have to be stuffed with candles that are clearly too large and fire hazardy to be inside them. They have to be poised for pictures that are just an e-mail away from entering Getty's stock photo search results for "halloween pumpkin."
I don't like anything screwing with this arrangement. I'm happy to have seen the art of pumpkin carving evolve to the point where you can now buy kits that come with special robot arms that cut them up for you, but they're not for me. Still, since this article deals with an item that challenges us to do away with carving pumpkins altogether, I'm going to have to really stretch to find that one special thing about jack o' lantern-making that I don't like.
Uhh, I guess we'll go with the smell. I can deal with pumpkin guts, really, I can. It's fruit. It's gooey, but it's still just fruit. The smell on the other hand...yikes. I don't get as nauseous as I used to because smoking fourteen packs of cigarettes a day tends to dull a person's senses and just about everything else, but in my healthier years, the scent of pumpkin guts sent my innards spinning into holy Hades.
It's not that it kept me from doing the pumpkin deed -- it's just the way that I had to do it. Ever see a cop drama where the officer had to dig his hands through a rotted corpse looking for a key or something? Notice how they always crouched from as far away as possible, squishing their hands through the muck while making faces as if they were trying to pass iron maidens out there asses? That's how I carved pumpkins. God is sacrifice, and it was a religious experience.
I don't quite understand my nose's obsession with hating pumpkin guts, because I rather like pumpkin-scented candles and room spray. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that pumpkin-scented candles and room sprays don't actually smell like pumpkins, but rather some sort of commercial simile that the masses have taken at face value without ever talking back.
Like I said, my aversion to pumpkin gut smell will never keep me from participating in the tradition. With other people, maybe the aversion is strong enough to make them swear off Halloween altogether. For those types, what I'm about to write about could be a lifesaver. Or at least, a holidaysaver.
It's "Spare Parts!" The plastic tubbed kit that will let you give real pumpkins a face without ever having to deal with its inner torment. The kit contains 28 face pieces with semi-sharp pointy things attached to them, and the whole thing works sort of like a Mr. Potato Head.
I wasn't terribly impressed with the kit in action, but I can see the merits. First off, it lets you fiddadle with a real pumpkin, whereas other "no-carve" kits might force you to hit the craft store for one of those lame, sacrilegious faux pumpkins. Secondly, making a jack o' lantern with this kit all but guarantees a longer-lived pumpkin, because the alien fruit can maintain itself a bit longer if nobody removes all of its organs before placing a lit candle where its heart used to be. On the other hand, fuck this shit -- if you buy a pumpkin, you better carve it. Swear, I'll kill you.
The assortment of pieces is quite good, but also very kid-friendly and cartoony. I think I'd dig the kit more if it had really gnarly face pieces, like eyeballs with snakes in them, and mouths with snakes with eyeballs in their mouths in them.
Still, with so many different mouths, eyes, noses, arms and hats to choose from, you'll at least get to entertain the notion that you're bringing a little bit of "you" to your pumpkin. Oddly, the various sets of noses, mouths and so forth don't really form "sets." What I mean is, though there are certainly witch parts in the basket, there's not enough witch parts to making something that's all witch and nothing else. You were going to make a mutant creature with mixed-and-matched parts anyway; I just didn't want you to feel mistakenly rebellious and cool for it. You're not.
My canvas, and ain't she a beaut? I'm comfortable with ruining this particular pumpkin for the "Spare Parts" experiment, because it wasn't farm-found -- it was store-bought. Going to a supermarket or department store for your pumpkin is almost as big of a no-no as not carving it. If you do either of those things, you're in trouble. For this article, I've done both, and fully expect Satan to bust through the floorboards with a smug "oh you KNOW you ain't gettin' outta this" face on any second now.
The pumpkin above came from Target. It only cost 3.99, which is pretty decent considering that it's weighty enough to bowl with. I wasn't really thinking about the "Spare Parts" kit when I bought it -- I had other reasons for being one of those assholes who drives a wagon around the department store with a goddamned pumpkin next to the light bulbs. It had this sticker, see. This wonderful sticker.
An official Great Pumpkin pumpkin? Was I on Candid Camera? Were off-screen pranksters waiting for me to make a jerk out of myself with a touchdown cheer? I know I said that we shouldn't be buying pumpkins from stores. I'm right, too. Unless it's just impossible for you to do so, there's nothing finer than going to a patch, finding your own and picking up a crude jar of bee honey on your way out. In this case, I'll make an exception. If you can score a Great Pumpkin sticker out of the deal, there's nothing wrong with buying your jack to-be at Target.
I'm torn between wanting to rail on this and wanting to talk up how cool it is to see a pumpkin with a pig snout. I don't know what to say, but I'm leaning towards complaining. The pieces are really, really hard to get into the pumpkin. They're just not sharp enough. Sometimes, you'll get lucky -- you'll find the right weak spots on the pumpkin, and your nose or mustache or whatever will fit like a glove. Other times, you'll have to mangle your hand and use as much might as a person would if his or her child was trapped under a car. And when you do do that, you'll occasionally come across pieces that snap in two under the pressure.
I feel confident in saying that small kids really couldn't do this by themselves. I'm not talking about any "adult supervision" bullshit -- it's not that the process isn't "safe." No, I mean kids...will NOT...be able to do this. Most just aren't strong enough, pathetic weakass pisants that they are. Making matters worse is the fact that it's really not that much more of an endeavor to just carve the damn thing. If you're going to spend 30 minutes making a pumpkin look like something, you may as well do it right.
On the other hand, I would never be able to straight up carve a double-faced clown/demon with Al Molinaro's ears. I thank the "Spare Parts" kit for that, but really struggle to thank it for anything else.
Guess I could use the empty tub as a coin bank. Thanks x2, "Spare Parts!"
Stick to carving. It's good for you. It'll help you remember that Halloween should be enjoyed more than in thought and words alone. Sometimes, we just gotta get our hands dirty.
