Stumblor

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Boo! Shake, shake, shake the room.

Halloween, as it turns out, is great. You get to dress up as Teen Wolf, participate in parent approved solicitation of lollies from strangers, and BOO! the bajeezus out of unsuspecting flatmates while simultaneously excusing yourself from the subsequent abuse barrage because you were merely attempting to be 'festive'.


Little did I realise however, that for all these years I had been inadvertently missing out on the best bit of Halloween, for it was only yesterday that I realised that I had never ever once carved a pumpkin not once in my life. Riding in a helicopter could wait, this was far more accessible to a man of my current means. So, while the rest of the house was cooking and cleaning and moving furniture in preparation for our Halloween party yesterday, my flatmate Charlie and I resolved to jazz the place up somewhat by creating some arrestingly spooky squashes.

After every incision, I would turn my orange obscenity towards Charlie and say "Hey dude, check it out." which would illicit a avalanche of hilarity from the both of us. Then Charlie would make a cut, show me, and we would again erupt in pumpkin fueled elation. This rotation ensued for the remainder of the afternoon, and by the time our constructions were completed both Charlie and I were utterly convinced that we should pursue the art of pumpkin carving on a more professional basis from this day henceforth.

We were, of course, showered with praise for our fine efforts once the merrymakers began arriving at our soirée later that evening. I stood beside my creations and beamed with pride, discussing in triplicate the techniques I had utilised to create some of the finer details.

I call this guy the 'Yak-O-Lantern':





And this charming character I imagine being pictured under a bold printed newspaper headline which reads: "Headless horseman relieved after cranium recovered in ditch".





Charlie tried to recreate the nuances of Pete Doherty with his pumpkin. We thought that perhaps by creating an realistic effigy we would somehow tap into some eerie magic power vortex resulting in Kate Moss appearing at some point in the night demanding to see the 'two pumpkin artisans', but unless this occurred while I was in the can, our hopes were well and truly dashed in that respect.




I've got to be completely honest, we did get a fair bit of inspiration from this site, very edgily titled 'extreme pumpkins'. Just wondering what can't be dubbed extreme these days...?

Tune in next week while I explore the extreme sub culture of quilting. Peace out dawgs!

6 comments:

Jo said...

I kind of want to carve a pumpkin now.

Unfortunately they're not in season right now in the antipodes, so I'll just have to distract myself with a spot of kamikaze scrapbooking.

Melanie Myers said...

You really made those things yourself? Impressive and hilarity making. Well done :-)

Kath Lockett said...

That's art, Davey, real ART.

davey said...

Jo: Totally had to wiki Antipodes. Did we ever get pumpkins like this back in Australia though? Alls I remember is the green lookin' ones. These are so *Authentic*.

Blak: Seriously did! But as I said, we did a bit of *ahem* inspiration.

Milly: You should see my art. It's like, craft, or something.

Jo said...

Yeah, I'm real articulant.

And the pumpkins in my country are pants.

Luckily, the pants in my country are not pumpkins.

eleanor bloom said...

I'm very impressed. I only carved a pumpkin once in the States as a kid and I was young enough to need some parental supervision. Yours are far superior I must say. Although, mine did have pretty cotton ball hair and a green ribbon - so tough competition really.
Halloween was great over there as a kid. I was very fortunate.