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ハロウィーンの衣装
子どものころからハロウィーンの仮装が大好きな筆者。
しかし大学時代にアルミホイルに包まって「残り物」を演じて不興を買い、その後しばらくはハロウィーンからは距離を置くことになる。
そんな気持ちに終止符を打ったのは、広島・尾道で迎えたハロウィーンでのことだった。
Halloween costumes
As a kid, I loved Halloween because it was a chance to be anything I wanted to be, just for a day.
And my sister and I really did get to dress up as pretty much anything we wanted because my grandmother, a seamstress, always made our costumes by hand and on request.
In elementary school, I remember being a crazy clown, a precocious leopard and, best of all, a chocolate chip cookie. That year, some people thought I was dressed as a potato, but I pretended to ignore them.
In junior high school, I went through a slightly experimental costume phase. (By this stage Grandma had shifted her attentions to my younger cousins.) I won best costume in my class one year for being Charlie Chaplin, which I quite enjoyed despite the teasing I got for my "Hitler moustache."
Another year, I decided to wrap myself in tin foil and go as "The Leftovers." That's the year I learned the importance of research and development in proper costume execution. It turns out that tin foil doesn't "breathe" and isn't very flattering either. They said I looked like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, which was a shockingly uninspired take on my clearly high-class concept.
Defeated, I took a break for the next few Halloweens, preferring instead to preserve my creative genius for future audiences. That sense of failure only grew into resentment through high school, where I pretended I was "too grown up" to really care about it anymore.
In university, I played along with everyone else who saw the 31st of October as just another day to party. It wasn't until I came to Japan, ironically, that I really got my Halloween mojo back.
One day, for no particular reason, I drew a picture of a bento man — a man whose body was a bento box. He was bowing at 90 degrees. I called it "obentover." As in, o-bent-over.
For Halloween that year, I created a real-life version of "obentover." I built a giant bento backpack using materials from the hyaku-en shop.
It had little tempura ebi, renkon, sausages, tsukemono, a tamago sushi and onigiri too. It was so much fun to make and a massive hit at the Halloween party held at my favorite cafe in Onomichi. I won the costume contest, too.
Better than that, though, I felt like I had redeemed myself for all those years of giving up on Halloween. I mean, it doesn't get much more conceptual than dressing up as the real-life version of a drawing based on a word play — but I let go of caring what other people thought. And I think that's why it worked. I think that is perhaps how it always works.
- just for a day
- 1日だけは
- seamstress
- 裁縫師
- by hand
- 手縫いで
- on request
- 要望に合わせて
- clown
- ピエロ
- precocious
- おしゃまな
- leopard
- ヒョウ
- pretended to 〜
- 〜するふりをした
- experimental
- 実験的な
- phase
- 段階
- had shifted her attentions to 〜
- 関心を〜に移していた
- Charlie Chaplin
- チャーリー・チャップリン(=英喜劇俳優)
- teasing
- からかい
- "Hitler moustache"
- ヒトラーのような口ひげ
- wrap myself in 〜
- 〜に身を包む
- tin foil
- アルミホイル
- Leftovers
- 残りもの
- research and development
- 研究開発
- execution
- 制作
- It turns out that 〜
- 〜ということが判明する
- flattering
- 見栄えがよい
- Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz
- The Wizard of Oz(『オズの魔法使い』)に登場するブリキのきこり
- shockingly uninspired take on 〜
- 〜への非常にくだらない意見
- Defeated
- 敗北感を味わって
- preferring instead to 〜
- 〜する方がよいと思って
- creative genius
- 創造的な才能
- grew into resentment
- 怒りに変わった
- ironically
- 皮肉にも
- mojo
- 魔力
- bent-over
- 腰の曲がった
- real-life version
- 実物版
- massive hit
- 大人気
- had redeemed myself
- 名誉をばん回した
- giving up on 〜
- 〜に見切りをつけること
- conceptual
- 概念的な
- word play
- 言葉遊び
- let go of 〜
- 〜をやめた
- it worked
- うまくいった