Sailors tell a lot of stories. Stories about sea monsters that are hundreds of feet long and cling to the underbelly of ships to sink them within a matter of minutes; making it as though they never sailed at all. They tell stories of illnesses and hallucinations, of sirens and of pirates. But something even more terrifying than being taken over by a pirate ship, would be to see one abandoned and floating freely in the ocean. When all the members of the crew died, or for whatever the reason abandoned ship, this phenomena would occur. The ship would continue on, sailing through the ocean until it eventually sunk due to lack of maintenance, weather conditions, or eventually hitting something. A ghost ship.

Of course, some novelists and screenplay writers have taken this concept and said “suppose the pirates never left the ship, suppose they were unable, or their spirits were tied to it.” In the Pirates of the Caribbean movies a group of men are tied to their ship by a curse. During the day it seems that all is well and they are normal seafaring men, but by night they become skeleton ghoul-like creatures with organs missing and detachable limbs.

In other instances, the guys in pirate costumes are simply ghosts; making the term ‘ghost ship’ a very literal one. They are described as washed out, misty images of a crew. Working relentlessly on the ship despite their work having little to no effect on the improvement of the vessel. Some of the stories go that if you were to board a ghost ship you might become a member of the crew and be forced to spend the rest of eternity with them as a trapped spirit. It is a fate that some think worse than going to Davy Jones’ locker down at the bottom of the ocean.

May we reconvene under the blood red moon,
-Black Widow

The movie 300 and the men dressed in spartan costumes was a fantastic ride of epic battle scenes and the determination and perseverance of men. Based on a graphic novel, which was based on an true occurrence in history, the film told the story of three hundred men who engaged in battle against the Persian empire.

It first explains how their current king came into being while explaining how Spartans were raised and trained from childhood. Their final test, to go from a boy to a man was to be cast out into the wild by themselves and basically survive with their own two hands. You see after the flashback that King Leonidas has a son of his own that will soon go through what he had many years ago and become a man. A messenger is sent from the Persian empire to tell King Leonidas and the Spartan people that they must submit to his king, Xerxes. Leonidas responds of course, by kicking the messenger down a well shortly after speaking the words “Madness? This. Is. Spartaaa!!!” (a quote which so many people have done wonderful things with on the internet, including a techno remix) He knows that these actions will bring war to his people, so they go to the priests to get permission to wage this upcoming war, but after consulting an oracle they tell him that he can not. Unable to use a large army, he takes only three hundred men with him on what many see as a blatant group suicide, but their king is a man with a man and strong will, and they would follow him anywhere.

I’m sure that even if you haven’t seen the movie, or read the comic, or taken a history class; you can guess what happens next. After all, it is the reason why this clash of the Spartans and the Persians is still so well known today. With only 300 men, they kill enough Persians to scare a good number of the rest away. The narration at the end tells us that the Spartans had bought the Greeks (and more Spartans, now that the Queen back home had convinced them to send reinforcements despite what the oracle says) enough time to get a group of 40,000 people together to ensure that Persia will not take their land.

And they all lived gorily ever after.

May we reconvene under the blood red moon,
-Black Widow

Art is a very important part of our history as human beings, as well as our every day lives, and one costume you could put together for Halloween that I guarantee nobody else would duplicate; is art. Now this might seem very strange to you, but think about it, really think about how amazing it would be to turn a famous work of art into reality and be it at a party or function this Halloween.

The first example to come to mind of course would be that you could dress as Mona Lisa and perfect that little smile of hers to show to all of your friends. The costume would be fairly simple to make or acquire and the hair wouldn’t give you too much trouble either, I imagine. If you wanted, you could go the extra length and buy an old frame at a thrift store. Then take the class and backing out of it and hold it up around your face every time someone gets stumped on what you are supposed to be or takes out a camera and wants a photo.

You could be the husband and wife from ‘American Gothic’ (you know, the painting of the two farm people, where the man is holding a pitchfork and they both appear to be quite bored), or Ophelia if you loved that style of renaissance dress.

If you decided you didn’t want to be a specific subject of a painting, you could always purchase a white suit or dress and duplicate a painting onto it yourself. Van Gogh’s work might be best for this type of costume, as it doesn’t demand as much perfection as some of the other painters work’s do. What I mean to say is that you could replicate Starry Night or Irises and even if you did a mediocre job, people would still be able to tell what you were getting at.

Consider yourself the canvas, and have some fun this Halloween?