Angel

Angels are beautiful and ethereal creatures that are said to watch over us, and do God’s work. So if your fancy yourself as someone good and wholesome, why not be an Angel for next Halloween? An angel costume can be as simple or as complicated as you wish it to be, so long as whatever you’re wearing is white, and you have wings of some kind (even if the wings are painted onto the back of your shirt) everyone will get the idea of what you’re supposed to be. But on the flip side, if you wanted to be a ‘bad’ ‘dark’ angel you could dress in all black, with the addition of wings and have the same effect.

The best part about this costume ( I think ) is that different cultures interpret angels differently, so there possibly hundreds of ways to do it. You could dress casually, as if you were an angel that had come down to earth for a specific purpose (possibly to attend a Halloween party?) and had to blend in with the rest of humanity. Or you could go completely over the top with a flowing gown, or do something a little different like Gabriel in the movie Constantine perhaps?

If you really wanted to get into it, you could choose a specific angel to be and carry props with you to represent that specific angel. For example, if you chose to be the archangel Michael, you could bring with you a sword or wear some kind of armor, since he was one that is often portrayed as either a protector, or a leader of battles.

Remember, even if you’re not quite wholesome or innocent, you can still be an angel on Halloween; or at the very least, you can look like one.

What most people don’t know about fairies is that their origin in folklore was a lot more dark and disturbing than your favorite Disney movies make it out to be. They didn’t have wings (they relied on magic to fly), and could appear looking like most anything; a black dog, an ugly small troll-like creature, a small child, or a fully sized angelic-looking being. They would cause terrible things to happen to you and your loved ones, and wouldn’t think twice about stealing your newborn baby and leaving a changeling in it’s place.

Fairy

Though, if you tried to go to a Halloween party dressed as a ‘true’ fairy, you could be certain that nobody would have any idea what you were supposed to be. So for the sake of recognition, being a fairy of our current popular culture would probably be your best bet. But what to do?

A cute little dress and sparkly wings would do the trick easily, but there are also a multitude of specific (very recognizable) fairies to choose from. Tinkerbelle, the jealous but well meaning fairy from ‘Peter Pan’, would be a fun and easy costume. You could get together a costume to resemble the animated version of her, or try something a little different and portray (for example) Julia Robert’s Tinkerbelle from the movie Hook.

Or perhaps you wanted to be a fairy, but were hoping to portray something a little bit more mature? With an all green attire of your choosing and green wings, you could instantly be the ‘green fairy’; a vixen said to control men’s minds after they were under the influence of the -equally green- alcoholic beverage, absinthe. Since there is no set look for this fairy, you would wear as much (or as little) as you were comfortable with and could let your creativity guide you as to how you wanted it to look.

It comes in a bottle similar to what wine is sold in (or sometimes clear); but this drink is a beautiful green color, and not something you can pour and consume immediately. The process involves pouring some of the liquid into a glass and then placing a slotted spoon over the glass and sugar cubes on the spoon. After the sugar has been dissolved into the mixture some water is added, and then is it ready to drink.

The Green Fairy

Absinthe became popular in the late nineteenth – early twentieth centuries among the bohemian types of the time. So by default it was opposed by the prohibitionists and those that were socially conservative. It was said that when you drank it, the “Green Fairy” took hold of you and sent you on a wild ride of hallucinations, that she made you crazy for the time that you were under her spell. Some went so far as to say that it could provoke epilepsy and tuberculosis, as well as turn a law abiding man into a criminal.

By nineteen-fifteen it was outlawed in most countries, though the chemical thujone (present in small quantities in the drink) was hardly enough to give Absinthe the psychoactive effects it was said to have. For the united states, it stayed banned until 2007. But now that it is perfectly legal once again to buy and drink Absinthe in the united states, several breweries have taken it upon themselves to manufacture the green sprit. Notably; George Spirits of Alameda, California, Delaware Phoenix Distillery in New York, Integrity Spirits in Oregon, and Philadelphia Distilling in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Follow in the footsteps of Oscar Wilde and Aleister Crowley and try some for yourself. Or perhaps, just an absinthe flavored lolly? (Contains 100 percent less liquor and 200 percent more stick.)

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