This costume was a job for two. It was just at the time of the Woody Allen – Soon Yi brou-haha, and so Mitchell and I went to a Halloween party dressed as Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. There are a couple of funny things to note here (we got SO into our costumes, they are highly detailed).
— I dressed as frumpy and as “passive-aggressively” as possible. I had baby toys in all my pockets, and I carried a rag doll.
— Now onto Mitchell: First of all: notice his frozen horrified face. I think that may be favorite part.
But also note:
— Mitchell is carrying Crime and Punishment. Woody is a Dostoevsky freak, but also – at that time in his life – the title of the book seemed quite a propos.
— But the creme de la creme is the bookmark. Mitchell found a semi-erotic photograph of Geisha girls, and placed it in Crime and Punishment as a bookmark. I couldn’t even look at that darn book, with the Geisha girls peeking out from the pages, without guffawing with laughter.
Sadly, mortifyingly: the party we had been invited to turned out NOT to be a costume party. Only this hadn’t been made clear to us. I mean, Jeez, the party was a “Halloween party”. Now … wouldn’t you assume that this meant “wear costumes” as opposed to “wear evening gowns”? We showed up, looking like that, and were confronted by a crowd of guys wearing suits, and women wearing small black sheaths and open-toed shoes.
To add another level of mortification to it: Even though Mitchell and I look TERRIBLE, it is not immediately apparent that these are, in fact, costumes. I mean, it’s not like we showed up as giant Pepsi cans or something. These actually could be our real clothes. If we were clueless slobs, that is. So … the first 10 minutes of the party … he and I were surrounded by the glammed-out crowd … saying to everyone we came across, “No … we don’t really dress like this … this is a costume … we’re Woody Allen and Mia Farrow …”
