Karl the Fog
Nothing’s more scary than a sunny day in SF being dampened by @KarltheFog. You can embody our city’s notorious fog by wearing all grey, accessorized with grey colored spider webs masking SF landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge, TransAmerica pyramid. Continue reading Last Minute Costume Ideas
Tag Archives: Halloween
All Dressed Up and Only One Place to Go: Why Halloween in San Francisco Reigns Supreme
Laura Reilly
Contributing Writer
From the city that brings you Bay to Breakers, piles it on for Pride, and empties out for Burning Man, you can expect only the most lavish turnout for the year’s largest excuse for dressing up: Halloween. We talked to three San Francisco costume establishments about dragons, dirty presidents and what makes Halloween here like nothing else. Continue reading All Dressed Up and Only One Place to Go: Why Halloween in San Francisco Reigns Supreme
CAB Ends October with a Fright!
Last Wednesday on Oct. 30, USF’s Campus Activities Board (CAB) held their annual Fright Night, which included the best campus haunted house I’ve seen. Fright Night has become an annual USF tradition that takes place a day or two before Halloween.
With a line winding around McLaren lobby, the event gained much attention from the USF community. It was initially slow to pick up, but as soon as the first batches of students went in and loved the experience, more and more started to rush into the building.
The haunted house was done professionally and student actors prepared for over two weeks to make sure their parts were as scary and convincing as possible. Strobe lights were placed to disorient students, actors in clown masks frequently jumped out at groups, and the screams of innocent victims were heard all throughout McLaren for hours. Within the tunnels were endless streamers, strings falling around you, bewildering you along the journey. Not only were the participants constantly in character, but the general design of the haunted house itself was executed excellently.
Student clown actor Sean Gresems said, “It was the best thing I’ve ever done!” He navigated his way throughout the dark ominous tunnels popping out as individuals walked by. With the orange frazzled hair, wide grin and pale white face, it was almost hard not to want to run in the opposite direction. Attendants agreed that it was a fun and frightening way to begin Halloween weekend. Many students also attended the event in costume, contributing to the spooky theme. Overall, CAB put on a widely successful and well-attended event that is bound to be even more terrifying next year.
Halloween Spurs the Least Original Criminals
Two “Scream” Mask Robberies Near Campus
The Department of Public Safety (DPS) alerted students, faculty, and staff about two strong arm robberies that occurred within 24 hours of each other near campus, through an email sent out on Saturday afternoon.
“The suspect was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans, and a mask from the movie Scream,” the email said.
The suspect’s disguise appears to be life imitating art as the mask was made popular by the horror movie franchise “Scream.”
“All of a sudden I hear a loud scream and a skinny guy in a “Scream” mask is running towards me”—Read the survivor’s anonymous account at the bottom.
One of the robberies occurred on Parker Street, between Turk and Anza between 7-7:30am. According to Dan Lawson, Director of DPS, more officers have been brought in to patrol around campus during the time the robberies occurred.
The Richmond District Police station said they were looking for two suspects, but they couldn’t give out further information because the search is an ongoing investigation.
An officer at the station did offer a piece of advice: “Report a crime straight away. Don’t wait a couple of days.”
“When I leave campus now, I’m running to my car and locking myself in,” said freshmen Aaron Louie.
Staying Safe this Halloween
Any safety tips for Halloween? “Travel in groups, if possible,” Lawson suggested. “I wouldn’t say to avoid the Scream mask as a costume, but maybe if you’re a male, with a slim build, wearing jeans and a dark hoodie… be alert that this isn’t the best costume for you.”
Lawson also discouraged fighting back against an attacked. “It’s always recommended to just give up the item that [the assailant] is after.” Lawson recalled a recent incident in the Western Addition neighborhood near campus, when a male student resisted a robbery and consequently sustained injuries from the attacker that required hospital care.
Lawson said that the Clery Report doesn’t require DPS to report off campus robberies but they felt that it was necessary to alert students, faculty, and staff, when they recognize a pattern or if the crime occurs in close proximity to campus.
There were 9 robberies reported on public property near USF main campus in 2012 according to Public Safety’s latest Clery Report.
Crime Prevention Workshops Reserved For Women
The USF community can look for tips on general safety on Public Safety’s website.
You can also join DPS officers as they instruct courses on Self-Defense at the Koret Center. However, the website for USF Self Defense classes makes it clear they are for “Women ONLY.”
The most important tips are to always be aware and alert and to keep valuables like smart phones and laptops concealed.
A Halloween Trend for Criminals
Is the “Scream” mask a popular disguise for robbers around Halloween? Numerous cases reported around the country this year point to a pattern.
In Seattle, a man in a “Scream” mask, who implied he had a weapon, attempted to rob a Wells Fargo just a few days ago.
On Oct 23, an armed man wearing the same mask robbed a Subway restaurant in Atlanta.
A man wearing the “Scream” mask was reported robbing a barbershop in Portland with a handgun last week.
“Most of us can navigate through an urban area and never be a victim of crime,” said Lawson, “but sometimes it’s inevitable and you can’t avoid it.”
SCREAM Victim Speaks
Editor’s Note: One of the victims of the robberies agreed to speak to the Foghorn about her experience, under the condition that her identity is kept anonymous.
Foghorn: What Happened?
Victim: I was walking down Parker Street around 7 o’clock in the morning and it was incredibly foggy. I could barely see 5 feet in front of me. I watched a girl walking in front of me disappear into the fog and all of a sudden I hear a loud scream and a skinny guy in a “Scream” mask is running towards me with a stolen backpack and the screaming girl is chasing him. I think he was hiding in that little Lone Mountain alleyway before he robbed her.
F: When did the attacker divert his attention to you?
V: He tried to grab my phone, but then realized that the girl, whose backpack he stole, was still chasing him, so he pushed me aside and ran off.
F: What did you do?
V: I ran to campus as fast as I could. I called Public Safety and they told me to call the police. I filed a report with the police, and then Public Safety called me back to file a report with them. Then, I went home and tried to take a nap but I couldn’t fall asleep.
F: Have you made any changes to your daily routine?
V: I’ve been getting friends to drive me home. If that’s not possible I get friends to take the bus with me and walk me home. I might invest in a taser. I think [the assailant] used the mask purposefully to scare people, and it worked.
Staff Editorial: How Do We Know Our Halloween Costume Has Gone Too Far?
One word: Blackface.
Let there be no doubt that we at the Foghorn believe in the spirit of Halloween. Yet recently, the media has covered many, including celebrities’, Halloween costumes that have pushed many tacit societal boundaries and we feel the need to put our foot down.
In the 1830s, blackface minstrelsy was a form of popular entertainment in the United States. It was suggested that performers donning blackface — literally painting their faces charcoal black — was a way to allow audiences work out cultural anxieties and race prejudices. These performers would then begin to entertain their fans in “black bodies” while being crude, acting promiscuous and using extremely racist slurs. There is also the fact that blackface tends to perpetuate physical stereotypes portrayed by 1800s cartoons made to isolate black Americans as the “other,” as well as ridicule them.
Once you try make their color a focal point of the costume, you take away from the person you are trying to embody.
In light of the Trayvon Martin tragedy, many college students this past weekend have circulated pictures of them on social media donning Trayvon Martin “costumes”, sometimes coupled with a friend dressed as George Zimmerman. Those acting as Trayvon Martin painted their face black, wore a large grey sweatshirt and held bags of Skittles and Arizona cans; while having their friends pointed plastic guns at their head wearing neighborhood watch shirts.
Beyond this being just, as many call it, “college students having fun”, actress Julianne Hough dressed as “Orange Is The New Black” character, “Crazy Eyes”, also painting her face black. She has since then apologized on Twitter due to public backlash at pictures of her that surfaced the internet, citing that “it certainly was never [her] intention to be disrespectful or demeaning to anyone in any way” and that she “realized [her] costume hurt and offended people…”
We would love to say that the aforementioned incidents of blackface that caused so much controversy this past weekend are isolated incidents made by a handful of people who obviously do not understand the racial implications of what they did, but college students every year are making this woefully ignorant mistake. And it seems that many do not understand that this just adds insult to injury in today’s society — a society that some people would like to label as a “post-racial America.” Yet it is obvious that race is still in the forefront of our country’s issues. The question is, is this because many are not versed in the history of blackface or is it because people really do not care about how racially insensitive they are?
The fact is you can tribute a favorite character or icon without having to bring their race into the matter. Once you try make their color a focal point of the costume, you take away from the person you are trying to embody. There is no need for “whiteface,” “redface,” “yellowface,” or “blackface” to make it clear that you are dressed as Michael Jackson or Nicki Minaj. And beyond that, we should not have to spell out the fact that dressing up as a seventeen year-old boy who lost his life to racial profiling and ignorance is sick and abhorrent.
