Withering Glance: Dressing up and wigging out on Halloween

Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, etiquette, culture, relationships, grooming and more.

CP: I feel you were robbed last year at Halloween when you went as your own 1978 high school yearbook photo — and won nothing. The feathered hair alone deserved a blue ribbon. Still, I hope the crushing blow doesn't make you want to just stay home this year.

RN: If only I still fit into that corduroy three-piece suit. That's what's really depressing. I was wondering if you've decided to go less conceptual for All Hallow's Eve 2013, since last year's turn as a yeast infection sort of fell flat.

CP: Thanks for the reminder. That was about as much of a head-scratcher as when I was "butterscotch" the year before. I give up. You have it easy — you can just throw on dogtags and an Army jacket and go as that one guy on M*A*S*H again.

RN: You're close. It's Dr. Mark Green of "ER," Anthony Edwards. With that wig collection of yours — your basement looks like Cher's dressing room — I would think that you'd have plenty of options.

CP: Owning a variety of brazen wigs is a comfort.

RN: This from a man over, ahem, 40, and possessing a full and rather brilliant head of hair. Whatever.

RN: Speaking of scary, I might dress up as the terrifying new carpet in the IDS Center's skyways. Or perhaps wear a Philip Johnson rubber mask, one with his face contorted into the abject horror the late architect would undoubtedly exhibit when gazing upon a red-and black Navajo-meets-Ralph Lauren-style floor covering in his Modernist masterpiece.

CP: Some might feel the frightening thing is just how deeply you care. Agreed, though, on the dreadful new carpet from Remainder City.

RN: I'm thinking you ought to don a costume that will get you arrested. Wait, you've already done that.

CP: Yes, but it was eons ago that I spent All Hallow's Eve as the only white person in a Hennepin County holding cell. I'm also quite certain that I was the only one dressed as operatic avant-gardiste Diamanda Galás.

RN: I'm also quite certain you were the only one in lockup that night — or possibly ever — who knew who Diamanda Galás is. I've got it: I'm going to go as the new Orchestra Hall lobby. How are you with a glue gun?