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The Fifth DimensionStreetwalkers, nurses, Napoleon Dynamites, ghosts-all can be compared along four analytic dimensions: 'Cleverness', 'Cost', 'Cleavage', and 'Gore.' Cleverness' distinguishes the ingenious from the common. 'Cleavage' is a function of flesh left bare. 'Cost' acknowledges both value and price, while 'Gore' is the simple gross-out factor. Imagine: a man donning a bandanna, but otherwise dressed without flourish. "What's your costume?" you query. He lifts his shoe, revealing a typed note card taped to the bottom of his foot; it reads: "David Foster Wallace." Then: your new pal D.F.W. 2 asks whether you'd care to see the rest of his costume. "Sure," you reply. He proceeds to unzip his Dockers. You don't want to look, but the draw of the cursive writing in bold Sharpie marker above his well-groomed schlong hair is irresistible. You lean closer and spy six words: "Welcome to the Creative Writing Department."For Cleverness it scores a '9'. Its low price earns a Cost score of '1'. Crotch exposure wins it a '9' on Cleavage, while lack of blood means 'zilch' for Gore. '10' isn't a better than '0' along these four dimensions, which are objective and value-free. Not so with the X-factor, the fifth dimension, where a higher numerics denote superior rank. A costume is more than its sum of tits, axe wounds, and witty ostentation; the X-factor captures the nebulous condition of circumstance. In a room of showy braniacs, a boring'ole Frankenstein might be perfectly right-but shuffle Frank to the dance party and his duds turn pathetic.Some costumes follow trends while others play on age-old theme-in what follows, I'll discuss but a subset, with the hope of tuning your senses to the X-factor._Plays on Words and Other Turds_Like all lame puns, the classic 'Dust Bunny' recipe (wearing a dirty white rabbit costume and carrying a feather duster) is so 20th century. The X-factor is plastic: what was a sharp a decade ago can be dulled by time. The future of word-play costumes is in logical paradoxes. Take: "can Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that He Himself cannot eat it?" How could one costume this simultaneously Popological ([*1][1]), theological, and philosophical conundrum? It's a tough row to sow, but that's the challenge to the Halloween avant garde._The Recently Deceased, and Those We Wish Would Join Them_2005 brought some great deaths, and nothing's fodder for the X-factor like freshly rotting meat. Pope John Paul II croaked, as did [Sister Maria Lðcia Rosa dos Santos][2], the Fátima visionary. Famed Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal bit it too, as did James Doohan, who played Scotty on Star Trek.A stern-looking father dressed as dapper Wiesenthal, shaking his fists at his S.S.-uniformed brood of children, would be high on 'Clever' and 'Cost', with an X-Factor through the roof. So would a zombie-Doohan, who might be well-paired with a rotting Gene Roddenberry or mutilated Bill Shatner ([2][3]).If two guys show up at a party in Hunter Thompson-by-way-of-Johnny Depp costumes, an impromptu gun-duel should probably be convened. On Halloween, like all days, bloodshed's a trusty remedy. As the popularity of a costume at a particular location increases, individual X-factors tend to be inversely effected--but it's a fickle metric, and there are exceptions. With two Hunter S'ies at a gathering of 20, the value of each plastic cigarette holder is puny, but should by chance more gonzo journalists stroll the door, their collective worth increases exponentially._Rise of the Risque_Nothing says festive like questionable morals, and little signals promiscuity as blatantly as French Maid outfits, riding crops, and vinyl police uniforms. There's a reason why 'Playboy Bunny' is a more popular costume than its pedestrian sister 'Madge the diner waitress'-women have been leading the charge toward an all-out Fall Bacchanalia for years now. Halloween hemlines rose steadily throughout the 1990s, then disappeared entirely in 2000. With the rise of the New Male Vanity, 2005 could be a banner year for graceless (but confident) men sporting lunar-lander jock-straps, tea-bagging their friends while dressed as Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers films. They'll cheer, "the ego has landed," while glancing testes against latex bald caps, and rooms will fill with laughter. Keep the median age of fellow party-goers in mind if you're considering the 'Telly Savalas' variation-otherwise, young onlookers might just think you're creepy.Other costumes featuring bared pectoral muscles and/or Spandex-cradled buttocks will be in this year: Commando-era Schwarzenegger, The Hulk (_Incredible_), Tarzan, and of course David Hasselhoff.Too-often the risque is attempted without consideration of the X-factor; Halloween brings a surfeit of cheek, but too little cheeky. Cleavage delights the eye, so few are likely to complain, but would-be dirty nurses should consider upping the 'Clever' if they wish to truly impress. Couples Do It Together, But Why Should We Want to Watch?Couple's costumes are notoriously lame-'Bonnie Parker + Clyde Barrow', one of the few good ones surviving into the 90s, was ruined when Shannon Doherty and Luke Perry donned the it in an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. Last year brought us the plug + socket couple's costume, in which the male dresses as the 'plug' end of an extension cord while his lady, wink wink, outfits herself as a 'socket'. This year promises a few variations: key + lock, nut + bolt, etc., but the plug + socket has one last year before it self-destructs under the weight of market saturation.There's a chance we'll see interesting 'alternative' versions of the plug + socket theme: lady couples with papier-mâche sockets for hands, male spouses with plugs in front and sockets 'round back-perhaps even some wild AC+DC/plug+socket/multi-volt/multi-watt contraption that requires a special order from Radio Shack, the implications of which would make us stop and wonder, mouths agape in awe at the first with an X-factor that takes it up to eleven._Type: On Playing To and Dressing Against_The Great Dichotomy of Costumes is this: you've got a body, and you can either roll with it or kick and scream against it. If you're tall, fair-skinned, and walk with an easy grace, you can easily assent to genetics and dress as Legolas or Galadriel from the Lord of the Rings. Some would position 'Gary Coleman' as a higher artistic challenge, but those fools are reverse-reverse-Bodyists, and their ontological justification is suspect-they just want less competition.A Chinese girl in a wheelchair dressed as Shaquille O'Neal is a Zen koan on wheels, but if you're a dead ringer for Chomsky, and your costume is 'Noam Chomsky', your X-factor will be so high that any supposed lack of Cost, Cleavage, or Gore disappear behind its dazzle. Adding a splatter of blood and a thrilling back story to would raise the pretend Chomsky's 'Gore' and 'Cleverness' values ([3][4]), but its inclusion would be superfluous given the general fucking amazingness of the existing costume. ConclusionThe four analytic dimensions of Halloween garb are easily grasped, but the equation for an outstanding costume is deceptively simple:

Eq. (1):		Cleverness + Cost + Cleavage + Gore		== Awesome
		X-Factor

Halloween is meant to be fun-and evil-but a little extra effort on the algebra is time well spent. Solving for X can be difficult, but don't let the math get you down. 1. See Patrick Quinn's "[100 People With Guns At Their Heads: Intro to Popology][5]'. 2. Captain Kirk is still alive, more or less, but after [his recent cover][6] of the [Pulp][7] anthem 'Common People,' I'm not sure he deserves his life-breath. 3. Such a narrative might go like: "Sorry about the blood... Got in a tussle with a gang of radical anarchists who disagreed with my counter-attack on the deconstructionist critique of Science... taught those fuckers a lesson..." ([4][8]) 4. A word of caution: to those not familiar with the multi-disciplinarian academic's appearance, you might just appear to be some bleeding nerd.
-Article by Jonathan Holley [1]: #quinn [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Lucia [3]: #kirk [4]: #chomsky [5]: http://www.lawrence.com/blogs/patrickquinn/2004/apr/18/100_people/ [6]: http://www.shoutfactory.com/av/common_people.mov [7]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulp_%28band%29 [8]: #caution [9]: http://www.johnnyamerica.net