Hello Ian!
A couple of weeks ago (yes, this post is late) Keren for the first time experienced a real party for All Hallows Eve. Invited by a British exchange student and, although in Sydney, found herself surrounded only by foreigners in much more elaborate dress (after all, she also has Purim to dress up on) and pumpkins cut like from a cartoon. Halloween’s simply not a big deal in Australia, and you don’t realise what you’re missing, or not.
I missed out here too. I didn’t end up getting to any real halloween parties. It was not hard, though, to watch packs of students in fantastic (scary, outlandish, or just fancy) dress pass through the streets of the McGill Ghetto on Saturday night. 
And I guess the seasonal desire to get pumpkins, carve them up, and serve as soup, pie and jack-o-lantern is sensible, considering that they only cost a dollar or three at the fruit market.
I did decide on Tuesday the 31st, though, that I would have to experience the North American student tradition of watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show to celebrate the evening. I didn’t really know much about the show; I had a few times danced the Time Warp (wrongly). I had missed out my opportunity to go with Allison the preceding Saturday night by about 10 minutes. No one else came forward, so I was going to go alone. Looking a little at a review (in the McGill Tribune) and the Montreal production’s web site, I was able to work out that this was not an ordinary performance, and its audience is expected to bring props (rice, toast, water pistols, newspaper, toilet paper, gloves, etc…). I had heard a few people that day mention that they were going to the 11pm showing, and I decided to go to that one rather than 8, partially so that I could get my weekly Ghetto Shul study in, partially being too late to get out earlier.
So I arrived there around 10:30 on Tuesday, my McGill Tribune in pocket as the necessary newspaper, and found a large crowd of very dressed up people huddled around Cinéma Impériale near Place D’Arts station. I recognised one soon (I couldn’t remember her name though) and she mentioned that tickets were out; she and her friends were traversing the line back and forth to find a spare to buy. I gave up too quick. I was soon calling Naomi and Allison to say I didn’t make it in… And how could I get to the Superheroes-themed party at Centre-Hillel (the French version of the place where I’m living)?
In futility, not managing even to get good directions to the Centre, I headed back to at least photograph the crowd outside the theatre. 
Many, largely university students, wore the standard Halloween spooks, and just as many or more were flamboyantly dressed in fish-net tights and shorts or tight skirts, many of them men. It still took me quite a while to realise that this was a major theme of the movie, to the extent that many people didn’t wear their thick coats despite the cold, in order to show off some skin.
I bumped into my classmate, Hannah, who was also taking a friend around looking for spare tickets, to no major success. I had long given up. She was about to give up after having already given a few shouts into the waiting crowd. I decided I could shout a little louder, so I did. 
After a couple (not really sincere), a group of girls did come forward and told me one of their friends just cancelled and I could get a ticket. I looked behind and I’d lost Hannah and her friend, so I couldn’t feel too guilty, and I payed up the standard fare and called Naomi and Allison to tell them I’d had another change of plans.
Then came the wait. Announced for 11pm, really expecting everyone inside for 12. So I was able to talk with the girls who had sold me the ticket, dress up a little (I brought all I had to dress up in: my usual bowtie, a bandana, and my hair excessively spiked), and wait in the cold, watching half-naked fire-twirlers twirling on by.
We got inside around midnight. Having been near the back of the queue outside, there weren’t too many seats left (although I didn’t check the gallery) and sat somewhere in the middle where a single seat had been left vacant. And then we waited some more. 
Some clever people decide that making some noise about it might make the movie begin sooner: “Start the show! Start the show!” called from the back; “When I say rocky, you say horror! Rocky! Rocky!” from a few girls towards the front; three girls stand up and start leading the cheers; someone throws a roll of toilet paper from the gallery above.
Finally, suddenly, the hostess is introduced and makes her way onto stage, wearing little but a cloth, a hat, gloves and boots—all black. She announces pre-show entertainment—the costume contest—and calls a number of finalists to stage (some solo, some couples or triples; some more or less outrageous or inventive). 
The hostess then requested each finalist (judged while waiting outside) to come out to the front of the stage to give a little performance. As these small performances continued, a few themes kept recurring: sex gets cheers; nudity gets more; involving the hostess is always a nice touch. And so third place went to a great take on Beetlejuice (costume, antics, talk and all); second was taken by a couple of girls, one called Medusa, who used a small snake as a whip on the other, and requested the hostess’s assistance; first was won by “chocolate shower”, a black man wearing a shower recess, who was quickly convinced that he wasn’t meant to wear jeans while showering… or underwear. This assured him the crowd’s support. I don’t think I was expecting quite that much nudity, but I guess something like it should be expected considering the cult following of the show by North American late-teens.
So the show was nearly ready to begin. First they had to introduce the cast that would be acting out the play on stage while the movie played on the big screen behind. And they had to initiate those of us who were “Rocky Horror virgins” (which was not as embarrassing as at some, and only involved us standing up and the crowd shouting an obscene welcome).
So the show was ready to begin. The classic blooded lips filled the screen and sang through the credits. Oh, and the audience also shouted through the credits, or at least “asshole” and “slut” when appropriate. The movie is a fun one, although a little unexpected if … well … you’re not expecting it. I was a little bit confused as it was playing though, because there was a voice-over that for a while I wasn’t sure was part of the movie. It wasn’t. It was someone at the front speaking well-known (and some new, like making fun of Ontario) lines into the microphone. A nearly-fixed script (once all ad-lib) of catching the pauses between characters’ lines so that the next character’s comments are twice as amusing. Or pointing out that the narrator has no neck. And of course the movie starts with a wedding in which everyone throws rice; and there was the point when it rains in the movie and I needed to take out my newspaper and cover my head (like Janet does) to not get wet from people squirting water around me
; and when toilet paper suddenly appears from all over the place and flies over the seats while Rocky is being unwrapped (and a little more when Brad shouts “Great Scott!”)
; and everybody got up to do the time warp and I realised the mistakes of all those bar mitzvas. The plot of the movie is a little bit strange (and probably a good reason it was a box office flop), but still lots of fun.
It was an entertaining night. I felt like I’d had a real North American experience with real North American humour: a whole lot of vulgarity just for fun.