Fade into pink

Perhaps it was the influence of those freakish solar flares, or maybe, because Halloween was on a Friday this year, there were simply more parties. Whatever the reason, there were more costumed adults in downtown Sacramento this Halloween than ever before. Masquerading humans were spotted dining inside Pyramid Alehouse and Amarin Thai Cuisine, party hopping with 12-packs of beer under their capes, and gathered in a shivering mob around the machete-tossing spectacle of the Fiasco Sideshow outside the Crest Theatre.

Popular costumes included orange prison jumpsuits, the always-easy “zombie in jeans and a T-shirt” and the au courant Roy Horn with bloody stuffed tiger. A certain Riff Randal in silver go-go boots and a towering black-and-white beehive sparked serious costume envy. Burlesque dancer Cherry Malone, who performed at the Crest’s Trash Film Orgy later that night, wore a homemade two-sided costume that appeared to be a bride dancing with her devil groom. Even after she demonstrated how the costume’s halves were sewn together, the ensemble retained the eerie semblance of two otherworldly lovers. Costume kudos also go to a woman with a black-feather-and-doll-heads brassiere and to a movie-perfect Oompa-Loompa from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Unlike the suburbs, which suffer from a post-Halloween mess of smashed pumpkins, downtown was littered with spider rings, feathers and other dress-up detritus by night’s end. One unfortunate partier abandoned a pink wig in the middle of 25th Street, apparently forgetting that Pink Week starts on Sunday.

Yet another reason Sacramento is cooler than it gets credit for, our city is home to Pink Week’s founder, Gioia Fonda. I interviewed Fonda about her holiday two years ago (“Going pink on purpose”; SN&R Arts&culture; November 15, 2001), and it seems her tradition still thrives. This year’s Pink Week—held from November 9 through November 15—marks the holiday’s 10th anniversary.

Fonda, who has an astounding collection of pink things and wears pink every Wednesday year round, created Pink Week to free colors from co-optation by causes and themes (black means death, pink symbolizes breast-cancer awareness or being a girl, etc.). For one week, Fonda asks everyone to consider “pink for pink’s sake”—by eating something pink, wearing pink or noticing pink around you.

If you’d like to participate in Pink Week beyond wearing and noticing pink, pick up a Pink Week badge from the True Love Coffeehouse (2406 J Street), the Crest Theatre (1013 K Street) or the Tower Theatre (2508 Land Park Drive). You also can donate pink art to the Pink Week archives, order a Pink Week cookbook or apply to be a Pink Week ambassador.

Keep an eye out for Fonda, a blonde dressed in pink, as she spreads the gospel of pink in Sacramento. Weather permitting, Fonda will display her pink week on the street exhibition outside the art galleries on I and 20th streets this Second Saturday. Find out more at www.pinkweek.org.