Zombie writer

OK, I figured it out. this Halloween, I'm going as a Zombie writer, in honor of the local Zombie parade (A bunch of people roam the tonier NYC streets dressed as zombie doctors, zombie shop owners, zombie soccer players.)

I figure I can glue pages and pencils to me, but the makeup sort of has me stumped since it has been a while since I have seen a zombie up close. (Speaking of Zombies, there was a great book, written by Wade Davis, a Harvard anthropologist, called The Serpent and the Rainbow. This book was made into a terrible movie, by the way. In the book, Davis investigates the phenomenon of zombies and zombie belief. Apparently, in some cultures, there is a drug from plants which can put people into a living sort of coma. Paralyzed, they seem dead, even though they are not. They are buried in shallow graves with breathing holes, and unburied a day or so later. By then, they are so terrified and crazed, they half believe they are zombies anyway, and are used as slaves by whomever zombified them. Or they simply wander, confused. Most acts of zombification are to grab someone's property.

So anyone got any ideas about the best way to do zombie makeup? (And no fair saying I look like a zombie already-!) Any better ideas to make this costume mine all mine?

(And speaking of zombification, I do wish everyone who insists that Obama is going to raise taxes and that he is a terrorist would please wake up, because this set of erroneous beliefs is getting scarier than The Exorcist. This time, fear is the drug at work and I think the antidote is an easy one. Fact after fact after fact.)