gift ideassss (+ links + more)

It's fa-la-la-la Friday.

I admit I have a negative reaction to anything hailing a HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE, because a) who are these people who can afford $200 candles; b) candles are a waste of space; and c) can we please scale back the pressure to spend and just give each other homemade breads and sonnets?

BUT after you finish baking this banana bread (which I passed off as my own in my child’s preschool cookbook) and writing a sonnet, feel free to take any of these ideas … or shove ‘em.

1. An Igloo cooler with built-in speakers — I have filled hundreds of journals in my lifetime musing about the person I want to be. I believe the answer lies in the Igloo KoolTunes cooler, an item I dream of owning one day because it is then, and only then, that I’ll be able to fulfill my destiny of holding dance parties in the park and bringing strangers together by blaring Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” on the subway platform. To quote J. Lo for the first and last time, this is me now — or at least it will be once I acquire this spectacular cooler.

2. A mug that says “Thank you for nothing!” — CVS has wronged me more times than the worst boyfriend I’ve ever had, but don’t you know I keep going back again and again. Years ago, I was in a Brooklyn Heights CVS with a raging migraine when I was told my prescription wasn’t there as promised. “THANKS FOR NOTHING!” I said, mid-headthrob. And while I have never been so unkind to a pharmacist before or since, I have zero regrets.

3. Stop Making Sense lamp T-shirt — “Honey, back in my time, we didn’t need CGI or AI or whatall — just give us a big blazer and a thrift-store lamp and we’d put on the best goddamn show you’ve ever seen! Also, we had way better dance moves than you, now go fetch me the paper.”

4. Make-Your-Own-Theremin Kit — I used to have this book called “How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen” until I put it out on the street, because I have no time to read 400 pages about such things, I am a working mother with unfulfilled dreams. But you know what I DO have time for? Making a theremin. And when I play it at 6:30 a.m., you know who I bet will wake up and listen? My kid! So problem solved.

5. A pistachio with eyes — Too many of life’s surprises after 40 are crappy, like surprise back pain and surprise unemployment and surprise invisibility to anyone under 40. This is why I love blind boxes from places like Kidrobot and Toy Tokyo — you never know what you’ll get, but it’ll be life-affirming and won’t require a medicated balm.

6. Pencils made in an old Tennessee factory — If you’ve never stood in a long checkout line at Sephora, you will probably live ten years longer than the rest of us. The last time I was there I fell victim to buying “stocking stuffers” near the register that seemed nice … until I discovered they were like $60 each. All this to say that simple, useful items are the way to go, like pencils from the Musgrave Pencil Company, which has been cranking ‘em out for 100 years. They’re pretty, they’re handy and they cost a fraction of a retinol cream.

7. A red-footed booby — When I went to the Outer Banks earlier this year, I had to buy a souvenir cup from Biscuits N’ Porn, a convenience store that sells both (but is heavier on the biscuits, which are delicious). This holiday season, why not “adopt” an animal from the World Wildlife Fund, where your cash will help nature AND score you the cute plush animal of your choice. And if it’s the red-footed or blue-footed booby, everyone can laugh together, because what’s funnier at a holiday gathering than family members saying “booby”?

8. The best pastrami sandwich in the world — Katz’s Holiday Box is the priciest thing on this list, but I swear it’ll transform your acquaintances into lovers and make you the most popular relative at the next funeral. Katz’s sells a spectrum of delicacies, but this particular box includes fixins for a pastrami/corned beef on rye and a few bones for the vegetarians in the room, like cookies and pickles and sauerkraut.

9. Eternal youth —This holiday season I’d love to look like Margaret Qualley, but since it’s more likely that red-footed boobies will fly outta my nose, perhaps I will settle for a piece of SUBSTANCE swag and a large shrimp cocktail.

10. Alice’s porcelain tray - Once I met a girl who received a different edition of Alice in Wonderland each year from her godfather. When I said that sounded amazing, she said, “No, it’s terrible. I don’t even like that book. Why do I need dozens of copies of it?”

So maybe that woman wouldn’t love this particular tray, but I bet she might like something else from Belle Epoque Studio, like a Dolly Parton plate or the “Dearly Beloved Prince Mug.” These are all made by my talented friend Camille in Asheville, NC, who lost a lot of work (and income) this year when her studio was destroyed by Hurricane Helene.

11. Food and transportation — Some of my friends live in homes crammed with stuff while others have spare, zen-like spaces. Neither of these types want or need physical items, so maybe a gift card to a local restaurant/coffee shop, Seamless, Grubhub, Lyft or the like will suffice, since we all gotta eat and get around.

links, etc.

• Willem Dafoe speaks the truth in this conversation with Matt Zoller Seitz:

Let’s face it, a certain kind of corruption comes in because people go home and they shop around on these streaming platforms. There’s some good things about the platforms. They create a lot of movies. They create a lot of jobs. But there’s so many distractions that you can’t enter the stuff. People watch five minutes of something and they say, “I’m not really into it” and they go to another thing. “I’m not really into it.” Then another thing. “I’m not really into it.” Then they go to bed.

If you don’t put in the effort, you’re not going to receive much. And the discourse gets lowered, and everything gets a little more dumbed down and then that’s when the ruffians come in, and they’re the ones with energy and stupidity and then they can crush all the thoughtful people. That’s not good for culture, and that’s not good for humanity. We see the results of that all the time.

• The must-have item this season is a portrait of Arthur Rimbaud drawn by Paul Verlaine.

• If you like American music, then watch the Violent Femmes’ 40th anniversary concert with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra on PBS tonight:

• Ultra-handsome comedian Fortune Feimster has a new Netflix special that made me laugh. Her current tour is called Takin’ Care of Biscuits. Best tour name ever!

• The classic film podcast You Must Remember This is back with “The Old Man Is Still Alive,” a season that explores “the late careers of Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Vincente Minnelli and ten other directors who began their careers in the silent or early sound eras, and were still making movies in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.”

• Poet Nikki Giovanni died this week. She appeared on one of my favorite podcasts, Talk Easy, in 2021. Here is a poem she wrote about the town where she was born (and one of my favorite places in the world), “Knoxville, Tennessee.”

• May we all take André 3000’s words to heart:

  Discovery is as important as recording and mastering something. You’ll never get that time again. You can’t fake doing something for the first time. I think mastering something as an artist is an awesome thing, but, I guess, it depends on what you’re trying to do and what you’re trying to say. Picasso’s a master, but his most famous quote is [something like] “We’re all just trying to figure out how to get back to being a kid.” The openness of it. I think if you can find that early on, keep finding that. Because sometimes, mastering shit can get boring. I’d rather go amateur interesting than master boring.

And don’t forget …

• We are starting a book club! Step 1: Acquire THE NAME OF THIS BAND IS R.E.M. by Peter Ames Carlin. Step 2: Read it by Jan. 15. Step 3: Join us for a group conversation (via Zoom) in January, date TBA.

• Buy my 2024 diary comics! Here’s how.

your secretive elf,
hermey
hoot | holler | eat garbage

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