My awesome gift guide
IN THE SPECTACLE'S BASIC PRACTICE OF INCORPORATING INTO ITSELF ALL THE FLUID ASPECTS OF HUMAN ACTIVITY SO AS TO POSSESS THEM IN A CONGEALED FORM... WE RECOGNIZE OUR OLD ENEMY THE COMMODITY.
want to get an internet princess subscription as a gift for yourself or a loved one? year-long subscriptions are 20% off this week!!! you know the drill: everything I do, here and everywhere, is made possible by the support of my paying subscribers — and you also get a lot of great stuff too. like the full version of this gift guide. xx
that’s a Debord quote. WELCOME THE GIFT GUIDE THAT HAS BEEN CALLED:
“Good stuff on the internet” by the New Yorker
“Straight-up weird” by the New York Times (?)
“The greatest boyfriend resource of all time” by multiple sources
The reason why I love gift guides is because I love relationships. (Sometimes I think “relationships” might be the most succinct and accurate answer for what my entire writing project is about, followed closely by “the economy.”) For my birthday this year, my best friend got me a pair of earrings made of Quahog clam shells; we had recently gone clamming together at her home in Rhode Island, which was the first time in my life I had ever succeeded at anything even resembling a “survival skill” or really materially provided for myself via a hard day’s work at all, and she thought the earrings could serve as a device for me to wedge the anecdote into conversation so I could brag about it to as many people as possible. It was a perfect gift. The earrings were very beautiful, but the real gift was this person I love saying, look, I know this weird little thing about who you are, and I have chosen to celebrate it. It’s amazing, that stuff.
The funny thing about writing a gift guide is that I can’t really recommend anything like that. I can recommend a series of items that could make you look tasteful to your mom or your girlfriend or your Secret Santa — and I will! — but I can’t actually give you access to any part of the secret, private thing that makes a gift really great. You have to do that part yourself, and will succeed and fail on your own merits.
So a gift guide must be something else than a ticket to giving the best gift ever. What is it, then??? To me, it feels mostly like a hypermodern blogging form — a way of talking about love and relationships and desire through the prism of commodities. For that blogging form to succeed (or to transcend the total cynicism and vulgarity at its root in any way), I think the items in a good gift guide should generally either be 1. an actually good gift idea or 2. interesting. I want a gift guide to tell me a compelling story about someone’s idiosyncratic tastes, habits, and relationships, and I want it to give me a good idea of what to get for my boyfriend. Many of the items on some of the gift guides I’ve been seeing accomplish none of these goals. I feel in my gut that I should not be seeing NORMAL PANTS on a gift guide.1 You’re going to get someone PANTS? The extremely finicky item of clothing that most people feel weird about even when they buy them for themselves? SUNGLASSES? It took me six years to find a pair of sunglasses that look good on my face. I would never want another person to surprise me with a pair of sunglasses in a million years.
But that’s just me. Anyway. I really do hope you find something in here that helps you get someone a great gift, or just nudges you in a useful direction. Or sometimes you just want a nice pair of tights. (I also write these gift guides because I love STUFF! I can’t help it!) I try to include a lot of items on each guide that are free or very cheap, but there’s only so many times you can say “burn someone a CD,” so feel free to check out past gift guides for more ideas.
and guess what!!!! an indie perfumer that I really love offered to do a giveaway for my paid subscribers, so that is in here as well, in the perfume section. <3
Here are four categories of thing that I will never tire of receiving as a gift:
Simple, heavy silver jewelry, particularly rings.
CDs, particularly mixtapes.
Well-made, functional home decor, particularly vintage, particularly dark wood and ceramics. I’d love some small lamps (I really need soft lighting right now).
Well-made, beautiful socks.
These are all good gifts for me because my primary aesthetic value is eclectic accumulation — i am not super picky about the specifics of the individual items I own, because my ideal aesthetic world is formed by having a hodgepodge of idiosyncratic items collected over time through people with varied types of good taste. 95% of the items in my home are inherited, gifted, stolen, borrowed, left at my house by accident by someone who crashed on my couch, or picked up off the street. I always think my friends’ clothes look better on me than anything I could pick myself. If your loved one shares this trait, I think it’s way better to take a risk and get them something that catches your eye/reminds you of them than to get them something you know for sure is specifically on their wish list. Be smart about it though. (And remember that some people really, really do not share this trait.)
There’s a certain type of person who might really appreciate receiving a better version of a beloved book they already own (like a special edition, or just one with a better cover). I hate the covers on my copies of A Good Man is Hard to Find and Society of the Spectacle. This can be a very cheap gift or a very expensive one.
Here’s a Flannery O’Connor first edition for $1500, lol. Here’s a cover I like better than the ugly one I already own for $16.
Here’s a Society of the Spectacle first edition in French for $1500. Here’s an American first edition for $150 (this is my fav cover… would be a VERY good gift for a girl like me!!!). Here’s a normal paperback for $13.
I’m interested in these acupressure socks, sent to me by my friend Anne who has “magic hands.”
I have no idea what anyone could possibly use this for but I’ve developed a real fondness for a woman called “sea glass sister” who’s just insanely good at collecting sea glass. This is her instagram bio: “I don’t believe that Sea Glass comes into our lives by chance. It comes to us when we need it most.” On her Etsy shop you can buy 150+ pieces of sea glass for $60.
In a past year’s gift guide I recommended one of your teeth, and I’m re-upping that recommendation here because one of my wisdom teeth just erupted. One of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten was my friend Kyle’s tooth; I made it into this ring with loose wire that scratched up my finger and tore up my clothes every time I wore it. I still have it on my to-do list to take it to a jeweler and get it professionally set. (any jeweler recommendations for the job?)
I’ve been feeling very homesick lately, which is unusual for me. I’ve been surprised by the specificity and randomness of the things I miss most, and how vast and complicated feelings of nostalgia and grief and sadness now feel so wound up in random stuff I didn’t really think I cared about that much. I’ve been really craving clafoutis from the bakery by my cousin’s house in Montreal, and poutine, and jerk chicken from the shop by my high school, and maple snow candy, and the popcorn mall-brand Kernels in dill pickle cheddar flavor (objectively the grossest flavour imaginable?), and Smarties (the Canadian kind, which are really different from the American kind). All this made me think that if you love someone who can’t go home for some reason it could be cute to get them some kind of imported snack, or make them a special regional dish. it’s just inconvenient enough that they probably wouldn’t think or care to do it themselves!!
A nice backgammon set is a great gift. Vintage is again your best bet here. Search for nice materials: wood, suede, leather. If you’re in NYC i also like this famous chess store in Greenwich Village. I got my boyfriend a little magnetic set here last year so we could play in the park.
On my personal wish list: This ring from semi-precious days. The Cleo top. The Amie Rafa flats I wore through this year. Oddli boxers (I wore mine every day and then lost them on the set of a short film; still praying my favourite print will come back in stock one day). A print subscription to n+1, or Baffler, or Bookforum, or the new and exciting mag Equator. A long handwritten letter (my favourite gift of all time). These Miista shoes. An apartment deep-clean. Any of these pairs of socks. A meaningful CD. For someone to make me a clafoutis (!!!). For someone to take my vintage watch to get re-sized.
I want a perfect pinky signet ring. Solid silver. Hefty but not comically so — I would use the word weighty, not chunky. I don’t want it to look like it’s for teenagers; I want it to look like a ring you’d inherit from your grandfather. My pinky ring size is 3.5, if you’re buying. (As usual, if any of you are fabulously wealthy and would like to buy me any type of amazing gift, I check my email sporadically.)
Maybe this one from Monastery… now that is the kind of stuff I like!!!!!
on the subject of rings: you can go on eBay and search “vintage [silver/gold] initial [x] signet ring” and usually find lots of funky vintage jewelry that feels personal.
The LA Review of Books has membership bundles up right now. This mag is so great and I really like the shirt I have from them!!
PERFUME CORNER. + GIVEAWAY.
Marissa Zappas is not only one of the coolest women in New York (and a previous contributor to this very gift guide) but a generational olfactory talent. She was generous enough to send me her full slate of samples and it’s been a total delight working through them over the past few months. My favourite was The Sun Card — I couldn’t stop smelling my wrist the first time I tried it and have been rationing my sample ever since — but they are genuinely all amazing and it’s so fun to toss a few samples in my bag when I go out or take a trip. The full discovery set is $80 and I think would be such a great gift for a partner/chic friend/fancy secret santa.
A few months ago I was introduced to one of the best-smelling women I have ever met at the SNL afterparty. I asked her what she was wearing and she told me it was DS&Durga’s I Don’t Know What. Then she took the bottle out of her bag and gifted me with an incredibly generous three sprays. The scent lasted on my sweater for days (POSITIVE). I don’t usually blind-buy perfumes but I would blind-buy a travel size of this for almost anyone. It’s the perfume I currently think about buying the most.
I tried Ambilux by Marlou at Scentbar recently and it totally blew me away. Marlou’s whole thing is really intense, erotic, animalic scents; Ambilux smells to me sort of like piss and cum in the best possible way. It’s a perfume that actually made me feel something intense and overwhelming when I smelled it. I’m a big fan of their whole project; it just feels so obsessed with the body and organic life in a way that I find genuinely very moving and even “urgent”. I might gift myself the sample set this year.
Clue Perfumery is one of my favourite houses on the market right now. Everything they make is just so, so cool. Dandelion butter is the perfect spring/summer scent, another one of the few scents I’d honestly recommend as a blind buy!!! I met Heather Gay from RHSLC at a party a few months ago while wearing my sample of With The Candlestick, and she complimented it, which already felt just totally unreal, and then it sparked a conversation about religious shame in which we both cried. Need to upgrade to a full bottle soon.
Serviette is a new brand that I love sooo much. The founder, Trey, is also a writer, and I think the project is really smart and culturally sharp. It’s also just great perfume: I have a full bottle of Byronic Hero and have found myself reaching for it literally almost every single day. It has a diesel exhaust note that’s really addictive.
AND!!!! I was talking to Trey a little while ago and he offered to celebrate the season by giving away a full bottle of choice to one of my paid subscribers!!! If you’d like to enter, subscribe to Serviette’s newsletter and leave a comment on this post that includes the word “perfume” — we’ll pick a winner randomly after a few days and they’ll reach out to you to choose which one you’d like (Canada and USA only). I’ve smelled all four of their scents and they’re all so great, you truly can’t go wrong.
My instagram followers already know that I speak very highly of Fig Leaf by Universal Flowering. Multiple men in my life have asked me what perfume they should get for their girlfriend and I always say this one, which is very generous because i’m giving my swag away for free. I wear this basically every day during the summer and have gone through three bottles. If you don’t want to blind buy, I once again suggest a Universal Flowering sample pack — Courtney’s work is so great, I also love Burst! and Death of a ladies’ man and Seduction theory and i’m very eager to try her new offerings.
WOULD YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW BE INTERESTED IN MY PERSONAL PARTIALLY-USED BOTTLE OF LE LABO LAVANDE 31?? it was so expensive and even though it is very beautiful i just don’t wear it enough because it smells clean and soft and I ultimately like to Stink. I would love to sell it to you for real for like $130 (it was originally $240USD; I’ve used a little more than 1/3 of it). nyc pickup preferred… email me.
I ALSO REALLY LIKE: Dirty rice by borntostandout. Thumbsucker by Stora Skuggan. Olene by Diptyque. En plein air by Jouissance.
Book stuff
I think every book given as a gift should have an inscription on the inside (I don’t always follow my own advice but I’m trying). If it’s not a book in which you feel moved to write an inscription, don’t give it as a gift. Write the date in the corner.
someone you love probably loves The Mountain Goats. you should get them John Darnielle’s new book THIS YEAR, in which he annotates 365 of his songs from across his prolific career.
someone you love probably loves religious symbolism. you should get them HOW TO READ A CHURCH: A guide to images, symbols, and meanings in churches and cathedrals.
someone you love probably loves Taylor Swift but in sort of a COMPLICATED WAY. you should get them Tavi Gevinson’s FAN FICTION, which is the best piece of writing on Taylor Swift that I think currently exists.
here are the books I asked for this year: Prisoner of Love by Jean Genet; the collected Ellen Willis; Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Dan Sinykin and Johanna Winant; The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World by Antony Loewenstein; The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes by Jonathan Rose; The Right to Oblivion by Lowry Pressly; American Pastoral by Philip Roth; Jack the Modernist by Robert Gluck. I’m always hoping someone will get me David Berman’s Actual Air.
Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu would make a great gift for almost anybody.
My friend Emmeline gave me this zine for my birthday this year. I LOVED it. Alissa Bennett is just so cool.
I like this silver pill box.
I wonder how hard it would be to reprint a vintage political poster like the ones from See Red Women’s Workshop or the Wages For Housework poster. You can find some scans here. I would also just LOVE this book of collected posters from See Red Women’s Workshop.
I had a dream about my gift guide a few months ago. This is what happened in the dream: my friend Milo got me gift of three vintage French army deadstock thermals. Then I “woke up” within the dream and realized he didn’t actually get me a gift and was upset. Then, still in the dream, I realized that this would be a good anecdote for my gift guide and wrote this exact thing in my dream-world notes app. Then I woke up for real, realized everything prior had been a dream, and wrote it all down in my notes app for real, which is what you’re reading now. Here’s a vintage French army thermal from 1956. You can also get them at Stella Dallas in Williamsburg, I think.
okay here is what’s behind the paywall: the best Etsy shop ever, the places I’m holiday shopping in New York, the gift i’m personally most excited about, things I would gift if I had infinite money, things I would gift if I had no money, a selection of vintage silver coin purses, the only skincare gifts I care about, and more !!!!
Here are some good online & offline (mostly NYC) stores to poke around in:
this Ebay shop that (among many other things) has a trove of vintage movie posters from a cinema in Arcata.
this Etsy shop that sells original Soviet Realist oil paintings. (Found this thanks to a painting recommended by Eliza Callahan in Kaitlin Phillips’ gift guide)